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Slavery view mid 1800s
Slavery view mid 1800s
Southern perspective on slavery
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John Brown was an anti-slavery renowned abolitionist in the mid-1800’s. He was famous, or in other’s opinions infamous, for his violent roles in the Pottawattamie Massacre and the Raid on Harpers Ferry. He got his anti-slavery ways from his father. His first attempts to end slavery failed, but when he heard about “Bleeding Kansas”, he and his sons went to fight for a free, anti-slave country. His sons died heroically, and he was hung. I believe John Brown was a martyr who was fighting for an important cause. John Brown was born around the 1800’s in Connecticut. His strong hate for slavery probably is rooted from his Calvinist father. When Brown could take action he did, he believed that God’s words led him. His first attempts at putting a halt to slavery failed, so he knew he had to bite back stronger than ever. Therefore, innocent pro-slavery blood had to be spilled to grab the attention of slaves, plantation owners, and slave supporters. It was the only way. The uproar that his violent acts caused was devastating, I would say he started the Civil War. …show more content…
John Brown believed that God himself had told him to abolish slavery.
He knew eventually he would die, either a hero or a traitor in people’s minds. But he also knew he would “die in faith” because he believed his actions were “God’s will”. He did not feel “degraded by my imprisonment, my chains, or prospect of the Gallows”, quoted in a letter to his friend Reverend H. l. Vaill. He even finished the letter cheerfully stating, “I send, through you, my best wishes to Mrs. W I and her son George, and to all dear friends.” John Brown knew that something had to be done about slavery in the South. I believe that if Brown wouldn’t have made such bold, strong actions, slavery may still be here
today. Some people believe Brown to be a terrorist. A man who wasn’t quite right in the head, and impulsively made decisions to take innocent lives of innocent people. They forget to bring up the fact that ever since he was a boy, he hated slavery. Taking after his father, he knew it had to be put to an end. He had tried time and time again to take action, but his actions were not strong enough to grab the attention of pro-slave population. Quoted on December 2nd, 1859 he stated, “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of the guilty, land will never be purged away; but with Blood.” Basically he was saying the only way this cruel way of life can finally be put to an end, is with bloodshed. He started the civil war, but in the larger scheme of things he ended slavery, for the better. John Brown wanted to make a change ever since he was a child. Slavery was one of the cruelest, most devastating acts in history. Brown was a strong, noble man who knew that slavery must be ended, for good. His acts were extreme and almost unfair to the innocent, but the attention had to be snagged with a terrible price. The civil war was one of the bloodiest and most deranged wars in all of history. Brown made a change that affected the rest of time in an amazing way.
Brown had his mind made up to travel on the pathway to Harpers Ferry right when he was born and believed he is the only one that has to lead this battle. His parents were passionate Calvinists who taught their children to view life as an endless fight contrary to evil. The battle of John Brown was on a more personal level where he remembered a memory when he was five years old and his mother whipped him for stealing a vast amount of brass pins. In addition, the battle was somewhat on a political point as well because Brown and his family considered that the sincere had to be spectators against the bad people in America. They assumed that the biggest evil during their time has to be none other than the establishment of slavery. Therefore, the father of John Brown replaced their family residence in northeast Ohio into a stop on the Underground Railroad and made his son into a dedicated abolitionist. Brown’s developing participation in the movement in the 1830s and ’40s made him set his commitment as well as the rising nationwide fight over slavery’s position in a country supposedly devoted to equal opportunity. During this era, abolition...
The fact that he never wanted the South to break away from the United States as it would a decade after his death, his words and life's work made him the father of secession. In a very real way, he started the American Civil War. Slavery was the foundation of the antebellum South. More than any other characteristic, it defined Southern social, political, and cultural life. It also unified the South as a section distinct from the rest of the nation. John C. Calhoun, the South's recognized intellectual and political leader from the 1820s until his death in 1850, devoted much of his remarkable intellectual energy to defending slavery. He developed a two-point defense. One was a political theory that the rights of a minority section in particular, the South needed special protecting in the federal union. The second was an argument that presented slavery as an institution that benefited all involved. John C. Calhoun's commitment to those two points and his efforts to develop them to the fullest would assign him a unique role in American history as the moral, political, and spiritual voice of Southern separatism.
Douglass and Thoreau both felt as though the government as well as society turned a blind eye to the mistreatment of human beings, especially during slavery. He saw freedom being celebrated, but it just reminded him of how so many were willing to continue on not dealing with all of the wrong that had taken place. Regardless of what he saw before him, he refused to forget. Douglass felt that “to forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking,”. Instead, he chose to deal with the subject of American Slavery, in which he brought out the idea of individuals supporting what was wrong rather than what was
In conclusion the election of Lincoln as president in 1860 caused a civil war because it was falsely perceived by the south that Lincoln would threaten the state’s constitutional right to slavery. This false idea was due to a rift between the northern and southern states in both an economic and ideological manner. That is the north was based on industry and generally was opposed to slavery. But the South was an agricultural society which ran on slavery and, due to Nat Turner’s Insurrection and John Brown’s stand at Harper’s Ferry, was fearful of the north’s involvement in the governing of states as well as being opposed to this on the basis of state’s rights. The election of Lincoln caused the south to succeed from the union causing civil war.
. .’, concludes James Oakes’ book with the aftermath of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination. Oakes discussed the respect Douglass gathered for Lincoln over the years and the affect his assassination had on both himself and America as a whole. Oakes even brushed over Douglass’ relationship with Andrew Johnson, the president succeeding Lincoln. Analyzing his experience with the new president, it was safe to say that Andrew Johnson had no consideration as to what Douglass and Lincoln previously fought for. Johnson did not have the same political skills as Lincoln did, and he did not retain the same view for America that Lincoln did. It was obvious that Douglass held Lincoln at a higher standard than Andrew Johnson, stating that he was a “progressive man, a humane man, an honorable man, and at heart an anti-slavery man” (p. 269). Oakes even gave his own stance on Andrew Jackson, “It was a legacy that Andrew Johnson could ever match. When all of Lincoln’s attributes were taken into consideration - his ascent from the obscurity to greatness, his congenial temperament, his moral courage - it was easy for Douglass to imagine how much better things would be ‘had Mr. Lincoln been living today’.” (p. 262). It is hard to imagine the pre-war Douglass to have said something like that as opposed to an older, much more reserved Douglass. With the abolishment of slavery, so came much discrimination. Without
John Brown became a legend of his time. He was a God fearing, yet violent man and slaveholders saw him as evil, fanatic, a murderer, lunatic, liar, and horse thief. To abolitionists, he was noble and courageous. John Brown was born in 1800 and grew up in the wilderness of Ohio. At seventeen, he left home and soon mastered the arts of farming, tanning, and home building.
By trying to trick them, the South rebelled as soon as Lincoln became president and launched what is today known as the Civil War. The secession of the United States was the cause of the Civil War. The Southern Confederates were furious at the Northern Union for trying to abolish slavery. When Lincoln was elected president, he tried to once and for all abolish slavery in the North as well as the West. He tried to contain slavery to its geographical area to keep it from spreading anymore north, but the South erupted in rebellion and eventually went to war against the North in the Civil War.
In Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Chapter 6, he talks about John Brown. He says most textbooks don’t include John Brown’s full story. In high school, I was taught that John Brown was a radical abolitionist who gathered a small army and attempted to lead a slave revolt. He captured a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry to get tools for the slave rebellion he attempted to lead. The slaves didn’t get the memo and he was captured there. They later hung him but he died being known as a martyr. Loewen reinforced all of these ideas. He also said a few things I didn’t know. One thing he said that I didn’t know was why Brown was the person he was. He said because Brown made friends with a black boy early in life, that made him realize that all black people
But his men only saw him trying to start a general slave insurrection. Then after getting caught at the Harper 's Ferry and put in jail he tried to offer a contrary explanation of repeatedly denying his intentions to commit violence or to start a slave rebellion. Brown did this knowing that his death would strengthen the abolitionist movement. Americans soon started to see John Brown as either a calculating insurrectionist, a martyr or as insane. There were also multiple people wrote their opinions on John Brown 's sanity like John Garraty and Allen Nevins, who believed that he was truly insane. But the most remarkable of these writers would be Stephen Oates, who thought that it was unfair to judge Brown 's sanity because if you call him insane “is to ignore the tremendous sympathy he felt for the black man in America.” Overall most of his acquaintances saw Brown 's mental state change after the Pottawatomie killings. Also some people say that Harpers Ferry happened due to his insanity but this idea is denied by most. It was also shown that not only was Brown mentally insane, he was spiritually insane too. He had believed that God personally gave him the mission to end slavery. Also, Governor Wise stated that Brown 's sanity was as much of a Political and legal issue than a medical problem. At the time
By the year of 1860, the North and the South was developed into extremely different sections. There was opposing social, economic, and political points of view, starting back into colonial periods, and it slowly drove the two regions farther in separate directions. The two sections tried to force its point of view on the nation as a whole. Even though negotiations had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the condition was unstable. The presidential election of Abraham Lincoln was observed by the South as a risk to slavery and many believe it initiated the war.
Many causes led to the Civil War. This all happened around the mid 1800s. It was a conflict between the Northern and Southern states. Both sides had their own view on slavery, and their separate views caused contentions between the two. Both had different views on whether to expand or stop slavery growth to the West, or have slavery at all.
One critical event leading up to the Civil War was The Raid of John Brown. John Brown had the need to inspire slaves to break free because he thought they didn’t deserve to be held captive. He knew that slaves wouldn’t have the courage without someone with white power helping them. Brown decided he would be the one to inspire the slaves to break away. In Harper’s Ferry, VA, there was a raid on the Federal Arsenal completed by abolitionist. The abolitionist invaded the Federal Arsenal for all of the weapons. The weapons would be used to fight the south and free slaves.
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.
Brown became obsessed with the idea of taking overt action to help win justice for
86 years old, passed away at the Overlook Massachusetts Health Center on Wednesday, March 7,1875 from a brief flu illness. He was born on February 10, 1789 in Salem, Massachusetts.