It was substantially this plan to which Brown now returned, and he sought aid among those men at the East who had backed the Free State cause in Kansas. He was not known to them, as he has been presented to the reader, as the chief actor in the Pottawatomie massacre, but as a bold guerrilla chief, who had lost a son in the Kansas strife. Even so, he was a recognized dissenter from the peace policy which had finally won success for freedom in the Territory. But there were men in the anti-slavery ranks who were impatient of the whole policy of peace, and the impressive personality of Brown won some of these to active support of his project. Among them were Theodore Parker, Gerritt Smith, Dr. S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Franklin B. Sanborn, who formed a secret committee to forward this plan. They were not informed of its details, but knew its general scope. To a considerable number Brown was known as a hero of past fights and not averse to fresh ones. He visited Concord, where he spoke at a public meeting, and made a great impression on Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau. Alcott made a pen-picture of him. "I think him equal to anything he dares,--the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and with the martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was deeply intent in the making of him. He is of imposing appearance personally,--tall, with square shoulders and standing; eyes of deep gray, and couchant, as if ready to spring at the least rustling, dauntless yet kindly; his hair shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose trenchant and Romanesque; set lips, his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep reserves; decided mouth; the countenance and frame charged with power throughout."
Emerson, from his own observation and from hearsay, drew his spiritual portrait: "For himself, Brown is so transparent that all men see him through. He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and integrity are esteemed,--the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no by-ends of his own. Many of us have seen him, and everyone who has heard him speak has been impressed alike by his simple, artless goodness and his sublime courage. He joins that perfect Puritan faith which brought his ancestor to Plymouth Rock, with his grandfather's ardor in the Revolution. He believes in two articles--two instruments, shall I say?--the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence; and he used this expression in a conversation here concerning them: 'Better that a whole generation of men, women, and children should pass away by a violent death, than that one word of either should be violated in this country.'... He grew up a religious and manly person, in severe poverty; a fair specimen of the best stock of New England, having that force of thought and that sense of right which are the warp and woof of greatness.... Thus was formed a romantic character, absolutely without any vulgar trait; living to ideal ends, without any mixture of self-indulgence or compromise, such as lowers the value of benevolent and thoughtful men we know; abstemious, refusing luxuries, not sourly and reproachfully, but simply as unfit for his habit; quiet and gentle as a child, in the house. And as happens usually to men of romantic character, his fortunes were romantic."