Questions About John Brown

[My Name Is Kate]

All I know about John Brown are a few tidbits that I read in the online wikipedia. Here is a John Brown quote that caught my attention:

Brown founded the League of Gileadites with these words, "Nothing so charmes the American people as personal bravery. [Blacks] would have ten times the number [of whites friends than] they now have were they but half as much in earnest to secure their dearest rights as they are to ape the follies and extravagances of their white neighbors, and to indulge in idle show, in ease, and in luxury."

Is there a note of contempt or pity in that quote, or is it just frustration?

The wikipedia (probably not the best source of information) also says that John Brown saw himself as "an instrument of God's wrath" in the fight against slavery. That sounds a bit self-serving, if not actually megalomaniacal.

If it hadn't been for John Brown, might the Civil War possibly have been avoided, or at least delayed, and maybe not as costly?

Did John Brown get what he deserved?

What triggered his obsession with anti-slavery?

[Linda Anderson]

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/

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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

[My Name Is Kate]

Thank you for all the links. Another question that immediately comes to mind after beginning to read some of the info in the links:

Having failed as a businessman throughout his entire life, could his mid-life decision to fight slavery by any and all means, been partly fueled by anger and frustration at a sense that he was a failure, and abolition was something he was determined not to fail at? I'm not implying that he didn't genuinely believe that slavery was evil.

[J. Beckert]

Sure it could.

[Laurie Verge]

I agree -- and just like Booth, he wanted to achieve greatness for something that he fanatically believed in.

[LincolnMan]

Here are some of Lincoln's comments on John Brown:

"Old John Brown has just been executed for treason against a state. We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So, if constitutionally we elect a President, and therefore you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealth with."

From: Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery by Richard Striner

[My Name Is Kate]

From all the facts I have at this point (not all that many, but maybe enough), I agree with Lincoln. On the other hand, in the opinion of most Southerners, it was also Lincoln who was attempting to destroy government as they knew it.

Who was responsible for all the deaths in the Civil War? (a question posed by someone in another thread) How can it be narrowed down to just one person, or even a few people? It wasn't John Brown alone, or Lincoln alone. And Lincoln was not just some old man sitting safely behind a desk while he sent hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths needlessly. He did end up being one of the last casualties in the Civil War, and he suffered greatly for four years, along with so many others.

[LincolnMan]

I think the question you pose have been has troubled individuals since the war began and continues up to this day. There is no easy answer-there may be no definitive answer at all. Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural speech concluded that the war "came" ultimately as a divine judgment. At the same time, he felt very responsible as Commander in Chief for the deaths of soldiers sent into harms way under his Administration.

[Rogerm]

Lincoln has often been blamed for the many deaths caused by the Civil War. It seems to me, however, that some of the blame must also be laid at the feet of Jefferson Davis.

[Rsmyth]

Without going into all the reasons, which include championing the cause of an underdog, I feel John Brown was a hero.

[LincolnMan]

Historically, you are not alone. I'm sure the abolitionists considered him such. It's an interesting ethical question. Brown commited crimes for the cause of a "greater good" kind of thing. Is there a parallel today with the killing done as pertains to abortion clinics, for instance?

[maharba]

Who all, we NOW know of, funded John Brown's attempt to break up the Union in his mayhem? Who were the 'Secret Six' and how many many more were there, and how many more plots against the Union and the Constitution were they hatching, besides the old insane man Brown? I believe Frederick Douglas fled the country to Canada and expected to be arrested for his aid to John Brown. In his Cooper Union speech, Abraham Lincoln appears to tempt fate and in mocking Southerns who still were for the Union --claiming that no 'Black Republicans' could possibly be implicated. Was Abraham Lincoln himself, at some financial level, a supporter of John Brown? Was Seward a financial contributor to John Brown?

[Eva Elisabeth]

I don't see Abraham Lincoln "appears to tempt fate and in mocking Southerns who still were for the Union". To my understanding he didn't approve of John Brown's action and in his Copper Union speech decounces southern attempts to blame the black nor any Republicans for it.

"Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper’s Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.” You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with “our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live...” declare our belief that slavery is wrong;

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As for Seward, his biographer Walter Stage writes: "Seward denounced Brown's invasion of Virginia as treason and pronounced his execution to be 'necessary and just'" (p.183). When he spoke to the Senate on January 12, 1861, he suggested that, after the war, "to deter those like John Brown, Congress should pass a stiff law to 'prevent mutual invasions of states by citizens of other states'" (p.224).

[Wild Bill]

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.

[Rogerm]

It is interesting to note that Samuel Gridley Howe was the husband of Julia Ward Howe, the author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."