John Brown: Past and Present
Host: “Looking into the crystal ball, I wonder who our guest will be. As the fog lifts from the orb, a picture of a man that has had an enormous impact on our socially accepted views begins to appear. Who is this man? Well, he is known as both a martyr and a psychopathic killer. He has been called a blatant liar as well as a man of strong convictions, all in the same breath. But his most notable contribution to our country is undoubtedly his involvement in the antislavery movement. The man I am referring to is John Brown. While we talk with him today, we will compare the consequences of past actions with the consequences of today’s actions. So, let’s give a warm round of applause as we welcome John Brown to the hot seat.
To begin with, why don’t you give the audience a little bit of back ground about yourself. Tell us where you were born and something about your childhood.”
John Brown: “I was born on May ninth in the year of our Lord 1800. To understand my story, I must first tell you about my father, Owen. As a child during the Revolution, his father, John Brown, was away fighting in the Revolution and Owen found himself handling a lot of the responsibilities around the home. During the day he worked in the fields alongside a slave, from Guinea, named Sam. Sam used to carry my father on his back and my father grew to love him. When Sam died, it was to be the first funeral my dad had ever attended. Because Owen’s dad was gone during the Revolution and Sam stood in as a caring father figure, Sam ended up being the seed of my father’s views about slavery. My dad saw Sam as a mentor and not as a slave or a man of color. After Sam’s death, my father turned to religion for comfort. This was during the same time as the Great Awakening and my father started attending the revivals. During one such revival, my father heard a sermon by the late Reverend Jonathan Edwards where he stated that slavery was a cardinal sin against God. After hearing this sermon, his attitude towards slavery was cemented. The final incident that caused my father to become active in the antislavery movement then occurred. A preacher by the name of Mr.
In the biography Fiery Vision, The Life and Death of John Brown by Clinton Cox, I noticed that John Brown spent more time fighting for slavery than with his family. In finding this, I was very intrigued to learn that someone would fight for something he believes in so much rather than be with his family in time of need. I think that he spent too much time on the cause. Slavery is in fact wrong but to me, family would come first. Brown's family struggled to survive and only saw him every so often, but he did write to his family all the time. On one of his visits, before Brown was really involved in the fight for slavery, he told his second wife Mary Anne Day to "consider herself a widow," and for his children to be "committed to the care of Him who fed the ravens." I think Brown was telling his wife not to get her hopes up of him coming home to her. John Brown loved his family so much, but rarely spent time with them. When he did get to see them, he was a true father. Brown always sang, "Blow Ye the Trumpet Blow" to his family. John, Jr. one of his sons, said ."..For thirty years there was a baby in the house, and he sang us all to sleep...with that same hymn." Brown raised his family around church and required them to worship in the cabin every morning. If Brown loved his family so much why did he leave them? To fight a greater cause, slavery.
In the time frame that Swifts’ A Modest Proposal was written Ireland was going through political, economic, and religious struggles. In 1729 England had contrived, with the help of Irish venality, to wreck Ireland’s merchant marine, agriculture, and wool industry. Prostitutes in Swift’s paper are having kids like senseless people, but yet they can’t afford to feed them. Jonathan Swift proposes that his people should sell the babies and eat them. He thinks this would help solve the problem of over population. Swift tried to give his people pamphlets on how to fix the problem that was plaguing their country, but they ignored them. Swift says “These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants.”(1) Swift proposes that the mothers sell the babies for 8 shillings; the rich would find the child to be a delicacy and the extra money would go to the landlord. So everyone would benefit from this proposal. He does this as a way of making his people aware of what is going on in their
This gives the readers a form of trust in the author, his sources seem dependable and improves Horwitz understanding of the subject he’s talking about. One of the sources he uses is a poem by Langston Hughes, a poem that addressed black Americans and John Brown’s raid. Hughes describes John Brown as a hero when he states, “Took twenty-one companions, white and black, went to shoot your way to freedom…”(Horwitz,2011,p.937). This primary sources is used to identify the type of person John Brown is viewed as. There are authors who speak differently of John Brown and this is proven in the following two monographs. The novel “Fire from the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown” by Louis A. DeCaro reveals Brown’s roots in Puritan abolitionism and theorizes that Brown’s reasoning for the raid was because of his religious preferences. The second novel is Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America by Evan Carton. Here, in this monograph the author makes it very clear that John Brown fought for slaves because he truly cared for one to have equal rights. The previous historiographies differ in believing why John Brown proceeded in fighting for the slaves. However, they do share a similarity in explaining Brown’s early life and all three authors do favor John Brown’s
“I act from a principle,” and “I say, break the law” are not only the names of two out of the five parts in this book, but the words by which John Brown lived so passionately everyday. At earlier times in his life he lived by his sword as well. The Sword and the Word illustrates John Brown’s own ideas and intentions and how he lived by them. A main issue of this book is that truly a man of his word who believed that morals should outweigh the law of the land, John Brown lived and died for the abolition of slavery and did as much if not more for that cause than many other slaves or free men.
The main point that McIntosh is pushing forward is that both whites and males have certain advantages. McIntosh says that “white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets” (605). White privilege are these advantages that white people receive just for being white. They didn’t earn any of the privilege other than being born with the right skin tone. She also recognizes them as being “invisible”. They don’t realize that they have this advantage over everyone else.
Charles Brockden Brown, famous as the first professional American writer, was an inventive creator of novels, stories, pamphlets and journal articles. His life extended from 1771-1810, over some of the most significant periods of American history. He came from a Quaker community of Philadelphia, a very intellectually and politically active city. Not surprisingly, Brown was “swept up in a strong current of challenges to traditional authority” (Watts: 51). He was heavily influenced by the thought of his time, notably Godwin, Wollstonecraft, French Revolutionary thinkers and the American “disciples” of Locke (Clark:110). Much of his political writing addressed specific situations, though Brown also held very strong beliefs on government and power generally: “[Law] is the shortest and safest road to the possession of power, and power must be desirable by bad men for its own sake, and by good men for the sake of the beneficial employment of it” (The Rhapsodist: 108). Due to this focus on legislative power, Brown’s political writings are intensely critical of the Jefferson government and its actions. “He is a moralist, and extractor of lessons from specific incidents, not a pointer of people in action” (Warfel: X).
Back in the day, African Americans were considered as slaves. They were degraded, tortured, beaten, and was also known to be illiterate. A man by the name of William Wells Brown was a runaway slave who became very intelligent over the course of time. Brown was born to an African American slave woman named Elizabeth and a white man in Lexington, Kentucky in the year of 1814. After being enslaved for almost twenty years, this courageous man decided to make a run for his freedom. His escape was successful. He did work on a steamboat for a couple of years to remain low-key. Later on in life, Brown moved to the city of Buffalo. He was married by this time and had become a major part of society. He participated in the abolitionist movement. The abolitionist movement was a way for slaves and others who were against slavery to try to get rid of slavery. William Brown travelled to spread his inputs and thoughts. Some places included Cuba and Haiti. Because Brown was so active in the movement, people were threatening anyone who was apart of it. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and a group of
In the years of my life, I’ve been known by multiple other names, Nelson Hawkins, Isaac Smith, Old Osawatomie Brown, Old Man Brown, Captain Brown, but largely by my own. I am John Brown. You can call me a “radical abolitionist”, for my dedication to ending slavery. Others call me persistent. I have never been one to quit, I’ve reached as far as possible to make my goals happen. My most famous words were my last; “I, JOhn Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land, will never be purged away, but with blood. I had now as I think; vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.” It means that our country, America, has seen sin and won’t ever fully recover on its own, but with war, the wrongs of slavery will soon fade. We will see peace as a country, but it may take sacrifice.
John Brown, a abolitionist, believed that the use of violence was necessary to end slavery unlike most pacifist abolitionists. Brown resorted to violence on several occasions in his mission to destroy slavery. He organized a small army of slavery opposers, which included many of his family members and relatives to carry out his mission. For instance, Brown and his men attacked the pro-slavery settlers in Pottawatomie Creek during the "Bleeding Kansas" period of violent tension between anti-slavery free staters and slavery supporters. Brown and his men murdered five pro-slavery settlers in Pottawatomie Creek. Brown and his small army also attacked the federal armory in 1859 at Harpers Ferry in Virginia, and took control of the armory. Brown
I would re-review the case to finally determine that John Brown was not being traitorous against the government. He was going against the law to fix what he believed was wrong. He wasn't in it for personal gain. Brown was a true idealist. I was always raised to fight for what I believe in, however wrong in the methods he was, I would still give him the chance to explain himself to a jury.
This essay will have no value unless the reader understands that Swift has written this essay as a satire, humor that shows the weakness or bad qualities of a person, government, or society (Satire). Even the title A Modest Proposal is satirical. Swift proposes using children simply as a source of meat, and outrageous thought, but calls his propo...
This essay by Jonathan Swift is a brutal satire in which he suggests that the poor Irish families should kill their young children and eat them in order to eliminate the growing number of starving citizens. At this time is Ireland, there was extreme poverty and wide gap between the poor and the rich, the tenements and the landlords, respectively. Throughout the essay Swift uses satire and irony as a way to attack the indifference between classes. Swift is not seriously suggesting cannibalism, he is trying to make known the desperate state of the lower class and the need for a social and moral reform in Ireland.
During the eighteenth century, Jonathan Swift was distributing pamphlets around Ireland in hopes of promoting intellectual growth in his homeland. As he noticed this was not making an impact, he decided to address the problems in Ireland with a different approach. Jonathan Swift took to paper and constructed “A Modest Proposal”, a satirical piece that proposes a humorous solution to the social, economic, and political problems in Ireland. Swift’s proposal suggests that babies who are born to poor families become a source of food for public, which benefits Ireland by reducing the overpopulation and adding to the food supply. In “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift uses satire to draw attention to his argument that the problems in Ireland are greatly affecting his homeland; in doing so, he portrays the themes of class division, suffering, and greed.
Jonathan Swift in his essay, "A Modest Proposal" suggests a unique solution to the problem concerning poor children in Ireland. Swift uses several analytical techniques like statistics, induction, and testimony to persuade his readers. His idea is admirable because he suggests that instead of putting money into the problem, one can make money from the problem. However, his proposal is inhumane.
English is not my first language, so, it confuse me on how I am going to present myself in front of other people. It is confusing because I always think what my audience wants to hear from me and what kind of things I have to share with them. Do I have to tell them where I work, my hobbies, about my life, or just tell them whatever I want to tell them?