Was John Brown a hero?

[ButterflyBlood]

I've seen some heated debates on other forums about this before.

I say definately. A lot don't like him because his tactics were pretty gruesome and ugly. But he was fighting against a gruesome and ugly institution. At a time when no one else cared about the slaves, at least he had the courage to do something, over an issue that didn't even affect him himself anyway. He spent his life fighting for others, and was a true hero for sure.

[Walt Starr]

1. No, he was a TERRORIST.

HArriet Tubman was a heroine. Frederick Douglas was a hero.

Brown was a two bit terrorist and nothing more.

[Finder]

4. Not a terrorist...

Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory. There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year.



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html

[Walt Starr]

5. What you quoted shows acts of terrorism

"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

Brown engaged in terrorism, thus he was a terrorist. I don't care that I agree with his views, he was still a terrorist every bit as much as McVey and Kazinski were terrorists.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

119. How is that not terrorism?

Hacking innocent people to death = terrorism. I don't care how noble your cause might be.

[ISUGRADIA]

6. Funny...Douglass seemed to differ with you:

Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you."
letter to Hariett Tubman

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html

Edited for clarity

[Walt Starr]

7. Douglass never committed an act of violence

and when he said that, John Brown had become a martyr of the abolitionist movement.

He was a terrorist, plain and simple. As Bush will agree with, even terrorists have their uses.

[ISUGRADIA]

12. But Douglass was not a pacifist either

it comes down to the idea that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

[Walt Starr]

16. Which is why the Civil War was a necessary action

but Brown was still a terrorist by definition. I do not believe any terrorist can ever be a hero regardless of their positions on issues of morality.

[Finder]

14. The pro-slavery group were terrorists...

they were burning buildings, killing innocent settlers. Brown was fighting them. He was a soldier fighting to stop terrorism and free the slaves.

[Walt Starr]

18. Harper's Ferry

BLATANT TERROISM.

Terrorists fighting terrorists is still terrorism.

[ISUGRADIA]

23. "BLATANT TERROISM" that was the opinion of the Southern

slaveholders of the time. But what pray tell should have Brown and others done? Write President Buchanan? Sent letters to their Conressmen?

[Walt Starr]

25. Harper's Ferry was an act of terrorism by anybody's definition

IT was the Federal Government which tried and executed Brown, not the State of Virginia.

[ISUGRADIA]

29. It was not the feds but Virginia who tried him

and for "treason" against the state of Virginia.
http://www.crf-usa.org/brown50th/john_brown.htm

[Walt Starr]

30. I stand corrected. n/t

[Walt Starr]

94. Look up "terrorism" in the dictionary

The attack on Harper's Ferry was terrorism by definition.

[GarySeven]

52. So that makes Martin Luther King a pussy

By your reckoning, King should have lynched Southern whites and set them on fire. Gandhi should have stolen British tanks and slaughtered the viceroy.

What a moran.

[ISUGRADIA]

56. Yeah, and slaves should have non-violently laid down their

tools and refused to work. Brilliant. There's a MLK philosophy and then there's Malcom X. There's a right time for everything.

[Walt Starr]

109. I dopn't deny that the pro-salvery Missouri Ruffians were terrorists

There was a lot of terrorism by both sides in Bloody Kansas.

[H2O Man]

83. John Brown was many things,

but never "plain and simple." He was a complex figure, and that is why Frederick Douglass not only said nice things about him, but was a close associate who supported Brown's efforts.

Douglass' August 4, 1857 quote is pretty clear: "Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are like men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

"They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.

"This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand.

"It never did, and it never will.

"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong that will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom them oppress."

[Finder]

123. Good post.

I like the final quote.

[GarySeven]

50. I hate to say this, but by this statement ...

Frederick Douglass was being the Randall Terry of his day. Unlike Terry, however, this lunatic statement of Douglass' was out of character.

[H2O Man]

87. Douglas was good friends with Brown.

Hence, it was fully in character. To say that that Douglas was not a supporter of Brown suggests an unfamiliarity with either.

[fishwax]

104. Advocating for fetuses is equal to advocating for slaves

Bullshit.

Was it wrong for slaves or their advocates to agitate for freedom?

[hfojvt]

8. according to Loewen

"No black person who met John Brown thought him crazy. Many black leaders of the day - Martin Delaney, Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and others - knew and respected Brown. Only illness kept Tubman from joining him at Harper's Ferry. The day of his execution black-owned businesses closed in mourning across the north. Frederick Douglass called Brown 'one of the greatest heroes known to American fame.' A black college deliberately chose to locate at Harpers Ferry, and in 1918 its alumni dedicated a memorial stone to Brown and his me 'to commemorate their heroism.' The stone stated, in part, 'That this nation might have a new birth of freedom, that slavery should be removed forever from American soil, John Brown and his 21 men gave their lives.'
Quite possibly textbooks should not portray this murderer as a hero, although other murders from Christopher Columbus to Nat Turner, get the heroic treatment." Lies my teacher told me by James W. Loewen 1995 p. 177

If Tubman and Douglass are heroes, then John Brown was a hero's hero.

[Walt Starr]

11. Tubman and Douglass never committed acts of terrorism

Brown did. Brown was a two bit tin horn terrorist, which made him a useful idiot.

[Protagoras]

I believe the British said the same about the minutemen

who were shooting at them from the trees.

I am sure we've got too much "history" in the way to really know what John Brown's actions and motives really were at this point. But I suspect that the label terrorist has to be used very differently today from how it was used then. And applying today's standards to those actions may not be as easy as all that.

And I didn't vote in the poll, because I just don't know.

[northzax]

103. the minutemen were sponsored by

and acted on the authority of, a government. the government had met, negotiated with the British, levied taxes and fees, basically performed all the functions of a government. Therefore, the minutemen could have committed war crimes but not terrorism since terrorists are non-state actors, by very definition.

[Selatius]

114. What about state sponsors of terrorism?

If we were to use that term, then the Continental Congress was a terrorist-supporting body.

[northzax]

124. only through the idea of 'letters of marque'

which allowed private citizens to committ acts of violence without direction from the government. That is certainly sponsored terrorism. But beyond that, the minutemen were fighting under a flag, were an approved militia involved in a military conflict. That's war, not terrorism.

Modern comparison. The US army drops a bomb on a school in Iraq, killing 200 children. War crime.
"insurgents" set off a truck bomb in front of the school, killing 200 children: terrorism.

[hfojvt]

24. Tubman would have joined him, and Douglass applauded

a "useful idiot"? If he had not acted, his name would be known to only a few. Now he is known as a hero to some and there are museums and monuments to him. Certainly he is more deserving of them than, say Jesse James or Quantrill or Sherman. Did he commit more acts of terrorism than Custer?

[Dorian Gray]

99. Do you also think

that Nelson Mandella is a terrorist?

I'm not asking this to be judgemental. I've heard people argue both that he was and he wasn't. This is a subject about just causes. At what point is a cause just?

I've always thought of John Brown as a hero. But, that doesn't mean that he didn't employ some questionable tactics. It's an interesting discourse.

[northzax]

102. Yes, actually

Nelson Mandela was not opposed to the use of violence by the ANC, a group on everyone's terrorist watch list.

Terrorism can be useful, certainly, but the definition I choose to use is that terrorism is the use of violence, by a non-state actor, intended to intimidate a populace into political change. that's exactly what John Brown was doing, justified or no.

[Walt Starr]

107. I really do not believe Nelson Mandela committed any acts of violence

Read the man's statements, he advocated peaceful means for change.

[Dorian Gray]

121. Nelson Mandela

may personally not have, but his wife and the ANC did participate in acts of violence. (Winnie is an interesting figure, actually, and I'm completely fascinated by her. Almost a modern day Lady Macbeth.)

I think he's a hero, though it's been argued that he and/or his followers employed questionable tactics.

I personally believe that there are certain causes where those tactics may be justified. But that is a line that is difficult to draw, and this is a topic that is difficult to discuss without flaring of emotions.

I in no way meant to be judgemental. I'm thinking of this in a purely analytical way. I'm not passing judgement. :)

[Walt Starr]

128. I consider Mandela a hero in the same vein as

King and Ghandi. all espoused non-violent resistance, even when violence is perpetrated upon those resisting non-violently.

[Tomee450]

106. John Brown was a hero.

I suppose you think members of the ANC and other groups were terrorists too when, after years of trying to end apartheid in South Africa, they resorted to violence as a means to achieve that end. The terrorists were the slave hunters who pursued runaway slaves. The terrorists were the slave owners who destroyed black families, who killed or maimed slaves who tried to escape bondage. John Brown gave his life in an attempt to end slavery. He was a great man.

[JanMichael]

34. What's so bad about him being a "Terrorist"?

Isn't that the real question here?

Weren't the French Resistence "Terrorists" to the Nazis?

I bet the British saw Americans as "Terrorists" as well back a couple of hundred years ago.

Sometimes those without the Power resort to what those with the Power call "Terrorism". Admittedly there are different shades of "Terrorism" but it's used rather poorly I believe.

This is a problematic term imho...

[ISUGRADIA]

36. You have made the key point here

it's the cause that makes the difference. A terrorist to one is a freedom fighter to another.

[Hobarticus]

89. Most excellent!!!

This is the EXACT point I make: whoever calls something "terrorism" is usually on the receiving end of another man's "rebellion".

[Walt Starr]

110. I honestly do not believe out and out terrorists that commit murder

on innocent people can be considered "heroes" is all.

:shrug:

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

37. tubman nearly joined brown at harpers ferry

but because of poor health didn't make it

[T Town Jake]

39. I'd ask for a link...

...but since I know what you've stated is nonsense, I won't bother.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

40. here's a quick one:

plenty more out there if you do a search for their names-this was the first article that came up

it's a commonly known fact. you can find more if you do your own work, smart-ass.

"In 1859, the raid at Harpers Ferry was taken much more seriously, both by abolitionists and by the defenders of slavery. Several prominent abolitionists aided Brown with money and weapons in his preparations for Harpers Ferry and in his earlier fight in "bleeding Kansas." Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were asked to join the raiders, and Harriet Tubman agreed to participate but was ill at the time of the raid. And, although the immediate reaction to the raid was shock on the part of the less militant abolitionists, many openly applauded the action and honored the raiders before the year was out. The raid at Harpers Ferry was influential in persuading Northern abolitionists that moral suasion would not be sufficient to end the slave system and that more direct action was necessary."
http://www.wvculture.org/history/jb11.html

[T Town Jake]

47. That "proof," as "proof," isn't much...

...the "cite" in footnote #102 is a mighty thin reed to hang one's hat on in such matters, as anyone who's spent a second in an University classroom would well know.

Weak stuff, but, of course, you know that; otherwise you wouldn't have immediately fallen back on the lame "plenty more out there" excuse for why you couldn't quite dredge up something a bit more substantial in the way of "proof."

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

55. no, there are plenty more

this took less than 5 minutes-see a pattern developing?

read just about anything by howard zinn or the excellent 'lies my teacher taught me" for more:

"Brown would have been joined by Harriet Tubman, but she supposedly fell sick and could not come. "
---http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/3992/Lesson2/index2.html#8

"And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."
---http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html

"Harriet approved of and provided support for Brown's plan to seize the government arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. However, due to circumstances beyond Harriet's control, she was unable to recruit others to join Brown, nor was she able herself to join. Upon Brown's defeat and hanging, Harriet was deeply saddened. She regarded Brown as the "Savior of her people."
---http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1002.html

"For that reason she helped Brown to develop a plan for his raid on Harper’s Ferry, the Federal arsenal in Virginia.

She suggested the Fourth of July for the assault to ensure the ultimate surprise and a quick takeover. Moreover, she planned to recruit many of the “passengers” she had helped to escape slavery in America to freedom in Canada.

It’s quite possible that Brown’s assault failed because of Harriet’s lack of input in the insurrection during the actual implementation.

At the time of the first date for the attack (July 4th), she was very ill in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her absence forced Brown to delay his plans, for he greatly admired her skill in planning the raid. He also admired her ability to recruit “soldiers” for the initial battle of what was hoped to be the war to end slavery.

No longer able to wait for Tubman, Brown’s group of about 50 raided Harper’s Ferry on October 16, 1859. His band was able to hold off Federal and local troops and militia for a few days before the authorities regained control of it."
--http://www.ronntaylor.com/bulbs/000582.html

[T Town Jake]

65. The "pattern" is clear...

..."supposedly"..."conferred with"..."It's quite possible"...

Yep: the "pattern" is quite clear, such as it is: your claim is, was, and remains nonsense, without a shred of legitimate proof to back it up.

But thanks for playing.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

69. those words don't make your case

"supposedly" refers to whether or not it was illness-not whether or not she was part of theplan

'it's quite possible' refers to whether the raid was moved up becasue tubman didnt make it-which isnt in dispute

and "conferred with" isn't exactly ambiguous

again, plenty of info on this out there-read zinn or bell hooks

or mqaybe you prefer the 'safe' version of american history where washington never told a lie, jefferson didn't own slaves, and warren ahrding didn't get inducted into the KKK in a whitehouse ceremony

[T Town Jake]

75. I Win!...

...with the emergence of the raw, unadulterated logical fallacy of putting words in another's mouth, you default the argument.

BTW: I wouldn't read Zinn for serious historical analysis. But let me know if he publishes a novel; I dig fiction, and he's good at it.

[DrunkenMaster]

97. you doth protest too much, methinks

Your refusal to admit the point after repeated cited sources and your ad hominem dismissal of Howard Zinn (got references?)speaks volumes.

[Walt Starr]

101. The poster he answereed was the first to protest too much

Sorry, the language wass vague in the sources cited.

[ISUGRADIA]

57. Uh...there's plenty of sources for this...if you'd even care to look

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

62. or more interstingly, i'd like to see him

prove that i'm wrong

if he'll please show me a modest bit of credible evidence indicating tubman was adamantly opposed to brown's raid, i'll shut up

americanhistory likes its blacks whitewashed. tubman has been scrubbed of all radical views-as has MLK

though it also extends beyond race-most people don't know helen keller was a rabid socialist and backer of the IWW

[ISUGRADIA]

64. you are so right, I am sad to say

woodrow wilson and the first "red scare" , his racist views from being a Virginian...the socialist movement for change in this country under Eugene V Debs and others...we get the "official" history viewpoint meaning most things are never mentioned regarding the radical history of this country.

[Tomee450]

111. Right!!

[JohnLocke]

68. Encarta

"Tubman also served as an inspiration to both white and black abolitionists. She worked closely with black antislavery activist William Still in Philadelphia and with Underground Railroad conductor Thomas Garrett, a Quaker who lived in Wilmington, Delaware. Abolitionist John Brown gave her the title "General Tubman." She consulted with Brown on his plan to start an armed rebellion against slavery in the South, but illness prevented her from joining him at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in his ill-fated 1859 raid."

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567329/Harriet_Tubman.html#p4

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

59. Are you joking?

Brown was no terrorist. The fact is, he really was a freedom fighter. There is a difference, BTW.

[Walt Starr]

108. Brown was a terrorist by definition

Sorry, but that's the fact of the matter.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

96. Why am I not surprised?

[Walt Starr]

112. When I look for heroes from those times

I look at those who, even though they saw the horrible evil that was slavery, chose peaceful means to institute change.

As an example from more modern times, Dr. Martin Luther King could have been radically violent (under the same doctrine of justification used by John Brown, Guy Fawkes, and Eric Rudolph) to institute the change he sought and could have quite possibly achieved those aims far faster than they were ultimately achieved (even though a huge amount of reform remains undone). He chose the path of peace, and for that he will be remembered as the true hero he was by history.

History is generally not so kind to those who, although motivated by the right thing, choose the path of violence to institute the changes.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

115. Slavery would have ended peacefully? If John Brown lived in Nazi

germany, WWII would have ended faster.

[Walt Starr]

117. Look at what Harper's Ferry sparked

The radicals in the South demanded secession.

The radicals in the North demanded blood and fire.

The common man from both regions, the vast majority of which never owned a slave nor profited from it, fought, bled, and died by the tens of thousands to appease the radicals of both sides.

Yes, slavery could have been ended peacefully without the blood and fire. The radicals on both sides would not give and demanded the blood and fire. John Brown was a radical and got what he wanted, death and destruction.

There is nothing, NOTHING, heroic in that man's actions. Where there is violence, only more violence can ensue. The violent nature of the overturnning of slavery guaranteed the violence done on the freed slaves after the violent actions of the civil War.

Had there been no Civil War, you would not have had another terrorist organization formed on the basis of being "ghosts of Confederate soldiers".

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

118. So a black man is to blame for the civil war?

Walt, you never cease to amaze me.

[Walt Starr]

127. Where the fuck did I ever say that?

Quote me, damn it, or withdraw your personal attack on my integrity!

[The Magistrate]

129. For The Record, Mr. Starr

There is no reason whatever to suppose slavery would have necessarily extinguished itself peaceably absent the developments of the Civil War.

Slavery in the South was doing an excellent job of making the transition from an agricultural to an industrial system. It was not at all uncommon for slaves to be hired out, with the wage paid to the owner. Mr. Douglass worked in such wise in a ship-yard, for example. There is no reason whatever to suppose this could not have been applied wholesale to mills and founderies and the like. Nor was it uncommon for slaves to work in skilled trades. Blacksmiths, even harbor pilots, were in numerous instances at the South chattel owned by someone else.

No end to the system could have come peaceably without the expenditure of tremendous sums of money, and for that, you may be sure no political will would ever have been summuned in the nineteenth century United States. The property interest of the slave-owner would have had to be bought out, and at going rates at the start of the Civil War, this would have required a minimum of four billions of dollars in gold, and could only have been achieved by a national bond schemee that would ahve put the whole country's economic future for decades in hock to the slave-owners at the South. The minimal price exacted for Northern and Western support would have been the expatriation of all Negoes to the Liberia colony, or elsewhere on the old Slave Coast.

[Walt Starr]

130. I disagree, and when you come down to it I must admit that

any speculations about what would have happened had the events not fallen the way they did are just that, speculations.

Generally, these sorts of areas of specualation have been relegated to Harry Turtledove novels.

[The Magistrate]

132. You Are Free To Disagree, Sir, Of Course

But my occassional speculations are generally well-rooted in knowledge of the period in question. The elements mentioned above can all be found in actual developments, including the proposals for buy-out by bond and expatriation....

[Tomee450]

113. No surprise to me, either

[Jon_da_brockman]

2. No, a true hero

would not stoop to murder to accomplish goals, as noble as the goals are.

[Walt Starr]

3. Bingo, resorting to vilence made him a terrorist

under anybody's definition of the term. The ends do not justify the means.

[hfojvt]

15. slavery was created and perpetuated through violence

So, to be mathematical, using -3 of violence (armed rebellion) to end a -10 of violence (slavery) leaves a net positive. The government stopped him with violence of its own and then murdered him. Did their ends justify their means? What about Spartacus? Brown was acting to help others, not to help himself. What about General Sherman? Was he a terrorist or a hero?
What about all the soldiers of the North, using violence to preserve the Union? Are they villains, or is state sponsored violence somehow justified? Or is it okay to be violent if you are following orders?
What about people who ask alot of questions? Do they have a point, or are they just kicking dust in the air so nobody else can see any better than they do?

[Walt Starr]

17. Nope, Brown was a terrorist by definition

and you cannot use mathematics to try and jutify acts of terrorism.

[hfojvt]

28. everything is simple if you can just put a label on it

for me, slavery was terrorism, or some other kind of worse abomination, and Brown risked and gave his life to try to end it, perhaps even with some success. Slavery was simply the greater evil, and those who fought it heroes, no matter what their tactics, which for Brown, were no different from ordinary war, except that he declared it without official approval.

[Tomee450]

116. What are you talking about?

Heroes murder all the time to accomplish their goals if there is no other way out. Dwight D. Eisenhower is considered a hero yet it was he who gave the order to murder Patrice Lumumba to prevent him from leading a socialist state. I believe the Israelis consider Manachem Begin(sp) a hero because of what he did for the state of Israel. He and others certainly resorted to violence.

[Bluerthanblue]

9. in this case 2 wrongs do make you 'right' but not 'good'...

doing something very wrong to show how wrong others are is only giving birth to alot of wrongs....-

bad done out of frustration (and that IS what motivated him) doesn't bring good- our 'wars' on terra ain't gonna reap anything but more bad, for us, and for the entire world-

"don't just do something, stand there" sometimes is WISDOM- better to scream, shout, and put yourself in deaths way, than to kill as an answer- (imo, belief, and experience)

[applegrove]

10. I'd be curious to know how many African Americans (slaves or not)

were murdered in the years after John Brown was stopped. I think the number would be incredibly high. Higher than the numbers of Iraqi dead.

You loose any moral high ground when you murder & imprison people for no reason.

John Brown is not the greatest hero to come out of the anti-slavery movement. Slavery is a massive war crime itself.

[Walt Starr]

13. How about this, how many slaves were murdered as a direct result

of Brown's actions? HE terrified the Southern slave holders, many of which got extremely brutal and murderous as a direct result of his actions.

[ISUGRADIA]

19. What about those resistance fighters in Europe during WWII

a lot civilians were killed by the Nazis in reprisals. SO are the resistance fighters the bad guys too?

Brown has a hallowed place in the black nationalist movement for his willingness to die for the black people of this country.

[Walt Starr]

21. Definitely food for thought

I'll have to reconsider. The partisans were definitely terrorists, but they fought a greater evil and the more recent actions makes the reality hit home with me.

I'll have to think about this one.

[ISUGRADIA]

26. Please do...I'm trying to approach this in a reasoning way

and not let my passions get the most of me. Nazism was a horrible philosophy. Southern slavery was different but an extreme evil in its own way. Children sold away from mothers. Millions dead on the passage from Africa. Blacks got the branding iron.

I can't excuse Brown's murders in Kansas but I can understand them.

[Walt Starr]

38. History is written by the victors

The terrorists who fought against the Nazi occupiers were on the winning side. Thus they became heroes when the Allies defeated the Axis.

The terrorists who fought against English domination of the North American continent in the late 18th century won, and thus were patriots and heroes when the history was written.

The anti-slavery forces won the war, yet Brown is still painted as a villian by history.

If you're going to be a reactionary, to be successful, you've got to be representing a lot of people who have a political voice and be willing to put it all on the line. Brown was willing to put it all on the line, but he wasn't representing that many people with a political voice. When you come down to it, John Brown was all about John Brown. Though his stances had major support throughout the North, his methods did not, and thus he remains a villian in the eyes of history.

Guy Fawkes suffers a similar fate in the eyes of history. Though his motivations were noble (i.e. equal rights for Catholics in England), his methods were radically reactionary. Thus he is a villian in the eyes of history because you simply don't attempt to blow up Parliment, just as you don't try to take over the armoury in Harper's Ferry so you can arm the slaves and kill all slave owners.

Had Brown chosen to be more patient, he could have easily won a commission and been a great commander of a large company of men in the Civil War and possibly be the hero he desired to be remembered as, Unfortunately patience, like moderation, was not within Brown's character.

[Finder]

41. He worked years prior to Harper's Ferry...

on the Underground Railroad. As another poster pointed out, Harriet Tubman approved and had collaborated with Brown about HF and was disappointed it failed.

[Walt Starr]

92. That does not alter the fact. Harper's Ferry was an act of terrorism

by definition.

[ISUGRADIA]

42. Some reaction to your post

"The anti-slavery forces won the war, yet Brown is still painted as a villian by history."

Ah...they won the war but lost the peace. When the radical Republicans lost power and the compromise of 1876 occured, the villification of black people and fighters such as John Brown occured. WEB DuBois and early leaders of the NAACP did not consider brown a villian. Southern racists did. Including Dems like Woodrow Wilson, sad to say.

"The anti-slavery forces won the war, yet Brown is still painted as a villian by history."

For years he was painted as a madman by Southerners and was pushed to be portrayed that way in the schools. I'd say now there is a balanced view of his good and bad. Most African American historians consider him an early champion of African American rights. Brown treated black people as his equals, something that 95% of whites at the time did not I'd venture.

"Had Brown chosen to be more patient, he could have easily won a commission and been a great commander of a large company of men in the Civil War and possibly be the hero he desired to be remembered as, Unfortunately patience, like moderation, was not within Brown's character."

His martydom helped bring the inevitable war to happen sooner. The Democratic party split in 1860 assuring Lincoln's election may have never occured without Brown's raid. There may have been a President Stephen Douglas and more compromise. Slavery could have went on for a few more decades possibly.

[T Town Jake]

63. Wrong, in nearly every particular...

...but where to start?

Brown's "raid" (such as it was) disgusted the vast majority of Americans, North and South, and led to the exact opposite of what you describe. As a result of the Abolitionism = terrorism sentiment current in the Land circa 1860, largely thanks to John Brown and his "raid," Lincoln went out of his way to try and accommodate the "fire-eaters" of the South in order to preserve the Union. His first inaugural address largely amounted to an appeal directed straight at them, begging for accommodation.

Second: The Democratic Party "split" in 1860 over economic issues that had been simmering since at least 1835, and Brown's "raid" played the part of lame catalyst to those events, at best.

Third: Frederick Nietzsche wasn't much of an philosopher.

[Finder]

70. I smell revisionism...

Nietzsche is one of my fav philosophers.

[ISUGRADIA]

72. In Reply

1) Brown's was seen as a martyr by many in the North and helped polarize the regional divisions and made civil war more likely as he intended. This was not a majority view but held by many. Lincoln was a moderate went he entered office and tried to avoid secession. The GOP leadership was abolitionist and saw Brown as a Hero but wanted to appeal to the swing voters...just as parties still do today.

2) Southern delegates walked out of the 1860 convo because of Douglas' plank that they saw as anti-slavery. I suppose that is "an economic issue" as slaves were a major economic asset.

Nietzsche is not high on my list of philosophers but this quote is applicable to the times we live in.

[Walt Starr]

81. Just a quick comment about your statement

"His martydom helped bring the inevitable war to happen sooner. The Democratic party split in 1860 assuring Lincoln's election may have never occured without Brown's raid. There may have been a President Stephen Douglas and more compromise. Slavery could have went on for a few more decades possibly."

I agree with this completely. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your view), this would have probably still meant secession would have occurred at a later date, but the North would not have attempted to stop it and we would have been left with a United States of America and a Confederate States of America. Both nations would have had great rivalries and there would have been outbreaks of violence along the border, but eventually the industrialism of the North would have made it the stronger of the two nations.

But that's a discussion best left for the Sci-Fi group relating to the fiction works of Harry turtledove.

:evilgrin:

[knight_of_the_star]

53. Something to consider

Some of the men John Brown killed were only guilty of the crime of supporting something he hated, like his infamous raid in Kansas. Most of the targets of the resistance were Nazi soldiers as well as mechanisms of the occupation governments (which clearly aided and abbetted the Nazis) and other legitimate military targets like rail depots, ammo dumps and the like. The fighting that happened in Kansas during the 1850s was not a fight of an oppressed people invaded by a foreign power, but more akin to the bloodshed that has gone on for YEARS in Northern Ireland.

[Finder]

71. Kansas was a retaliation

The pro-slavery forces attacked Lawrence first.

[Finder]

20. Can you cite something that states that?

Seems soon after we engaged in full blown civil war. Do you feel Lincoln was a terrorist too?

Brown was fighting the brutality.

[Walt Starr]

27. More than a year before the war of words, 18 months before the war

October 16, 1859 was the attack on Harper's Ferry.

South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860

Sumter was fired upon on April 12, 1861.

[applegrove]

32. Would be the same as any movement for freedom. Why even

colonial subjects got to live free lives. And look at how many of them went to wars which were considered justified.

People have no standing if they hold slaves. It wasn't just all the murders that went unpunished - it was rape and separating families and the brutality (how many sadists gravitated towards slave-holding at the time?). We think of the poor people who ended up with PTSD because of crimes committed against them in their lives.. how many African Americans had PTSD?

The amount of crime going on was massive.

The heroes to me were the ones who despite what they faced - ran away and talked about their lives.. or if they didn't run away - they tried to prepare their children for the lives they would have to lead - and lived and loved anyway.

[Tomee450]

120. The slave owners were already brutal.

They just got worse. Nothing could be more brutal than raping women and selling off family members. It's absurd that you should suggest that Brown was a terrorist. By your logic, a violent slave uprising would have been a terrorist action. The power rested with the government and the slave owners. The slave owners weren't about to end slavery peacefully as shown by the Civil War. I guess you think the slaves should have just remained in bondage if they could not achieve freedom peacefully.

[GarySeven]

22. If he was, then expect Eric Rudolph

to soon be freed by the Justice Department. That's what he himself expects, along with statues and schools named in his honor.

[Finder]

33. Who was he fighting at the Olympics?

Brown's men did not kill women or children.

[GarySeven]

48. WHAT??

Ask the families of the people he MURDERED in Pottawattamie County Kansas and in Missouri if Brown was a saint.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/timeline/

Eric Rudolph thought murder was fine in the cause of anti-abortion; John Brown was his direct ancestor.

[ISUGRADIA]

54. I'm not even going to try and compare black slaves in bondage

to embryos. It was blood Kansas for a reason. Crimes on both sides. But Brown was fighting to liberate the black race, a cause that 90% of Northern whites probably did not give a damn about.

[Finder]

The families he SPARED

His attack was not a random slaughter and as earlier stated, it was in retalliation for an attack on Lawrence.

On the night of May 24, 1856, John Brown and his company of Free State volunteers murdered five men settled along the Pottawatomie Creek in southeastern Kansas. The victims were prominently associated with the pro-slavery Law and Order Party, but were not themselves slave owners. This assault occurred three days after Border Ruffians from Missouri burned and pillaged the anti-slavery haven of Lawrence, and two days after Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was severely beaten by Senator Preston Brooks of South Carolina. The action on the 24th occurred at three different houses:

At the Doyle farm, James and two of his sons, William and Drury, were dragged outside and hacked up with short, heavy sabres donated to Brown in Akron, Ohio. Mrs. Doyle, a daughter, and fourteen year old John were spared. The gang then moved on to Allen Wilkinson's place. He was 'taken prisoner' amid the cries of a sick wife and two children. Two saddles and a rifle were apparently confiscated. The third house visited that night was owned by James Harris. In addition to his wife and young child, Harris had three other men sleeping there. Only one of them, William Sherman, was executed. Weapons, a saddle, and a horse were confiscated from the house. While members of the rifle company, including four of Brown's sons, asserted that their Captain did not commit any of the actual murders himself, he was the undisputed leader and made the decisions as to who should be spared.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Kansas/jbrown.html

[DivinBreuvage]

98. The "ask the families" rhetorical trick is a silly argument

similar to the all the other soundbite nonsense that passes for informed debate in modern America. "How would you feel if it were your wife being raped? What will we tell the CHILDREN?"

[IndianaGreen]

31. He should have burned down every slave plantation in the South!

Slavery was terrorism! Opposing the terrorism of slavery was a virtue!

[GarySeven]

80. So, your little tag, "out of Iraq NOW" is a lie, then?

If you truly believe what you just said about John Brown, you obviously think the wholesale slaughter of American troops and Iraqi civilians is just fine because it got rid of the tyrant Saddam.

[ISUGRADIA]

35. Slavery was the great original sin of this country

and if one looks at the politics of the 1850s (especially) the radicals were on the side of the angels so to speak.

"The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."
- John Brown, 2 December 1859

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether".
- Second Inagural Abraham Lincoln

[T Town Jake]

43. His cause was just...

...but his "tactics" were despicable, and ultimately lead to more harm than good.

It's an odd species of any kind of human being who would even stoop to justifying such as the Pottawatomie Massacre (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Kansas/jbrown.html), which was simply nothing more than cold-blooded murder times five, and of innocent men in front of their families.

A "true hero" he was not, for sure.

[ISUGRADIA]

44. More harm than good...in what way?

[DerekG]

45. Captain Brown was our Gideon

He and his twenty two compatriots were elemental in destroying one of the great evils of modern history. He doesn't need our approval: the respect of black icons like Douglass and Tubman, transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emmerson, and Christian liberals like Parker and (begrudgingly) Garrison, is quite enough.

I am curious to hear whether those who answered "No" would also denigrate another militant Christian of conscience--Dietrich Bonhoeffer--who was murdered by the Nazis for his part in the '44 attempt on Hitler's life. What do you of the tactics employed by the Warsaw Jews, or the French Resistance, for that matter?

[knight_of_the_star]

49. Big difference there

The Maquis and the partisan resisters in occupied Europe were fighting against an enemy who had invaded in time of war. They were fighting the soldiers of the Third Reich and doing what damage they could to their infratructure (most of which the Germans had hijacked unlawfully anyway for use of their war machine), that is VERY different than killing people because they are assumed to be pro-slavery as well as taking part in retribution killings. Any thief or murderer or madman can go to church and be good friends with the pastor, that doesn't change who he is or who the pastor is.

[DerekG]

67. Brown's victims in Kansas and Missouri were all pro-slavery

In two of three battlefields, there were no assumptions to be had. Just facts.

The Kansas victims--James/William/Drury Doyle, Allen Wilkinson, and William Sherman--were virulent racists who issued death threats against the abolitionists. They were soldiers, all, in the free state/slave state conflagration.

In Missouri, the only man to die was one David Cruise, a wealthy settler who pulled a gun on Brown's comrade, Stevens, as the latter announced his intention to take Cruise's slave. The killing was in self-defense, and I'm sure those eleven liberated slaves deemed it a just action.


Note: I am using David S. Reynolds's "John Brown: Abolitionist" as a reference.

[JohnLocke]

73. Douglass wasn't too hot on Brown's raid

"Douglass became a friend of American abolitionist John Brown, who supported the use of armed force to help slaves escape. Douglass, however, refused to join Brown in an attack planned on the federal arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1859. He warned Brown that seizing the armory would be considered an attack on the U.S. government and could prove disastrous. After Brown was captured in the raid, Douglass faced charges that he was an accomplice and fled the country to avoid possible arrest for treason. He came back to the United States about six months later, after furor over the incident had died down."

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561813_2/Frederick_Douglass.html#p18

[knight_of_the_star]

46. No

Anymore than members of the UDF or the IRA are 'heroes'. A true hero struggles against overwhelming odds and makes every effort not to hurt innocent bystanders. At one of his raids in Kansas he split the heads of five men who were assumed to be pro-slavery with a saber. That sounds more like the kind of stuff that went on back and forth during the Troubles, same with Harper's Ferry. Avenging murder with more gruesome murder doesn't make on a hero, just a butcher.

[ISUGRADIA]

51. One author's view

"My stand on some key issues is: (a) Brown was not insane; instead, he was a deeply religious, flawed, yet ultimately noble reformer; (b) the Pottawatomie affair was indeed a crime, but it was a war crime committed against proslavery settlers by a man who saw slavery itself as an unprovoked war of one race against another; and (c) neither Brown's provisional constitution nor the Harpers Ferry raid were wild-eyed, erratic schemes doomed to failure: instead, they reflect Brown's overconfidence in whites' ability to rise above racism and in blacks' willingness to rise up in armed insurrection against their masters."
John Brown, Abolitionist The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights David S Reynolds

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

58. Slavery was ugly. I say indeed that he was a hero.

His tactics were brutal, but his motives were solid. He was a righteous crusader for freedom.

[LSdemocrat]

60. Not every enemy of evil is a hero

I can't imagine telling some kid that they should grow up to be like John Brown. His tactics were pretty wild and misguided.

[ISUGRADIA]

61. Maybe not today since there is not slavery or such an egrigious evil

but he was and is celebrated by many African American people for what he did: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, WEB DuBois to name a few. Tactics from 150 years ago may not be applicable to today's standards .

[R. A. Fuqua]

66. I suppose you could call

him a hero, however in my opinion, the greatest heroes were the people who fought to end slavery but did not hurt anyone in the process. I am thinking of the many people of the Quaker religion who put all kinds of pressure on slave owners and kept the issue at the forefront of politics. Also the brave folks on the underground railroad. What about the kind souls who actually allowed their slaves to earn their freedom (so that they were more like indentured servants than slaves) this was quite common in areas with a strong French influence like Louisiana.

I disagree with the OP's statement that Brown was in the fight alone---that at that time "no one else cared about the slaves". There were many good people who tried to do what they could, and most of them made a contribution to the effort without ever hurting another soul.

I think the Quakers in particular rocked---I love how throughout their history, they have always stood for peace and justice. The anti-slavery movement owes a huge debt to them. They stood firm--and they never backed down.

[DerekG]

79. What made Brown so unique was that he harbored no racism whatsoever

The majority of abolitionists, despite their heroic efforts to end slavery, were, in varying degrees, bigots: Emmerson and Thoreau thought Negroes to be intellectually inferior and, in writing and in person, condescended to them, as if they were children. Brown, on the other hand, treated them as equals. He conversed with them; debated them; appointed them to be superiors in his post-emancipation councils; and fought with them in a multi-cultural army. Brown extended this egalitarian good-will to Natives (he defended them several times against whites) and women (he shared the household duties with both wives).

[eleny]

74. And then there came the "Weathermen" and the "Enviro-Terrorists"

Were/are they terrorists for trying to:

-End capitalism. Did the Weather Underground know something back then of how the system could morph as it has in the Bush Administration?

-Or in the case of enviros - save the planet?

I appreciate this thread. Thanks for starting it.

[DerekG]

76. I'd like to hear from an African-American, myself

Perhaps it doesn't matter what a cadre of white, Internet warriors has to say about Brown; I am curious, though, to read the opinion of a descendent of those who were lynched, raped and tortured.

Anyone?

[Tomee450]

122. This African American

says John Brown was a great man, a true hero.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

126. This Irish American agrees with you.

[6000eliot]

77. Heard his body lies a moldering in the grave.

[ISUGRADIA]

78. But his soul goes marching on.

[Modem Butterfly]

82. John Brown was a martyr

The REAL terrorism was slavery.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

84. Frederick Douglass on John Brown.

Speech by Frederick Douglass about John Brown (1881)

"The true question is, Did John Brown draw his sword against
slavery and thereby lose his life in vain? And to this I
answer ten thousand times, No! No man fails, or can fail,
who so grandly gives himself and all he has to a righteous
cause. No man, who in his hour of extremest need, when on
his way to meet an ignominious death, could so forget
himself as to stop and kiss a little child, one of the hated
race for whom he was about to die, could by any possibility
fail.

"Did John Brown fail? Ask Henry A. Wise in whose house less
than two years after, a school for the emancipated slaves
was taught.

"Did John Brown fail? Ask James M. Mason, the author of
the inhuman fugitive slave bill, who was cooped up in Fort
Warren, as a traitor less than two years from the time that
he stood over the prostrate body of John Brown.
"Did John Brown fail? Ask Clement C. Vallandingham, one
other of the inquisitorial party; for he too went down in
the tremendous whirlpool created by the powerful hand of
this bold invader. If John Brown did not end the war that
ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended
slavery. If we look over the dates, places and men for which
this honor is claimed, we shall find that not Carolina, but
Virginia, not Fort Sumter, but Harpers Ferry, and the
arsenal, not Col. Anderson, but John Brown, began the war
that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was
dim, shadowy and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was
one of words, votes and compromises.

"When John Brown stretched forth his arm the sky was
cleared. The time for compromises was gone – the armed hosts
of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken
Union – and the clash of arms was at hand. The South staked
all upon getting possession of the Federal Government, and
failing to do that, drew the sword of rebellion and thus
made her own, and not Brown's, the lost cause of the
century."

[Mizmoon]

85. I think that many people were unaware that Brown had killed

they were led to believe that the killings at that creek were being pinned on him and his men by pro-slavery people. They thought he was wrongly hung. They were wrong. Murder is wrong. Brown was wrong. Slavery was wrong. And hindsight is 20/20.

[Finder]

86. I think this is one of the best debates I have seen on DU in a long time

No flames and lots of info backing up both positions. I think the issue is important to us today. How we go about dealing with the civil disagreements of today will be scrutinized later.

I recommended this thread as a good example of reasoned discussion.

[warrens]

88. He was a freaking nut

Of course, there were a lot of freaking nuts on both sides, but that doesn't excuse what he did. Personality wise, he was roughly Fred Phelps with a different cause.

[Walt Starr]

90. I disagree with the Fred Phelps analogy to Brown

In modern times, Eric Rudolph is more akin to John Brown than is Fred Phelps.

[Finder]

125. I disagree

Rudolph is mentally ill.

[tabasco]

91. Brown knew the deal.

North America had to be purged with blood to be rid of the horrible sin of slavery.

As previous posters have noted, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

[ArkDem]

93. These are the actions of a 'true hero'.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Kansas/jbrown.html

[DivinBreuvage]

95. The Marais des Cygnes Massacre and John Brown's "Parallels"

In May 1858 proslavery Missourians rounded up and shot 11 unarmed freesoil Kansans in a ravine along the Marais des Cygnes. The identity of the killers was known but no effort was made to apprehend them. Throughout the 1850s proslavery men were regularly permitted to get away with murder in Kansas because Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan and the Southern-dominated federal government were actively working to bring Kansas in as a slave state.

In the winter of 1859 John Brown led a raid on Missouri slaveholders and freed 11 slaves, escorting them to Canada. One slaveholder was shot dead when he resisted (Brown himself was not at the cabin where this occured). Friends of slavery throughout the nation screamed in outrage and James Buchanan put a price on John Brown's head.

Then, as now, many Americans who easily shrug off the repeated murder of freesoil men thunder in righteous wrath when the killer is John Brown. Brown himself pointed out this hypocrisy in his eloquent Parallels:

"Trading Post, Kansas, January, 1859--
"Gentlemen: You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allowing the use of your columns while I briefly state two parallels, in my poor way.

"Not One year ago Eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood (viz) Wm. Robertson, Wm. Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, John Campbell, Asa Synder, Thos Stilwell, Wm. Hairgrove, Asa Hairgrove, Patrick Ross and B.L. Reed, were gathered up from their work and their homes by an armed force (under one Hamelton) and without trial or opportunity to speak in own defense were formed into a line and all but one shot, five killed and five wounded. One fell unharmed pretending to be dead. All were left for dead. The only crime charged against them was that of being free-state men. Now, I inquire, what action has ever, since the occurrence in May last, been taken by either the President of Kansas, or any of their tools, or by any proslavery or administration man, to ferret out and punish the perpetrators of this crime?

"Now for the other parallel. On Sunday, the 19th of December, a negro called Jim came over to the Osage settlement from Missouri and stated that he together with his wife, two children and another negro man were to be sold within a day or two and begged for help to get away. On Monday (the following) night, two small companies were made up to go to Missouri and forcibly liberate the five slaves together with other slaves. One of these companies I assumed to direct. We proceeded to the place, surrounded the buildings, liberated the slaves, and also took certain property supposed to belong to the estate.

"We, however, learned before leaving that a portion of the articles we had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a tenant, and who was supposed to have no interest in the estate. We promptly returned to him all we had taken. We then went to another plantation where we freed five more slaves, took some property and two white men. We moved very slowly away into the Territory for some distance, and then sent the white men back, telling them to follow as soon as they chose to do so. The other company freed one female slave, took some property, and as I am informed, killed one white man (the master), who fought against the liberation.

"Now for a comparison. Eleven persons were forcibly restored to their natural and inalienable rights, with but one man killed, and all 'Hell is stirred from beneath.' It is currently reported that the Governor of Missouri has made a requisition upon the Governor of Kansas for the delivery of such as were concerned in the last-named "dreadful outrage." The marshal of Kansas is said to be collecting a posse of Missouri (not Kansas) men at West Point in Missouri, a little town about ten miles distant, to "enforce the laws." All proslavery, conservative free-state, and dough-faced men, and administration tools, are filled with holy horror.

"Consider the two cases, and the action of the administration party."

"Respectfully yours,
John Brown."

[Walt Starr]

100. The pro-slavery Missouri Ruffians were terrorists

as was Brown.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

105. Yes. As much as Nelson Mandela. "Terrorist" is just a label.

[ISUGRADIA]

131. African American Reaction at the time of Harper's Ferry

http://brownvboard.org/brwnqurt/03-3/03-3b.htm

John Brown:
Hero and Martyr
by Deborah Dandridge

When John Brown was executed for the crimes of murder, slave insurrection and treason against the state of Virginia on December 2, 1859, African Americans declared it "Martyr Day." In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit, African American owned businesses closed for the day. African American men walked down the streets of these cities wearing black armbands. Throughout the urban North, African American families and community leaders held vigils of prayer and fasting in their churches. Others convened in meeting halls and sent financial donations to the widow and family of John Brown.

Not only did John Brown sacrifice his life to bring down the nation's nefarious system of chattel slavery, but unlike most white abolitionists, he devoted a great deal of his adult life to fostering the practice of racial equality. During the 1830s, he and his family took up residence in a predominantly African American community where he earned a reputation for treating everyone as his peers. Moreover, he frequently demonstrated a strong intolerance for acts of racial discrimination, such as those he encountered when traveling with his African American colleagues. By the time he began to take up arms against the forces of chattel slavery in Kansas, John Brown had developed allies and friends among many African American leaders, of whom Frederick Douglass, his long-term friend, was the closest.

Consequently, the execution of John Brown evoked a massive public reaction of sorrow and praise from Black America. At a John Brown memorial program in Cleveland, Ohio, Charles Langston, an African American teacher and civil rights activist who would later move to Kansas and marry the widow of one of the participants in the Harper's Ferry raid, announced "I never thought that I should ever join in doing honor to or mourning any American white man." Indeed, never before had the death of a white person galvanized the national African American community as did John Brown's.

[Moderator]

133. Locking

This thread is inflammatory and has run its course.

[Moderator]

134. Locking

This has become a flamewar