Was John Brown a Saintly Man? (poll)

Was John Brown a Saintly Man?

  • yes

    Votes: 15 10.1%
  • no

    Votes: 123 83.1%
  • don't know

    Votes: 10 6.8%

  • Total voters
    148
So what message did the Republicans and the Lincoln want the slave owners in the South to hear..

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

This was supposed to give opponents of slavery and slaves a hope that slaves in the South would be free any time in the near future or within their lifetimes? With things like this coming out of Washington is it any wonder that people thought they had to take matters into their own hands to free people from bondage.
 
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I came upon this comment about Brown by Thaddeus Stevens. Judging by this statement and others on the site he did possess wit, but apparently rarely of the generous sort. I confess I did chuckle.

"John Brown deserves to be hung for being a hopeless fool," Stevens said. "He
attempted to capture Virginia with seventeen men when he ought to know that it would
require at least twenty-five." Thaddeus Stevens, Nineteenth -Century Egalitarian, by
Hans Trefousse, page 97.
http://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/Jokes5.html
 
How do we know he believed this?

As I sit here indoors, socially isolated for the weekend, off to work on Monday, I was drawn to this thread by Jeffrey D. Wert's bio of my latest compulsion--JEB Stuart.

As I am sure you all know, JEB was in Harpers Ferry during the John Brown attack as Lee's assistant and participated integrally in the capture of Brown.

Wert mentions that as Stuart stood over the wounded Brown after he was captured, he took Brown's Bowie knife as a souvenir.

I wondered where that knife might be now, and learned from Google that it is on display at the Virginia Historical Society. I hope to see it some day.

Wert also mentions that when a local citizen asked Brown (as he lay wounded) "what wages did you pay your followers?", Stuart remarked, "The wages of sin is death". Brown replied, "Young man, had you been my prisoner and wounded, I would not have insulted you."

So I spent the morning reading about John Brown, and eventually came to this thread, and read it all, more or less.

No, John Brown was not a "saint". Not sure anyone is, to be frank. "All have sinned...."

From my reading however, I don't think he was a madman. His abolitionist roots go back his entire life, and he worked on the underground railroad peacefully for years. Mostly he was a business man trying to make a living, and helping free slaves as well.

He was sucked into bleeding Kansas through his sons, and at that time was, as we now say, "radicalized" by the violence there. One thing led to another, culminating the the raid, which by any measure was doomed to failure, so certainly irrational, but not necessarily insane.

As the whether it was right or wrong, that is a tough call. I leave that opinion to others. My mind is not made up.
 
A great many people throughout history have believed themselves to be "the instrument of God'a will."
They can't all have been right.
They could all have been wrong, ..... and undoubtedly were.

John Brown was a zealot in a just cause. In laying his life on the line for the freedom of others he was a freedom fighter, and a champion of liberty. He was also a murderous fanatic who did far more to hurt than to benefit to those he sought to free.

"Saintly" is a term so subjective as to be meaningless.
 
John Brown was a zealot, not a saint. The abolition cause he espoused did not in any way justify his actions.
Many of the enslaved would disagree about that. If ones family members are enslaved would you question the manner that they were freed? If you're daughter or wife is a plaything for their master would you care about in what manner they were freed?
Leftyhunter
 
A great many people throughout history have believed themselves to be "the instrument of God'a will."
They can't all have been right.
They could all have been wrong, ..... and undoubtedly were.

John Brown was a zealot in a just cause. In laying his life on the line for the freedom of others he was a freedom fighter, and a champion of liberty. He was also a murderous fanatic who did far more to hurt than to benefit to those he sought to free.


"Saintly" is a term so subjective as to be meaningless.
We don't know if Brown actually hurt the cause of abolition. It was Brown who gave the free soilers in Kansas the spine to start fighting back against the Border Ruffians. It was the raid on Harper's Ferry that scared the secessionists into secession in that they were alarmed that many in the North were sympathetic to Brown.
Slavery was intitiated by violence it could only end in violence.
Leftyhunter
 
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The person who understands this statement holds the key to Captain Brown.
 
If John Brown professed a personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, then by biblical definition, he is among the "saints." His eternal standing, however, does not absolve him from the murder and treason of which he was convicted and for which he was executed. That's a pretty tarnished "witness." Even among Christians devoted to issues of racial justice - myself included - he is not held as a worthy example of faith. His is not a godly legacy.
 
Moses was murderer?

Slavery was one of the greatest evils ever perpetrated on this country, but two wrongs do not make a right.
Actually, Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew (Exodus 2:11-12).
 
John Brown lies dead in his grave and does not stir,
It is nearly three years since he died and he does not stir,
There is no sound in his bones but the sound of armies
And that is an old sound.

He walks, you will say, he walks in front of the armies,
A straggler met him, going along to Manassas,
With his gun on his shoulder, his phantom-sons at heel,
His eyes like misty coals.

A dead man saw him striding at Seven Pines,
The bullets whistling through him like a torn flag,
A madman saw him whetting a sword on a Bible,
A cloud above Malvern Hill.

But these are all lies. He slumbers. He does not stir.
The spring rains and the winter snows on his slumber
And the bones of his flesh breed armies and yet more armies
But he himself does not stir.

It will take more than cannon to shake his fortress,
His song is alive and throbs in the tramp of the columns,
His song is smoke blown out of the mouth of a cannon,
But his song and he are two.

John Brown's Body, Stephen Vincent Benet, Book 4
 
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