Love As Arson
12/05/09, 04:53 PM
Wednesday marked the 150th anniversary of the execution of John Brown for the failed raid he led on the US Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Although his action was doomed to defeat, the revolutionary abolitionist earned his place in history as the man who prophesied and inspired the Civil War, the struggle that must properly be defined as the Second American Revolution.
Brown led a small band of armed men who briefly seized the armory containing some 100,000 weapons. He hoped to arm slaves and spark a spreading uprising. After a siege of about 36 hours, however, the abolitionists were overpowered by a company of US Marines under the command of Robert E. Lee. Ten of the group, including two of Brown’s sons, were killed. Five escaped and seven, including Brown himself, were captured.
Brown and the others were quickly tried by the state of Virginia. On December 2, 1859, having been convicted of murder, conspiring in a slave rebellion and treason, John Brown was executed by hanging.....far from a mindless fanatic, Brown met with such figures as Emerson and Thoreau, and with black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Though devoutly religious, Brown numbered among his adherents Jews like August Bondi and agnostics as well.
As Reynolds and others have pointed out, Brown possessed an unusual eloquence. This was not incidental, but was rather the expression of his revolutionary role and consciousness of the class divisions within American society. As he testified to the court at his trial:
“Had I interfered in the manner which I admit…had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment…I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/brow-d04.shtml
Brown led a small band of armed men who briefly seized the armory containing some 100,000 weapons. He hoped to arm slaves and spark a spreading uprising. After a siege of about 36 hours, however, the abolitionists were overpowered by a company of US Marines under the command of Robert E. Lee. Ten of the group, including two of Brown’s sons, were killed. Five escaped and seven, including Brown himself, were captured.
Brown and the others were quickly tried by the state of Virginia. On December 2, 1859, having been convicted of murder, conspiring in a slave rebellion and treason, John Brown was executed by hanging.....far from a mindless fanatic, Brown met with such figures as Emerson and Thoreau, and with black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Though devoutly religious, Brown numbered among his adherents Jews like August Bondi and agnostics as well.
As Reynolds and others have pointed out, Brown possessed an unusual eloquence. This was not incidental, but was rather the expression of his revolutionary role and consciousness of the class divisions within American society. As he testified to the court at his trial:
“Had I interfered in the manner which I admit…had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment…I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/brow-d04.shtml