Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
To me, it is significant, that the great majority in All the slave states rejoiced at John Brown's execution, while the the Great majority in All the free states mourned. There seemed little crossover in these sentiments between North and South.
John Brown did the equivalent for his cause...
...what Eric Robert Rudolph, Ted Kaczynski (the "Unabomber"), and Timothy McVeigh, &etc, did for their cause.
"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him."
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, his trial and execution prove just one thing, the one thing this thread is dedicated too.
Slavery was THE cause.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
I do not think anyone here is arguing that John Brown's trial or execution was necessarily unjust or unfair, but that his execution was seen to be a sectional issue by both sections of the country.
The cause, was worth sacrificing ones life to John Brown and to many in the north, the cause Brown fought and died for, tended to enoble him in the north. The cause for which Brown was executed, tended to convict him as a criminal in southern eyes.
John Brown was charged with treason against Va.( Not the Nat'l Gov't), murder, of Va. citizens and attempting to incite a slave revolt.
So, did Va. see itself as avenging crimes against Va. or against the South? Whatever, the actual participants at the trial (or us, on this thread, for that matter) thought, it would seem that many (if not most) citizens the south saw the verdict and execution as a vindication of Justice for all the south.
Va. did what the rest of the south, almost unanimously wanted done.
"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him."
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, his trial and execution prove just one thing, the one thing this thread is dedicated too.
Slavery was THE cause.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
My friend, slavery was A cause.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him."
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, his trial and execution prove just one thing, the one thing this thread is dedicated too.
Slavery was THE cause.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
Slavery????...or Terrorism.
Some of John Brown's accomplishments include:
Picking five men at random at having them hacked to death with swords.
His first victim at Harper's Ferry- a free black man (Hayward Shepherd).
Whatever bitter fruit was produced by the plant we now call the Civil War, trace back every branch through the trunk and at the root you will find slavery.
Battalion,
Terrorism? There is no cause, no reason for someone to resort to such? No cause? Like the Civil War, John Brown's actions did not take place in a political or social vacum. Throwing up a word like 'Terrorism' does not subtract nor deflect that the oncoming war was not rooted in slavery.
John Brown did not wake up one day and decide to hack five men to death, shoot a free black man and become a murderer and a terrorist. There was a motive to what he did at Harper's Ferry, wrong as Lincoln, Gov. Wise, Col. Lee, Superindendent Jackson, militia member John Wilkes Booth and others thought his actions were.
It was slavery and the fear of a slavery insurrection, along with his actions at Harper's Ferry that brought him to the gallows.
It was an attempt to free the slaves that brought John Brown to Haper's Ferry.
It won't go away.
Slavery.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Picking five men at random at having them hacked to death with swords.
Well, they weren't picked at random. They were active in the proslavery faction. And Brown's tactic mimiced what the proslavery side had already done.
"The historical record indicates that the proslavery side committed most acts of violence. Of the fifty-two who died in the Kansas slavery battles of 1855 to 1858, almost 75 percent were Free State settlers. Of the thirty-six Free State casualties, twenty-eight were murders; the remaining eight occurred during battle. In contrast, only eight on the proslavery side were murdered. Among the rest, five died in battle, two were killed accidentally by their own violence, and one was shot when he disturbed a Free State meeting.
"The eight proslavery people murdered included the five John Brown killed at Pottawatomie. It was John Brown who, more than anyone else, 'brought Southern tactics to the Northern side,' as a contemporary journalist put it. There was appropriateness in Brown's using terror to avenge the sack of Lawrence and the caning of Sumner, typically Southern acts of violence met by characteristic Northern timidity. Sumner's helpless passivity before Brooks's sadistic attack was not unlike the inability of the citizens of Lawrence to resist the invading border ruffians. The Missourian David Atchison told his troops outside Lawrence that the gutless Free-Staters who had not fired a shot, 'tonight ... will learn a Southern lesson they will remember.' The federal officer Nathaniel Lyon sneered at 'the wanton cowardice' and 'the craven fear of Northern men in abandoning their helpless families to the merciless outrages of the inexorable savages.'
"John Brown agreed with these sentiments. He called the Free State residents of Lawrence 'cowards, or worse' for not resisting the border ruffian invasion. At Pottawatomie he would prove that a Northern group could slaughter the enemy just as Southern mobs had for decades: on a negligible pretext, using a sneak attack when the enemy was defenseless, and with disregard for possible punishment--punishment that for Brown, as for 90 percent of the antebellum Southerners involved in mob action, never came." [David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, pp. 163-164]
One of the free-staters who was murdered was hacked to death by slave-staters, and his body left at the door of his cabin for his wife to find.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
His first victim at Harper's Ferry- a free black man (Hayward Shepherd).
While it doesn't excuse his actions, Brown maintained that wasn't intentional. I don't know of any credible historian who disagrees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
John Brown was a terrorist and murderer.
In that, he was simply using the proslavery side's own tactics against them.
...There was appropriateness in Brown's using terror to avenge the sack of Lawrence and the caning of Sumner, typically Southern acts of violence met by characteristic Northern timidity. Sumner's helpless passivity before Brooks's sadistic attack was not unlike the inability of the citizens of Lawrence to resist the invading border ruffians. ...
Cash,
This is a minor quibble with the quote, but I think worth mentioning.
Sumner was not a "passive" man. He was tall and strong and vigorous; he'd been the first man known to have swum across the Niagara River, IIRR.
After Sumner's insulting speech, the rest of the Butler clan in Washington had gathered to discuss who was going to respond to the insult to their family's Senator Andrew Butler (who was elderly and ill, so regarded as unable to take action himself). Brooks, a relative, acted on his own or someone else would have confronted Sumner over this, quite possibly Mathew C. Butler (later a Confederate Major General, then a 3-term US Senator, then a US Major General in the Spanish American War).
Brooks came to the conclusion that Sumner's acts had proved he was not a gentleman, so there was no need for a formal challenge. He then considered simply confronting him with a horsewhip and beating him senseless. He gave that up because he thought Sumner might grab the whip, take it away from him, and then beat Brooks himself with it.
Now Brooks was a military veteran, he was fairly large himself, and he had fought in duels before. In fact, a bullet from Louis Wigfall was the reason Brooks walked with a cane. He was not a coward off his record. Yet he apparently feared that Sumner was the sort of man who would fight back and be capable of beating him even when unarmed.
So Brooks devised another plan. He came upon Sumner while he was seated at a desk in the Senate chamber -- a desk that was bolted to the floor. He struck without warning, beating Sumner -- who had his legs trapped in the desk and could not rise under the blows -- unmercifully as he was unable to defend himself. Finally, Sumner managed to rip the desk from the floor and stagger away to collapse, at which point Brooks finally stopped beating him.
Now Sumner may have been a lot of things. He certainly had made cruel fun of Senator Brooks in his "Crime Against Kansas" speech. But to say that he passively submitted to this violent assault, as the quote does, is simply incorrect.
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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