Did John Brown Fail? (poll)

[gem]

Did John Brown fail?

 

[FrazierC]

I suppose you could say that tactically, he failed: His immediate mission did not succeed.
But strategically, he was successful: His actions further increased tensions which would lead to the War and, ultimately, to the abolition of slavery.
So, overall, he did not fail.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Yes, I kind of can't vote- fail at what? Did his raid fail? It can't be as easy as that since we all know the answer- fail at his life's mission, in which case, does anyone know what that was, really? Did he fail to make a difference in the lives of a people in bondage, in ending their condition? That would have to be no, he succeeded albeit through a ham-fisted raid effort.

John Brown's life was defined by a lot more than that one, single event he's know for- what would he term a failure or success? I'm seriously asking, just can't speculate.

 

[UKMarkw]

In his effort to bring the slavery question into full view of the public no he did not fail. To take, occupy and use a federal arsenal to start a rebellion yes he did

 

[gem]

Yes, I kind of can't vote- fail at what? Did his raid fail? It can't be as easy as that since we all know the answer- fail at his life's mission, in which case, does anyone know what that was, really? Did he fail to make a difference in the lives of a people in bondage, in ending their condition? That would have to be no, he succeeded albeit through a ham-fisted raid effort.

John Brown's life was defined by a lot more than that one, single event he's know for- what would he term a failure or success? I'm seriously asking, just can't speculate.

It's up to the individual to define what constitutes failure for John Brown.
I guess it really depends on what you consider his defining moment.

From his perspective he was pretty vocal from the gallows and I think he would not consider himself a failure.
He wanted to bring slavery into the national spotlight and that is exactly what he did.

"Let them hang me," John Brown had written. "I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose."

His wish had come true. After a life of failure, John Brown was finally a success.

 

[brass napoleon]

If his goal was to make himself the center of attention, he succeeded brilliantly.

 

[gem]

If his goal was to make himself the center of attention, he succeeded brilliantly.

His goal was to make slavery the center of attention.

I think that is pretty evident in his statement "I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose."

He fully understood that by hanging a few minutes by the neck he would strike a major blow against slavery.

It was the South who failed to understand this, and thereby sent him to martyrdom.

 

[jay gale]

If his goal was to make himself the center of attention, he succeeded brilliantly.

roger that, at least he got a song written about his moldering corpse.

He was a violent, crazy person who I think suffered from delusions of his own grandeur. He overestimated the reaction to his revolt, and his plan wasn't particularly well thought out either.

 

[brass napoleon]

His goal was to make slavery the center of attention.

Slavery was already the center of attention. Brown wanted to put himself center stage.

 

[gem]

Slavery was already the center of attention. Brown wanted to put himself center stage.

based on what the Dred Scott decision? lol

 

[brass napoleon]

based on what the Dred Scott decision? lol

Dred Scott, Abelman v. Booth, the Lecompton Constitution, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, the King Cotton speech, Hinton Helper's The Impending Crisis, etc., etc., etc., all had slavery front and center going into the 1860 elections, which the anti-slavery Republican Party had a decent chance of winning.

 

[ghosts of civil war pasts]

Even Northerners I know say John Brown was a nut job. What did he really accomplish? He was a terrorist in his day.

 

[suzenatale]

based on what the Dred Scott decision? lol

Lincoln certainly felt it was the center of attention before the raid. As seen in his house divided speech and
Lincoln Douglas Debates...

"But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs from office seeking-from the mere ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we had danger from this question? Go back to the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the Nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of the Annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the Nullification question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this institution. There never was a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond the parties themselves. But does not this question make a disturbance outside of political circles? Does it not enter into the churches and rend them asunder? What divided the great Methodist Church into two parts, North and South? What has raised this constant disturbance in every Presbyterian General Assembly that meets? What disturbed the Unitarian Church in this very city two years ago? What has jarred and shaken the great American Tract Society recently, not yet splitting it, but sure to divide it in the end? Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society-in politics, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold relations of life? [Applause.] Is this the work of politicians? Is that irresistible power which for fifty years has shaken the Government and agitated the people to be stilled and subdued by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not to talk about it? [Great cheers and laughter.] If you will get every body else to stop talking about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. [Renewed laughter.] But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has threatened our institutions-I say, where is the philosophy or the statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about it, [applause] and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by it? Yet this is the policy here in the north that Douglas is advocating-that we are to care nothing about it! I ask you if it is not a false philosophy? Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that every body does care the most about? ["Yes, yes," and applause]-a thing which all experience has shown we care a very great deal about? [Laughter and applause.]"
http://www.nps.gov/liho/historyculture/debate7.htm
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John Brown had a hand in some of that earlier agitation though.

 

[suzenatale]

Even Northerners I know say John Brown was a nut job. What did he really accomplish? He was a terrorist in his day.

Well in Kansas you had to fight terrorism with terrorism. I think most of his supporters imagined that is what he was returning to do. I think many northerns were a bit surprised that he would take on Virginia, but in the end they for the most part backed the cause he stood for.

 

[carson_reb]

I would say no.

His action at Harper's Ferry was a harbinger of the war, which brought about the eventual end of the slavery institution.

His goal was to raise an armed insurrection of slaves in hopes of overthrowing the institution by force. This happened just a few years later as a result of a war; the reality of which was hastened by the event at Harper's Ferry, and Brown's execution a little over a month later.