Questions About John Brown

[L Verge]

I believe that I have read that Edwin Booth supported the abolitionist views of Dr. and Mrs. Howe in the period right before Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. They were also using their influence to support his acting career in the North.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know if Edwin or the Howes knew the true intent of John Brown. By the way, I'm not sure that Brown's intent was to rip the Union apart. He was more intent on slaughtering slaveholders. Would that be called genocide today?

---

(12-30-2015 07:51 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  Abraham, the answers to your query to the secret six is in wikipedia:
The Secret Six were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Gerrit Smith, and George Luther Stearns. All six had been involved in the abolitionist cause prior to their meeting John Brown, and had gradually become convinced that slavery would not die a peaceful death.

Of these six men, only Smith and Sterns were truly "wealthy"; the others consisted of two Unitarian ministers (Parker and Higginson) a doctor (Howe), at a time when men of medicine were "middle class", and a teacher (Sanborn). Gerrit Smith later bailed Jefferson Davis after the Civil War.

As to Lincoln and Seward, "NO." I believe that Douglass backed out after Brown approached himpersonally and made clear what he wanted to do.

A footnote on Julia's husband, Samuel G. Howe: He could have been wealthier if he had not been such a philanthropist to causes that included abolition. In his favor, he married into money, however. Julia Ward's father was a Wall Street broker and well-to-do banker, and one of her brothers married the granddaughter of John Jacob Astor.

Unfortunately for Julia, her husband took control of her finances upon their marriage (and he was nearly twenty years older than she). This allowed him to be even more philanthropic, and when he died, Julia found that she had virtually no money left.

As soon as John Brown was arrested, Samuel Howe fled to Canada to escape prosecution as a collaborator. By 1863, however, our Secretary of War commissioned him to a panel to investigate the freedmen's conditions in the South as well as in Canada (where many had fled via the Underground Railroad). This investigation was related to the January 1863 issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Interesting that this panel was investigating in territories that did not consider themselves part of the U.S. -- and Canada was definitely outside of their limits...

[maharba]

Very interesting thoughts, Bill, Roger, and L.Verge. I'm not so sure of Lincoln's non-financial-involvement with John Brown. And Frederick Douglas was intimately involved with Brown, even supplying an escaped slave or two to take part in the raid. (Almost like "Lincoln's substitute" taking his official place in the Civil War later?). Lincoln always tried to keep up on affairs and gossip so as to position himself for best gains. His Coopers Union speech is striking in that portion where he taunts the South for disdaining "Black Republicans" and then ridiculing them for not (yet, then) being able to prove the involvement of Black Republicans with John Browns treasonous
raid to shatter the Union. In that speech, as I say, Lincoln was
tempting fate by going on to speculate an hypothetical

"assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods
over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven" --Coopers Union Speech

The Southerners who Lincoln was ridiculing and taunting in his speech, however, were those who yet supported the Union,
and did not want the insane, the 'Black Republicans', and Abolitionists to break it up as John Brown and his supporters.

[Thomas Thorne]

Thanks to Wild Bill for the info about the Secret Six. Gerrit Smith is the answer to one of the great trivia questions of all time: name a financial contributor to John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid who also was one of the people who bailed out Jefferson Davis.

It shows that political alignments are unstable as you can not predict that individuals will continue to agree with their comrades as new situations arise.

I have always been puzzled that the Federal government did not prosecute John Brown for treason and deferred prosecution to the Commonwealth of Virginia. I understand US Supreme Court Justice John Campbell persuaded Pres Buchanan that Brown could not be prosecuted for treason against the United States.

I believe Brown's actions met the constitutional requirements for treason against the US. Having been "elected" by his followers as provisional president of the United States, he led armed men to seize a US arsenal and waged war against Federal forces,killing one US marine.
Tom.

[maharba]

As I have said, Northern politicians were openly flaunting the constitution in regard to escaped slaves, and were constantly speaking of Disunion and that the constitution was no good. If John Brown had been tried for Treason, I think that would have shone back directly on: Lincoln, Seward, Phillips, etc. It might not be provable that they also were funding Brown, but that their actions and statements were provoking Disunion and a breakup of the constitution and the Union. The same 'cherished Union' that Lincoln and company brought on the War to reimpose. If the constitution and the Union had not been any good BEFORE the South seceded, why was it suddenly such a treasured item after? Imagine if Pres James Buchanan had sent troops and some sort of Prosecutor into the North (and Canada) seeking Traitors and Disunionists. That might have been the end of the Republican party.

[Wild Bill]

It was amended?

I have referred readers to Harold M. Hyman's, A More Perfect Union, in several threads before, and I do so again. The Republican/Abolitionists were asking themselves the same question and many thought they should rewrite the Constitution, but Major William Whiting of the AG Dept said the fault was existing proslavery clauses, which if eliminated would solve the problem. Hence we have the 13, 14, and 15 Amends. to "purify" the Constitution of 1789.

Buchanan (nor Lincoln) was not about to transgress the Canadian Border--it would have meant war with Gt. Britain. A Federal charge of treason would not have backfired on any of the men mentioned. If Jefferson could not get Aaron Burr (and supporters like Andrew Jackson) for treason, no one was going to get Lincoln, Seward, Wendell Phillips, Gerritt Smith or anyone else.

This same group also tried to eliminate West Point as too pro-Southern in that a large number of its its graduates led the Rebellion. They failed in that.

[maharba]

Maybe they could have begun with not defining Blacks as only a fraction of human, in the first place. But the North wanted it set in stone that way in the Constitution. And the timing of the Harpers Ferry raid so close to the election and War, prevented the Federal government under Pres Buchanan from aggressively going after all the financial supporters of John Brown to a strong completion. If the good folk in Mass and CT and Penn had seen their Disunion schemes unraveling under a Federal prosecution, maybe then they would have been first to secede?

[maharba]

Was Harriet Tubman also a contributor to John Brown's treason plot? I see differing claims. She may the person soon to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill.

[L Verge]

The best person to respond to questions on Harriet Tubman would be Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, who wrote an excellent book on Ms. Tubman and spearheaded the movement for a National Park in Maryland to formally recognize the deeds of this mistress of the Underground Railroad. Kate is a member of this forum.

I believe that Tubman met with Brown on at least one occasion, and that she generally approved of his main principles, but probably not of his means of achieving those goals. There are references to Brown calling her Genl. Tubman because of her ability to lead people.

I think she did start out to recruit participants for him, but began to distrust him and probably would not have wanted any part of his plan to murder white folks (much like Douglass shied away from Brown). She was also very busy in doing Underground Railroad work, giving talks to abolitionists, etc.

[maharba]

Here is what the online site History.com - Black History says,

Tubman collaborated with John Brown in 1858 in planning his raid on Harpers Ferry. The two met in Canada where she told him all she knew of the Underground Railroad in the East. Advising him on the area in which he planned to operate,
she promised to deliver aid from fugitives in the region.

It appears she was complicit in a murder/Treason plot.
If she is placed on US coinage or bank notes ($10 bill)
to say the least, Tubman would be a polarizing figure.
The same folks in the North violently advocating for
Disunion and the destruction of the Constitution. Are
there folks today violently advocating Disunion?

[KLarson]

Just a quick comment - John Brown's war on slavery and his goal was to arm slaves and create a territory where slaves could live in freedom, govern and defend themselves. He/they needed arms, of course, to accomplish that, and he knew that they would have to battle slaveholders and shed blood in order to achieve freedom. Samuel Howe went to Canada in 1863 to interview freedmen and report on their "condition" - meaning, interview fugitive slaves who had fled the United States to claim freedom in Canada, not native born blacks who had been living there for generations. He recorded their testimony regarding life in slavery, their reasons and methods of escape from slavery, and what their lives were like in Canada. Howe and others wanted to know how formerly enslaved people were faring in a society that allowed them to vote, sit on juries, attend schools, etc., and most importantly, show white people in the US that recently free people were "industrious, intelligent, moral, and accomplished," not the stereotypes propagated by racism in the US.

---

Tubman met John Brown in 1858 in her home in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Abolitionists had long been telling both of them that they had to meet. Both were deeply impressed with each other - Brown admired Tubman's incredible skills to travel back and forth into the slave states undetected; Tubman admired this white man who was willing to die to end slavery. She had never met a white man like that. His war was her war. They communicated for over a year - she helped recruit black men, all former slaves who had fled to Canada, to join Brown's provisional army he planned to take to Virginia. He hoped that she would be at his side when he finally executed his attack at Harper's Ferry. She did not join him, just like Douglass did not, and I suspect that she, like Douglass, realized the assault would be a death sentence. She still had UGRR work to do to rescue more family members, and I sense that her survival instinct protected her and kept her from traveling from New Bedford, MA to Harper's Ferry on that fateful day in October 1859. She recognized immediately that the attack on the Arsenal and Brown's hanging would change the world, and that Brown would become the martyr that would rally abolitionists and others in a way that no dead slave would.

---

And as for Tubman participating in treason, I argue that she, as a slave, had been fighting a war on slavery her whole life, but for the first time she had an opportunity to make a significant contribution to its demise. She had lived with - like millions of slaves before her and contemporary to her - daily assaults and murders of black people that went unpunished for hundreds of years. She chose to fight for freedom and equality, to force the United States to fulfill its promises for all as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. To argue that putting Tubman on the $10 would be divisive ignores the fact that white southerners who defended and expanded slavery had been advocating disunion, and who did indeed fire the first shots of the Civil War to defend slavery. Tubman embodies what we as Americans value so deeply - Freedom, Equality, Justice, Self Determination. I don't see how that can be divisive. Slaveholders on our currency never have and still do not embody those values. Here's to #HarrietontheMoney #TubmanontheTen #TheNewTen

[KLarson]

Actually, Buchanan and others, for all intents and purposes, did send the equivalent of troops into Northern States during the 1850s. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the Compromise of 1850, citizens, the authorities, and judges were required to aid in the recapture of fugitive slaves under the penalty of the law. The fines were substantial and consequences of not aiding in arrests meant jail time, too. Slaveholders and slave catchers were virtually deputized to snatch any black person they pleased off the street of cities and towns across the North. They roamed with impunity. They could claim any black person was a former slave even when that person was not. Kidnappings of free people became more common, and of course, fugitive slaves were at greater risk and some were captured and returned south. While Wendell Phillips was involved with Brown, I doubt Lincoln knew much of anything - remember, he was campaigning. The passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854 further deepened mistrust and anger among northerners regarding southern demands for protections for and expansion of slavery. That anger fueled the Republican Party. The Constitution was and is a very good foundation, but the establishment and protection of slavery during its creation was its deep flaw that unfortunately took a bloody conflict to change.

(01-03-2016 06:06 AM)maharba Wrote:  As I have said, Northern politicians were openly flaunting the constitution in regard to escaped slaves, and were constantly speaking of Disunion and that the constitution was no good. If John Brown had been tried for Treason, I think that would have shone back directly on: Lincoln, Seward, Phillips, etc. It might not be provable that they also were funding Brown, but that their actions and statements were provoking Disunion and a breakup of the constitution and the Union. The same 'cherished Union' that Lincoln and company brought on the War to reimpose. If the constitution and the Union had not been any good BEFORE the South seceded, why was it suddenly such a treasured item after? Imagine if Pres James Buchanan had sent troops and some sort of Prosecutor into the North (and Canada) seeking Traitors and Disunionists. That might have been the end of the Republican party.

---

Defining slaves as 3/5ths of a person for representation was a compromise. NOrthern States with no or few slaves at the writing of the Constitution did not want slaves counted at all, but Southern slaveholders demanded it be inserted. The 3/5ths clause gave the south more representation than it would have with no slaves counted. And slaves could not vote. The raid on Harper's Ferry happened in October 1859 - Brown had hoped to conduct the raid a year earlier. He did not know it would actually spark the Civil War (though he must have been pleased.) He did not coordinate his attack with the election on the horizon more than a year ahead. The time was right. He did it. War came, and the slaves were finally freed.

(01-03-2016 10:13 PM)maharba Wrote:  Maybe they could have begun with not defining Blacks as only a fraction of human, in the first place. But the North wanted it set in stone that way in the Constitution. And the timing of the Harpers Ferry raid so close to the election and War, prevented the Federal government under Pres Buchanan from aggressively going after all the financial supporters of John Brown to a strong completion. If the good folk in Mass and CT and Penn had seen their Disunion schemes unraveling under a Federal prosecution, maybe then they would have been first to secede?

[maharba]

From your defence of Tubman, it validates what the South was claiming. The North was violating the Constitution, provoking Disunion. Some actually burning the Constitution, openly saying the Constitution was no good. How many died at Harpers Ferry alone thanks to the treason plot that Tubman was a conspirator to, how many blacks as well as whites. As I point out in a recent thread, Reverend Martin Luther King never ordered his followers out to commit mayhem, murder. In the case of Tubman and other radicals in the North (of that time), I believe there may be far more to be found out, and who else supported the Treason of the old insane man John Brown. In that time as well as now, for the Union to stay in place, it cannot be only some States (the South) who abide by the Constitution, while others pick and choose which articles are agreeable to them. Tubman would be a divisive choice to use on coinage or bank notes, beyond all doubt. As would be John Brown. Are there folks today I wonder who advocate for violent Disunion, and whose motives seem just as rational to them, as did the hanged murderer John Brown.

[KLarson]

An exceptional biography of Brown not listed is David S. Reynolds's John Brown, Abolitionist. The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War and Seeded Civil Rights.

(02-04-2013 03:27 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Kate, here is a link to "The Abolitionists" on PBS. Scroll down for the article on John Brown including a link to more information about him.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperien...ographies/

---

PBS also has a program devoted to Brown: "John Brown's Holy War."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/index.html

Here is their list of books for further reading:

"The Legend of John Brown: A Biography and a History," by Richard O. Boyer

"His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid," edited by Paul Finkelman

"To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown," by Warren Oates and Stephen B. Oates

"The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired With John Brown," by Edward J. Renehan

"John Brown, 1800-1859, A Biography Fifty Years After," by Oswald Garrison Villard

[Gene C]

(01-22-2016 07:16 AM)maharba Wrote:  How many died at Harpers Ferry alone thanks to the treason plot that Tubman was a conspirator to, how many blacks as well as whites.

I am a bit surprised to you didn't post the answer, but then it might belittle your point.

Lets try a little harder to not distort the facts.

"Although the radical abolitionist assault on the U.S. armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry has gone down in history as John Brown’s Raid, the 59-year-old Brown was accompanied by 21 others — 16 white men, three free blacks, one freed slave and one fugitive slave. Only five escaped the raid and its aftermath."
(from Civil War Trust)
http://www.civilwar.org/hallowed-ground-...iders.html

[My Name Is Kate]

As much as I hate to have to say anything good about a murderer (John Brown), after reading Kate Larson's posts above, I'm beginning to think he had the right idea about how to end slavery in America, i.e., arm the slaves and provide them with whatever necessities they needed to try to make their own bid for freedom. It's too bad he encouraged the murder of slaveholders instead of resorting to killing as a last resort. If any killing had to be done, it should have been done by the slaves attempting an escape, and not by John Brown. After all, people do have the right to defend themselves and their families, and (as the Constitution proclaims) all people are (or should be) born free. But Brown's zeal for killing suggests that his anti-slavery sentiments were tainted with some other motive. Two wrongs do not make a right.

What was the comment Lincoln made after John Brown was hanged (edit: the actual comment was posted earlier in this same thread)? Wasn't it something to the effect that Brown had it coming because he was committing treason and not abiding by the Constitution? Was Lincoln abiding by the Constitution when he freed all the slaves? The Constitution recognized slavery as a legal institution, so that makes freeing the slaves and the 13th Amendment unconstitutional. If Lincoln's primary goal was to keep the Union together, and he saw slavery as the number one issue dividing the country, why didn't he join John Brown instead of running for president? How could a president's anti-slavery stance possibly do anything but further divide the country, when nearly half the states were not free states and had little, if any, desire to be free states? A president takes an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, so any president's hands were tied on the slavery issue. It had to be up to the slaves themselves (with the help of sympathetic free people from all over the country, including the south, if possible) if there was to be any possibility of slavery ending without a civil war.

Lincoln's second inaugural speech, with all its references to God and his just retribution visited on the country for the sin of slavery, indicate that Lincoln's thinking was in line with John Brown's. So the question remains: Why didn't Lincoln join John Brown's war on slavery instead of becoming president and instigating the Civil War with his stance against the expansion of slavery into the territories, which he had to know would not sit well with the slave-holding states, and very likely would result in a civil war? Was Lincoln's war on slavery actually more a war on the South than on slavery?