Political Contributions of John Brown

Political Contributions of John Brown

John Brown (1800-1859), abolitionist, is one of the most controversial figures in American history. To his admirers, Brown symbolizes the highest ideals of equality and democracy, and is idolized as a saint, martyr and a steadfast warrior, who unselfishly sacrificed his life for ending the despicable institution of slavery. His detractors, on the other hand, brand him as a murderer, a horse thief, dishonest businessman, and an insane fanatic, who used the antislavery cause to disguise his personal and business failures. Whatever the truth, which probably lies somewhere between the two extreme views, most historians agree that his execution in 1859 sparked the deadliest conflict in U.S. history -- the American Civil War that resulted has in untold violence but also ended slavery in the country. This paper contains a brief personal biography of John Brown and focuses on his political contributions.

Personal Biography

John Brown was born in 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut but grew up in Ohio where his family had moved when he was five years old. The young Brown acquired his hatred of slavery at an early age from his deeply religious father who was vehemently opposed to the institution. ("John Brown" -- Resource Bank) John wanted to become a Congregationalist minister but his family did not have the resources to support him. He, therefore, worked in the tannery, owned by his father in his youth before starting his own tannery at the age of 17. He gradually mastered the arts of farming, tanning, surveying, home building, and animal husbandry but faced repeated financial losses in his business ventures. He got married at the age of twenty, lost his wife eleven years later, soon married again, and fathered a total of twenty children. Nine of them died before they reached adulthood. Brown's financial woes, however, did not deter him from supporting causes he believed in.

Political Contributions

Until the cataclysmic events towards the end of Brown's life that resulted in his ultimate execution, his political activities were rather low key. His views on slavery were, however, of a radical nature from the beginning. For example, he helped to finance the publication of David Walker's "Appeal" in 1829, which was arguably the most radical of all anti-slavery documents published at the time. He was an active participant in the "Underground Railway," hid runaway slaves, facilitated their escape to the free states and Canada and helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers. His uncompromising opposition to the institution of slavery and determination to destroy human bondage is reflected in his emotional public statement made in 1837 when he stood up in the back of a church in Ohio and declared: "Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery." (Quoted by Chowder)

Genuinely Anti-Racist

Although a number of white people were involved in the abolitionist movement to free the African slavery in the United States in the 19th century, John Brown was the most committed supporter of the black man's freedom. He backed his talk by action. Despite his financial difficulties, he gave land to fugitive slaves; he and his wife raised a black youth as one of their own; he even moved his family once to the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York to help a Negro community there, and deplored racial discrimination in Ohio, especially in the churches This was because, unlike most other whites who opposed slavery at the time, Brown was capable of treating Negroes as his fellow human beings. He frequently invited them to eat at his family table and addressed his black workers as "Mr." (Oates 39). This was no mean achievement in an age when racial prejudice was a way of life among the whites -- even among the so-called "liberals" -- the Northerners who were opposed to slavery. Also, while choosing his fellow associates, he was insistent on including blacks. This distinguished him from most abolitionists, who preferred to act "for" the slaves rather than "with" them. (Hitchens 122).

Due to his genuinely anti-racist nature, Brown was outraged at the blatant hypocrisy of a nation whose very existence was purportedly based on the noble concepts of "inalienable rights," "equality" and "freedom" but which, hypocritically condoned, protected, and perpetuated slavery. To his mind, therefore, the fight against supporters of slavery was in fact no more than a true implementation of the American Declaration of Independence for everyone, as opposed to the government's hypocritical application of the document for a privileged few.

Brown's Intense Calvinism and its Effect on his Political Ideas

Theologically, Brown was an orthodox Calvinist who believed in "foreordination, the doctrine of election, innate depravity, and in man's total dependence on a just and omnipotent God." (Oates 21). His belief stemmed from his Old Testament Calvinist view of an angry and vengeful Jehovah who condemns all sinners to eternal punishment and the age old principle of "an eye for an eye." It was further reinforced by the idea that God had chosen him to free the slaves. In this way, his religious belief was much more intense and absolute than other abolitionists who were more liberal in their thinking, and had an overwhelming influence on his political ideas.

Brown's Calvinism was in large part responsible for his decision to use force to fight people who supported slavery. Even before putting his theory of using violence in the Pottawatomie massacre in 1856 or his attack on the Federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry in 1859, Brown had become convinced that only the use of force could end slavery. Calling on his experiences with the Underground Railroad, he developed a secret project called the Subterranean Pass Way in 1847. The plan envisaged the formation of an armed guerrilla group, with Brown himself as commander, which would run slaves out of the South through the Allegheny Mountains. Brown thought that such an operation would reduce the value of slave property, and render the institution of slavery so uneconomical that Southerners would have to abolish it themselves. To achieve his objective, he was prepared to fight slave-owners, because he did not believe they could "be induced to give up their slaves, until they felt a big stick about their heads." (Oates 26). The Subterranean Pass Way scheme, however, never materialized beyond the planning stage and was overtaken by events in Kansas.

Brown's Influence on Kansas Politics

By 1850, the American nation was hurtling towards disunion on the question of slavery. Hoping to preserve the Union by placating the South, President Lincoln supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that endorsed a constitutional amendment preserving slavery where it already existed, and revoked an emancipation proclamation in Missouri. Furthermore, in 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act decreed that the settlers in the two states would decide by vote whether to be free or slave. Both these Acts greatly incensed John Brown. The Kansas-Nebraska Act also provoked a flood of settlers from both sides into Kansas; this included five of Brown's sons who relocated in the state from Ohio.

In March of 1855, five thousand proslavery Missourians -- the hard-drinking, heavily armed "Border Ruffians" -- rode into Kansas, threatening, "We came to vote, and we are going to vote or kill every God-damned abolitionist in the Territory." (Quoted by Chowder). The Ruffians forcibly took over the polling stations, voted in their own legislature, and passed their own laws. All those who opposed slavery faced brutal prosecution or worse. Brown's sons urged their father to provide help by imploring that the free-soilers in Kansas needed arms, "more than we need bread." Heeding the call, "old" John Brown began a campaign for raising money and weapons and left for Kansas in August 1855. On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery rioters torched buildings in the free-soil stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas. This act, to Brown's mind was the last straw. He decided to give the Southerners a taste of their own medicine by organizing an attack on the homes of pro-slavers in Pottawatomie Creek where Brown's men split open the skulls of five people in a brutal display of "biblical retribution." Brown's supporters have justified the killings as a "long-delayed retaliation for years of Southern violence against abolitionists and against blacks" (Reynolds 159), while his detractors dub it as a clear cut case of terrorism. Predictably, the killings that came to be known as the "Pottawatomie Massacre" ignited was an all-out civil war in Kansas. In August some 250 Border Ruffians attacked the free-soil town of Osawatomie. Brown and thirty of his men fought heroically to defend the town, which was ultimately burned to the ground.

Brown's Execution and its Ramifications

Brown's influence on American politics was far greater after his death than during his lifetime. His quixotic attempt on October 16, 1859, with just twenty men, to capture a federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia led to his capture, a quick trial, and execution by hanging. Victor Hugo called Brown's execution as "more frightening than Cain killing Abel" and likened it to the killing of Spartacus. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously declared that John Brown's execution would "make the gallows as glorious as the cross." (Quoted by Reynolds 127) Other historians have opined that Brown's martyrdom was the single most important event that "sparked the Civil War" and ultimately ended slavery. During his lifetime, Brown's uncompromising, radical ideas were often considered dangerous even by such anti-slavery politicians as Abraham Lincoln. In death, Brown became a symbol of courageous opposition to slavery. Union soldiers during the Civil War marched to the tune of the song, "John Brown's Body," and its heady chorus about Brown "mouldering in the grave" while "his soul keeps marching on." (Reynolds, 136). Some scholars, rather exaggeratedly, have even expanded the scope of his influence to the civil rights movement in the 20th century.