A Period Kentucky Article on John Brown's Raid

From the Covington Journal of October 22 1859, this story is generally unremarkable, except I find it interesting that it never mentions John Brown's name, even while referring to the "impetuous leader."

I also note the term "established institutions" used as an euphemism for slavery. Placing blame on abolitionists and Henry Seward's famed "irrepressible conflict" speech was not unusual either. The reference to a "bloody drama" was rather accurate, though just how bloody it would be was something nobody could know.

The Abolition Insurrection

The Abolition insurrection at Harper's Ferry is a startling event.  We have had servile insurrections in the South. These, though serious, were neighborhood affairs, confined to blacks; entered upon without a digested plan of operation, utterly hopeless in their very nature and never repeated in the same locality. The insurrection at Haroer's Ferry was altogether different and much more formidable. A band of Abolitionists, after years of cautious planning, take up their abode in a slave State. They collect together arms and other warlike munitions sufficient to equipped fifteen hundred men. - they had the countenance of prominent and wealthy antislavery agitators, North and South, send the promise of aid from a host of desperate and revengeful fugitives. So complete were their arrangements that a plan for a provisional government had been agreed upon. The movement was doubtless precipitated by the impetuous leader. The aid promised was not at hand, and this, with the prompt action of the constituted authorities, brought the insurrection to a speedy termination. 

Take the affair altogether, it is one of the most daring attempts to subvert established institutions of which we have any account. It is practical Abolitionism, the result of the teachings of such men as Giddings and Garrison - the first act in the bloody drama prefigured in Seward's "irrepressible conflict."  

Will thus insurrectionary movement, so villainously fearful in its arrangement, so bloody in its termination, induce the masses of the North to turn a deaf ear to the incendiary teachings of heartless demagogues and canting fanatics, and impart to all a spirit of moderation and a determination to abide by the stable shed order of things? We may at least hope that such will be the result.

Image from Wikipedia 

Legacy of John Brown

The anniversary of John Brown's ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry has just passed, one of the more violent and incredible acts that took place in the antebellum years, leading up to the Civil War.

First of all, the House Divided Blog has posted a couple of very interesting posts about this subject, including a link to the online exhibit at the Gilder Lehrman Institute. Both of these sites are very interesting and much more in-depth than anything I plan to post, but I thought I would post a few of my comments about this subject anyway.

A few  weeks ago, I made a post claiming 1850s was a volcano, with many mini-eruptions spewing out controversies throughout the land. If this is true, the Harper's Ferry raid may have been the nearest thing to the Mount St. Helens type explosion, at least during this decade (though the firing at Fort Sumter was the ultimate eruption.)

I guess my interest in the matter is regarding the legacy Brown left. Was he a hero, dying for his cause? Or was he a 19th-century terrorist, using violent crime to make his point? A martyr or a threat to civilization?

My opinion, I suppose will be nothing new. I can understand the concept of "dying for what you believe in" and appreciate that his opposition to slavery was admirable, especially in that time, but to resort to such violence, even after what he had witnessed in Bloody Kansas, was not justified.

Perhaps a reasonable argument is that time proved Brown right - that the coming of the Civil War meant his prediction that bloodshed would be required in order to end slavery turned him into a sort of Nostradamus of his time. Maybe he had more foresight than most of  his peers.

As much as I do, however, not like the actions he took, the decisions he made, the killing, the bloodshed and the violence he produced, there is a small nagging feeling that perhaps something so radical was necessary to help lead towards the end of an institution that had been so violent and evil towards not dozens, but millions of people over 250 years. I cannot get rid of the feeling that maybe Brown was heroic, at least in some sense of the word.  I do not mean to defend the killing he and his minions did, but simply wish to point out what a complicated, confusing issue this can be.