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John Brown’s Raid Harper’s Ferry, Virginia October 1859
Sectionalism in Election of 1856 • 1856 was the first clearly sectional presidentialelectioninU.S.history • Republican John C. Frémont campaigned only in free states • Know-Nothing Fillmore called for sectional compromise • Democrat James Buchanan endorsed popular sovereignty & the Compromise of 1850 • Buchanan beat Frémont in the North & beat Fillmore in the South
Buchannan Victory 1856 • Northerners realized that the free-states had a large majority in the Electoral College so a Republican could become president by only campaigning in the North • Southerners were relieved by the victory but were threatened by the existence of a party devoted to ending slavery
Lincoln-Douglas debates • Democrat Stephen Douglas ran against Republican Abraham Lincoln for the 1858 Illinois Senate • Lincoln lost the election, but the debates gained him a national reputation & reaffirmed the Republicans’ uncompromising commitment to the free-soil position
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” —Abraham Lincoln, 1858
Two events in 1859 increased Southern fears of the North: • John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, VA; he & 18 men planned to end slavery in the South by leading slave insurrections: • Brown was caught & executed, but he was perceived by many in the North to be a martyr • Witch-hunts, vigilante groups, & talk of secession grew in South • Hinton Helper’s Impending Crisis of the South in 1859: • Helper was a white southerner who argued that slavery hurt the South & small farmers • Southerners saw the book as a plot to rally yeoman against the elite & end slavery
In 1847 Frederick Douglass met John Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. • Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." • It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.
HARPERS FERRY 1859 • John Brown’s attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia was a culmination of his decades-long fight to end slavery. He expected that such an attack by a company of both white and black liberators would incite slaves to escape from plantations across the South. According to his plan, the freed slaves would join him in safe havens in the mountains, where he would arm and train them for guerrilla warfare. The loss of slaves and fear of insurrection would destabilize the South and build political support for abolition in the North. Excerpt from: John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy
John Brown’s background • John Brown grew up in a household that believed very strongly that slavery was wrong. • When he was twelve years old, Brown saw a young slave boy being brutally beaten. This experience is said to have fueled his abolitionist beliefs and actions. Do you think that he was stronger in his abolitionist stance because of this • Born in Connecticut in 1800, Brown spent much of his life in the North, moving from Ohio to Pennsylvania and then upstate New York as his various business ventures failed. To him, slavery appeared an unacceptable evil that must be purged from the land, and like his Puritan forebears, he believed in using the sword to defeat the ungodly.
John Brown Plans Raid John Brown and twenty-two other men raided the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to arm and free slaves He chose Harpers Ferry because it had an armory and an arsenal
John Brown Raids Harper’s Ferry Brown and his raiders captured many of the town’s most important citizens and held them hostage.
Results of John Brown’s Raid Brown was unsuccessful in arming and freeing slaves for his raid. The next morning Brown was captured and wounded. He was then convicted of treason, murder, and conspiracy to incite slave rebellion. Brown was hanged that December.
COL. ROBERT E. LEE'S REPORT CONCERNING THE ATTACK AT HARPER'S FERRY – OCTOBER 19, 1859 • …it appears that the party consisted of nineteen men- fourteen white and five black. That they were headed by John Brown, of some notoriety in Kansas, who in June last located himself in Maryland, at the Kennedy farm, where he has been engaged in preparing to capture the United States works at Harper’s Ferry. He avows that his object was the liberation of the slaves of Virginia, and of the whole South; and acknowledges that he has been disappointed in his expectations of aid from the black as well as white population, both in the Northern and Southern States. The blacks, whom he forced from their homes in this neighborhood, as far as I could learn, gave him no voluntary assistance. The servants of Messrs. Washington and Allstadt, retained at the armory, took no part in the conflict, and those carried to Maryland returned to their homes as soon as released. The result proves that the plan was the attempt of a fanatic or madman, who could only end in failure; and its temporary success, was owing to the panic and confusion he succeeded in creating by magnifying his numbers.
JOHN BROWN’S ADDRESS – NOVEMBER 2, 1859 • I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have already admitted, of a design on my part to free slaves. I intended, certainly, to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missouri, and there took Slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moving them through the country, and finally leaving them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite Slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.
Letter to the London News Regarding John BrownBy Victor Hugo 1859 Excerpt: “A white man, a free man, John Brown, sought to deliver these negro slaves from bondage. Assuredly, if insurrection is ever a sacred duty, it must be when it is directed against Slavery. John Brown endeavored to commence the work of emancipation by the liberation of slaves in Virginia. Pious, austere, animated with the old Puritan spirit, inspired by the spirit of the Gospel, he sounded to these men, these oppressed brothers, the rallying cry of Freedom.”
A Letter To Mr. & Mrs. James H. Burton From George Mauzy, a citizen of Harpers Ferry, VirginiaDecember 3, 1859 Excerpt:“This has been one of the most remarkable circumstances that ever occurred in this country, this old fanatic made no confession whatever, nor concession that he was wrong, but contended that he was right in everything he done, that he done great service to God, would not let a minister of any denomination come near or say anything to him, but what else could be expected from him, or anyone else who are imbued with ‘Freeloveism, Socialism, Spiritualism,’ and all the other isms that were ever devised by man or devil.”
THOUGHTS ON JOHN BROWN FROM HIS CONTEMPORARIES • “If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did a least begin the war that ended slavery.” • – Frederick Douglass, 1881 • “This old man Brown …was nothing more than a murderer, a robber, a thief, and a traitor.” • – Senator Andrew Johnson (Tenn.), 1859 • “I find in John Brown…a lover of mankind-not of any particular class or color, but of all men…He fully, really, practically and actively believed in the equality and brotherhood of man” • – Charles H. Livingston, Black Leader in Ohio, 1859 • You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican...” • – Abraham Lincoln, Copper Union Address, February 27, 1860 20
The Election of 1860 • The election of 1860 was the final straw for the South • Republicans nominated Lincoln: • Illinois was a crucial swing-state • Lincoln was seen as a self-made man who represented equality • His platform of high tariffs for industry, free homesteads in the West, transcontinental railroad widened the party’s appeal
The Election of 1860 • Democrats were fatally split: • Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas who ran on a platform of popular sovereignty • Southern Democrats nominated John Breckenridge who swore to protect slavery in the West • Ex-Whigs & Know-Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party & ran John Bell on a compromise platform
Questions • Was John Brown's fight at Harper's Ferry the first step towards ending American slavery? • How did John Brown’s upbringing guide his beliefs and actions throughout his life? • Compare and Contrast the elections of 1856 and 1860. • Discuss the different views of John Brown by his contemporaries. • Apart from the failed raid on Harper’s Ferry what other events pushed the nation toward civil war?
