August 31, 2006
John Brown’s Reputation Lies A-Mould’ring in the Grave Posted by Frederic D. Schwarz at 05:00 PM EST If I shouted “I love freedom” and then hit my dog over the head with a rock, would that make me a hero? Maybe not to you, and certainly not to my family’s poor little dachshund. But for those true Americans who are devoted to the cause of liberty, I would be a brave pioneer in a noble quest, willing to adopt unorthodox methods to protect the precious values our society holds most sacred.
At least, that’s the impression I get from reading today’s lead article on this site. I have not read the book under review and so cannot comment directly on its merits, but if our article is an accurate summary, the book’s author seems to be saying that everyone thinks John Brown was a crazy man, when in fact he was fighting for a noble cause. Now, the impression I have held since grade school is that John Brown was both: a crazy man fighting for a noble cause. And from my hasty survey of the resources available in the American Heritage library, this seems to be the view of most historians past and present—setting aside the large and vocal contingent who from 1859 to the present have portrayed him as a martyr of unalloyed nobility.
The first paragraph of our review says: “The picture of John Brown that has come down through time is largely that of a madman, a fanatic . . . deranged, a violent psychotic.” Whether or not this actually is the picture that has come down to us, there’s no question that Brown was a fanatic by any reasonable definition of that word, nor that he was violent. “Madman” and “deranged” are imprecise terms, as is “psychotic” once you get past its scientific sheen. Indeed, the same might be said for the whole concept of mental illness—and yet, like love or truth or beauty, it does exist and can be discussed.
John Brown is one of many subjects in American history on which it’s hard to find an impartial source (particularly if, like me, you have lots of other work to do at the time). It’s clear that his family had a history of mental illness and that some people who knew him thought he acted strangely. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who could plan and carry out the Pottawotamie Massacre, in which he and his followers killed proslavery settlers in cold blood, chopped off their limbs, and split open their heads, must be considered at least something of an oddball. You can say that the violent times made him crazy, but that’s just another way of saying that he was crazy. In any case, there were thousands of settlers in Kansas who did not go around hacking up their neighbors.
That Brown was kind and loving in many ways, that not everything he did was deranged, that he was capable of making plans and organizing operations, that he could speak eloquently, and that he had a noble cause in his heart do not disprove the assertion that he was insane. Charles Manson had devoted fans too. Yet, as I’ve said, defining insanity is problematic, and since we cannot talk to Brown today, it’s even harder to make a definitive judgment. So I would set aside the question of his sanity, let alone whether “psychotic” is the correct technical term to describe him (or, for that matter, “doughty stoic,” which would seem to be just the opposite). That debate is so heavily dependent on what one thinks of Brown overall that it can never be resolved. A more interesting, if no more clear-cut, question is this: Were his actions at Harpers Ferry right, and did they help the slaves?
The Harpers Ferry raid got 17 people killed, 10 of them raiders (including two of Brown’s sons, but not counting Brown himself and five co-conspirators, who were hanged after the ensuing trial). It freed no slaves and, thankfully, inspired no similar acts by others. It’s hard to imagine that it attracted anyone to the abolitionist cause who wasn’t already a sympathizer; if anything, it did more to alienate neutrals and stoke up hostility in the South, especially after so many Northerners praised Brown’s actions. The raid does seem to have heightened the already severe sectional conflict, and it may have brought civil war five or ten years sooner than it otherwise would have occurred, but if so, it’s unclear whether this was good or bad. At the risk of incurring a smackdown from Fred Smoler, I’ll suggest very tentatively that the North was industrializing much faster than the South and developing new weapons as well, so a war that began in 1865 or 1869 would probably have ended much quicker.
But, of course, John Brown was against slavery, so even if his raid accomplished no more than bashing a dog’s head would have, he will find sympathizers—just as today’s terrorists and guerrillas find apologists among those who agree with the causes they say they are supporting. Personally, I think Brown could have done much more to eliminate slavery by letting his sons live long enough to fight for the Union.
The antislavery movement has many genuine heroes. William Lloyd Garrison was one for tirelessly criticizing slavery and attracting adherents to the cause. The same goes for Harriet Beecher Stowe, whatever the flaws of her Uncle Tom’s Cabin; for the antislavery legislators in Congress; and of course for Harriet Tubman and the rest of the Underground Railroad’s supporters. These people used persuasion, law, and direct action to restrict, expose, and nullify slavery as far as it was possible. John Brown, by contrast, achieved nothing at Harpers Ferry, and he did it at the cost of many lives and much increased bitterness. He was not a hero. He was just a crazy fool.
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