John Brown Genocide split fromPoll: Was slavery the cause of the war?

If you think he was trying to initiate genocide, why don't you post your evidence?

IMHO Brown was trying to instigate a servile rebellion?

John Brown - Facts & Summary
John Brown was a radical abolitionist who believed in the violent overthrow of the slavery system.

By early 1858, he had succeeded in enlisting a small “army” of insurrectionists whose mission was to foment rebellion among the slaves. In 1859, Brown and 21 of his followers attacked and occupied the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry. Their goal was to capture supplies and use them to arm a slave rebellion.

IMHO it is a short hop to genocide. Servile insurrections in history involved the killing of the race of the masters.
 
If you think he was trying to initiate genocide, why don't you post your evidence?

Edit to add: In a thread dedicated to John Brown, of course.

He was. He said so, and was not secretive about his aims. It is a matter of public record.
 
IMHO Brown was trying to instigate a servile rebellion?

John Brown - Facts & Summary




IMHO it is a short hop to genocide. Servile insurrections in history involved the killing of the race of the masters.

Brown was looking to free slaves and have them hole up in the mountains where they could protect themselves, not attack and commit genocide.
 
He never said a word about committing genocide. Stop making things up. If you think there's evidence, I suggest you post it on one of the John Brown threads.

This is a debating tactic known as legalistic quibbling.....

John Brown was not an educated man; he wouldn't have used the word "genocide" because it was not in his limited vocabulary.

But he was a puritan par excellence, and the goals of his actions were, in fact, genocide.
 
Brown was looking to free slaves and have them hole up in the mountains where they could protect themselves, not attack and commit genocide.

Are we differing on a little genocide say in an hypothetical attack on a plantation to free slaves or genocide from a general uprising.
 
May I suggest that the Southern complaint about the abolitionists is a complaint about free speech. The Southern states suppressed abolitionists free speech to the point of lynching, imprisionment and exile. I believe that one of the compromises suggested by Southern politicians was to have a national law against the free speech of abolitionists.
Good point. By the way, do you have more about the law? I know there was the post office problem, trying to get abolitionists extradicted, the gag rule, that kind of thing. But tell me more about the national law.

Still, the point is that one side felt they were doing the work of God by spreading truths about the rights of all mankind, and the other side thought they were shouting fire in a crowded theater. It wasn't going to be easy to compromise.

On a different topic...

John Brown was not an educated man; he wouldn't have used the word "genocide" because it was not in his limited vocabulary.

But he was a puritan par excellence, and the goals of his actions were, in fact, genocide.

Genocide is easy enough to indicate in simpler vocabulary: The only good Indian is a dead Indian. Kill all the Jews.

I think of genocide as exterminating a race. What do you mean? Was John Brown trying to kill all white people? Surely not--he was white himself and had white backers. All white southerners? All white slave owners? What category of people was he trying to kill out and when did he say he planned to kill them all? That's the evidence I'd like to see and I think that's the kind of evidence Cash is talking about.
 
This is a debating tactic known as legalistic quibbling.....

John Brown was not an educated man; he wouldn't have used the word "genocide" because it was not in his limited vocabulary.

But he was a puritan par excellence, and the goals of his actions were, in fact, genocide.

Again, this belongs in a thread devoted to John Brown, but he never talked about anything resembling genocide as a goal. Please stop making things up.
 
Are we differing on a little genocide say in an hypothetical attack on a plantation to free slaves or genocide from a general uprising.

Genocide has a specific meaning: killing a large number of people of a particular ethnic group or nationality.

Attacking a few plantations in order to free slaves is not genocide. A general slave uprising in order to free themselves is not genocide.
 
Genocide has a specific meaning: killing a large number of people of a particular ethnic group or nationality.

Attacking a few plantations in order to free slaves is not genocide. A general slave uprising in order to free themselves is not genocide.

If there is a demand, we can continue on a separate thread.
 
Again, this belongs in a thread devoted to John Brown, but he never talked about anything resembling genocide as a goal. Please stop making things up.

There you go again. Of course he didn't talk about it this way.

But he did state that he wanted his raid at Harper's Ferry to be the catalyst for a region wide slave uprising.

The historical precedents for this action was Nat Turner's uprising in the 1830s, and the Haitian genocide.

And to point out that the practical effects of this stated goal, a goal he was quite explicit about, is genocide is not making things up. Your assertion as such is invidious.
 
There you go again. Of course he didn't talk about it this way.

But he did state that he wanted his raid at Harper's Ferry to be the catalyst for a region wide slave uprising.

The historical precedents for this action was Nat Turner's uprising in the 1830s, and the Haitian genocide.

And to point out that the practical effects of this stated goal, a goal he was quite explicit about, is genocide is not making things up. Your assertion as such is invidious.

A slave uprising is not genocide. He never claimed he wanted another Haiti. All he wanted was for the enslaved people to be free. He was willing to attack plantations to make that happen, but he wasn't trying to bring about a genocide.

You're just making things up.
 
A slave uprising is not genocide. He never claimed he wanted another Haiti. All he wanted was for the enslaved people to be free. He was willing to attack plantations to make that happen, but he wasn't trying to bring about a genocide.

You're just making things up.

Not making anything up. But you are providing justification for murder.
 
Not making anything up. But you are providing justification for murder.

I'm providing justification for freeing enslaved people.

"Who would not rather be John Brown, and have his memory cherished with such tender gratitude by the poor and the oppressed, than to have his brazen statue set up in front of the State House, a reward for hunting slaves? I agree with the colored man, in thinking that John Brown was a 'misguided philanthropist.' But no one who believes war to be right under any circumstances, is authorized so to judge him. If we justify any men in fighting against oppression, how can we deny that right to men whose wives are constantly at the disposal of their master, or his sons, and whose children are torn from them and sold on the auction block, while they have no redress at law, and are shot down like dogs, if they dare to resist? It is very inconsistent to eulogise Lafayette for volunteering to aid in our fight for freedom, while we blame John Brown for going to the rescue of those who are a thousand times more oppressed than we ever were, and who have none to help them. Let us understand our principles well in this matter, and deal even-handed justice in our estimate of actions. We who believe that all fighting with carnal weapons is contrary to the teachings of Jesus, do think that John Brown made a grievous mistake; but while we deeply regret the means he employed to advance righteous principles, we cannot withhold a heartfelt tribute of respect to the generous motives and self-sacrificing spirit of the brave old martyr. Instead of blaming him for carrying out his own convictions by means we cannot sanction, it would be more profitable for us to inquire of ourselves whether we, who believe in a 'more excellent way,' have carried our convictions into practice, as faithfully as he did his. We believe in moral influence as a cure for the diseases of society. Have we exerted it as constantly and as strenuously as we ought against the giant wrong, that making wreck of all the free institutions our fathers handed down to us as a sacred legacy? Do we bear our testimony against it in the parlor and the store, the caucus and the conference, on the highway and in the cars? Do we stamp upon the impressible minds of our children a deep conviction of its inherent wickedness and consequent danger? Do we exclude the ravening monster from our churches, as we ought to do? Do we withhold respect from ministers, who are silent concerning this mighty iniquity? Do we brand with ignominy the statesmen, who make compromises with the foul sin, for their own emolument? Nay, verily! We erect statues to them. And because we have thus failed to perform our duty in the 'more excellent way,' the end cometh by violence, because come it must. Let him who is without sin in this matter cast the first stone at the gray head of that honest old Puritan, John Brown! He believed, more earnestly than most of us do, that it was a religious duty to 'remember those in bonds as bound with them'; and he verily thought it was serving God to fight in a righteous cause. Therefore, shall his memory be forever enshrined in the greateful hearts of a down-trodden race, and command the respect of all true friends of justice and freedom. In the midst of awful tribulations, his sublime faith in God lifted him above all need of our compassion. Leaning on the Almighty arm, he passed triumphantly thorugh the valley of the shadow of death, smiling serenely, as he said, 'I don't know as I can better serve the cause I love so well, than to die for it.' Farewell to thee, faithful old hero and martyr. The Recording Angel will blot out thy error with a tear, because it was committed with an honest heart."

Lydia Maria Child, December 23, 1859

I note you've provided exactly zero evidence to back up your claim.
 
People have a tendency to assume that if someone is labeled "bad", then any "bad" word or term can be applied to them. As others have noted, "genocide" has a specific meaning, the destruction of a race or ethnic group. Most conflicts are not genocide, even if they involved the killing of thousands of people in the pursuit of an objective.
 
The slave uprising in Haiti was indeed genocide.

The slave uprising in Haiti was accompanied by widespread murders that might be called genocide.

Slaves rebelling and reclaiming their freedom is not genocide.


The example of Haiti was in fact invoked by abolitionists of this era.

Non sequitur. It doesn't have anything to do with John Brown.

John Brown was unwilling to use the democratic process to amend the constitution in order to overturn the constitutional provisions sanctioning "service bound to labor."

A lot of people in the mid-19th Century were unwilling to use the democratic process to amend the Constitution. There was a war fought because of it. Besides, that's a red herring that has nothing to do with claims of genocide.

And he spoke of murder as a righteous thing.

Please provide the exact quotation.
 
The slave uprising in Haiti was accompanied by widespread murders that might be called genocide.

Slaves rebelling and reclaiming their freedom is not genocide.

Well, wikipedia certainly refers to it as genocide.

John Brown wished to cause a region wide slave insurrection, which is why he raided the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, due to its store of weaponry. Those weapons were to be distributed across the upper South (Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky) to enable the slave population to rise up against their masters, kill them, and become free.

But the practical effect of any "region wide" slave insurrection across the South would indeed be genocide, if brought about.

It did not happen in 1865 because Southern men were on their guard for that specific purpose.

But the South was not, is not Haiti.
Non sequitur. It doesn't have anything to do with John Brown.

A lot of people in the mid-19th Century were unwilling to use the democratic process to amend the Constitution. There was a war fought because of it. Besides, that's a red herring that has nothing to do with claims of genocide.

It was an accurate summation of the fanatical character of John Brown.

John Brown's call for a region wide slave insurrection was in fact, practically speaking, a call for the genocide of white Southerners. Just as in Haiti.

I'll leave you to the legalisms.
 
Back
Top