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Effects of john brown's raid
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Merriam- Webster Dictionary defines hero as “a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities”. Some might argue that John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was the work of a madman; but actually, John Brown is a hero. John Brown was an abolitionist from Torrington, Connecticut who organized a group of outraged northerners and went to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia to raid their arsenal. This ended with Brown being sentenced to death, and his allies being killed during this event. Brown’s goal was to end slavery, which clearly did not happen during his raid on Harper’s Ferry; but this started the Civil War, a war that caused slavery to be outlawed. To some, John Brown’s actions at Harper’s Ferry were extreme. The testimony of Daniel …show more content…
Whalen, the watchman at the gate of Harper’s Ferry that night, may be an unreliable source to consider while determining who John Brown is because of the bad blood between the North and the South, but in his testimony, Whalen recalled that Brown and his men held guns to his head trying to obtain the key to the gate. When Whalen refused to let them inside the arsenal, Whalen was, “nearly scared to death with so many guns about [him]”. This testimony makes it easy to see how Brown was considered a madman to many people, predominantly in the South, because only a madman would act this way. It’s part of the human condition to fall prey to our emotions from time to time, but to succumb to them in such a manner outraged the South. However, Brown’s actions started a national debate over the morals of slavery; a topic Brown cared enough about to die for, which led to it being outlawed in 1865, after the Civil War came to an end. There’s an old song called “John Brown’s Body” which was sung to celebrate John Brown. “He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of our Lord. His soul’s marching on!” is a repeated lyric in this song. Brown becoming “a soldier in the army of our Lord” where “ his soul’s marching on” tells us that people idolized his bravery at Harper’s Ferry and his commitment to freeing slaves, so much so they believed Brown was acting as an accomplice of the Lord. John Brown should be remembered as a hero because he cared enough about slaves to end his life to free theirs.
In his last speech he says, “I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice … I submit; so let it be done.” This is a reliable source because these are John Brown’s words in a speech he wrote while on trial in Virginia. Brown wasn’t trying to cause a rebellion, or mass casualties, he just wanted to make African Americans free. He felt he was acting as “an instrument in the hands of Providence” according to a New York Herald account of the interrogation of Brown. As a northern abolitionist, he felt that he was doing what was morally right and didn’t think twice about ending his life for …show more content…
it. Because he instigated the Civil War with his raid on Harper’s Ferry, John Brown should be considered a hero.
Some believed that the issue of slavery would be resolved with compromises and congressional meetings, but John Brown knew that this moral injustice would only be solved with bloodshed. It’s reported that Brown was silent at the gallows the day of his execution, however, he gave a note to one of the guards which read as follows: “I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” Brown accepted his punishment, and knew that thousands of others would have the same fate as him fighting over slavery. Unlike many political leaders, Brown assumed that the issue of slavery would cause a large conflict. Although he didn’t directly cause the end of slavery, Brown was a major factor that indirectly ended it. The Civil War, a grueling war spread over the span of four years, led the 13th Amendment being passed into law in 1865 which abolished slavery all together. After the Civil war came to an end, Frederick Douglas looked back on the raid at Harper’s Ferry and said, “Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him..” John Brown’s extreme empathy reached much farther than most other people’s; and embodied many characteristics that contributed to his
raid on Harper’s Ferry. For example, Douglas was an African American abolitionist, and he believed that Brown’s determination truly reached far greater than his. Considering the time period, this statement released by Frederick Douglas is extremely meaningful, and can stand as a symbol for unity between these two races. To conclude, John Brown must be remembered as a hero. His ruthless determination to achieve what is morally just proves this. Brown went much farther than most others in this time period would to correct the wrongdoings of his fellow Americans. Many might consider Brown a madman, but the repercussions of his actions prove otherwise. Without Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry forcing the North and the South to reconsider a law that most other countries abolished hundreds of years earlier, America may have tabled this issue for a couple more decades. His undying bravery to do right by African Americans in the late 1800’s is inspirational.
Since John Brown went through his death sentence so bravely, I believe that this could have been his purpose from the beginning, not to prompt a slave revolution but to be finished and hence, sacrifice himself to the root. If this is true, then he placed the lives of twenty-three other people in danger which consisted of sixteen people that were slaughtered in the invasion, one passed away from a disease while waiting for his trial, six that were hung for their contribution to the raid and as well as the deaths of Brown’s two sons.
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.
Many Northern abolitionists, including Frederick Jackson, were ashamed of Brown. Most Northern abolitionists were pacifists and tried to emancipate slaves using newspapers, rallies, cartoons, and literature. Moderates on both sides also disliked Brown and his actions. Men like Abraham Lincoln, who wanted to preserve the Union at all costs, felt like Brown’s drastic actions would serve only to be yet another reason for Southerners to secede. As history shows us, Lincoln was right. Harpers Ferry convinced many Southerners that they could not live in peace nor safety as long as Northern abolitionists kept questioning their “peculiar institution” and pulling stunts like these, so they wanted to secede, almost like how certain people in the North had tried to leave society to create their own “utopias”. It appears that the only people who liked what Brown did were indeed the Transcendentalist writers in the Northeast who sought to leave society. As Davidson and Lytle point out, many historians think of the raid on Harpers Ferry as one of the most significant triggers to the Civil War.
John Brown should be remembered as a villain and a hero because he took armed possession of the federal arsenal and launch a massive slave insurrection to free the nation’s 4 million slaves.
John Brown was a man who lived in the mid eighteen-hundreds and who fought against the evil of slavery. He had a very strong belief that slavery was unjust, and this is true, but he thought that in order to abolish slavery, violence would be the best method. That’s where he went wrong. John Brown led two attacks on slave owners and those who supported slavery, the first at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas on May 24th, 1856, and the second at Harper Ferry, Virginia on October 16th, 1859. At Pottawatomie Creek, joined by seven others, Brown brutally hacked to death five men with sabers. These men supported slavery but weren’t even slave owners themselves. On October 16th, 1859, Brown led 21 men on another raid on Harpers Ferry attempting to take possession of the U.S. arsenal and use the weapons in a revolt against slave owners, gathering up an army of slaves as he made his way south. Brown’s attacks were not in self-defense, they were heinous acts of revenge upon slave owners, and therefore his attack had no justification.
Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry affected American culture more than can ever be understood. Tension between the North and South was building in the 1850's. Slavery among many other things was dividing the country into two sections. Brown was executed on December 2, 1859 for his murderous out-lash on society. Was his mind so twisted and demented that he would commit cold-blooded murder? The answer is no. John Brown was a man with a goal and a purpose. When he said that abolition could not be achieved without blood he was right. It is one of histories great ironies; John Brown's struggle preceded the Civil War by only 17 months. Thousands of people were killed in the Civil War, yet John Brown is still looked on as a criminal. He was not a criminal but a hero, fighting for what was right. He was a man ahead of his time.
Webster’s dictionary defines a hero as any man admired for his courage, qualities or exploits, especially in war. Some people attribute the term hero mostly to war. My personal definition of a hero is someone who takes a stand against evil or an unjust cause. The term hero can be applied to anyone, it isn’t necessary to save the world from explosion to be a hero. The act of standing up for a friend can also be called a heroic act.
Who is a hero? In contemporary times, usage of the term has become somewhat of a cliché. Over the years, the term “hero” has become representative of a wide variety of individuals, each possessing differing traits. Some of the answers put forth by my colleagues (during our in-class discussion on heroism) as to whom they consider heroes pointed to celebrities, athletes, teachers and family members. Although the occupations differed, each of their heroes bore qualities that my classmates perceived as extraordinary, whether morally or physically. Nonetheless, Webster’s defines “hero” as “a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities.” Thus, it is worth considering that individuals become heroes relative to the situation with which they’re faced.
What makes a hero or a villain? A hero is defined as a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life. By this definition, there existed countless heroes in America during the 1800’s with relation to slavery. There were many abolitionists, particularly from the North, that exhibited courageous attitudes. It was these heroes that taught the southerners, who believed their lives could only prevail if slavery survived and expanded westward, what they knew was morally right (3, 92). John Brown is one abolitionist who stands out amongst the rest and has been noted as one of the most important men in the process of abolishing slavery. It was Brown’s work that sparked the revolts and fighting that would occur between the North and the South after his time. Brown can be considered a hero on account of his actions in Kentucky and Virginia.
In 1856 the same group attacked the Kansas territory where Brown and his family resided, which much like anyone would he saw as a threat and attacked in revenge killing 5 pro-slavery activists. Not much later the activists retaliated killing Browns son (Utter 1883). Brown and a group of men planned to go to Harpers Ferry, Virginia and seize the U.S arsenal. His plan was funded by various wealthy northern abolitionists and on October 16, 1859 his plan started to come into action. After the two-day battle back and forth between Browns men and the U.S Marines, seventeen people had died and Brown was arrested and put to trial, which led to the jury decision on November 2, 1859 for him to be hanged for murder and treason. Brown was from there on known as the first white man to die for an Africans freedom. He was called an abolitionist martyr for the sake of freedom. Browns deep roots of religion are one of the most obvious reasons for his actions. Slavery was an unjust system taking away basic God given rights of life, liberty, and happiness. Being a follower of Christ means that you devote yourself to teaching and living by Gods design, so when he was taught that this action was against the God he so loved how could he stand for it? When he was brought up under religion and firm discipline of course he would see it as unjust when he was exposed to the white
John Brown was an American abolitionist, born in Connecticut and raised in Ohio. He felt passionately and violently that he must personally fight to end slavery. This greatly increased tension between North and South. Northern mourned him as a martyr and southern believed he got what he deserved and they were appalled by the north's support of Brown. In 1856, in retaliation for the sack of Lawrence, he led the murder of five proslavery men on the banks of the Pottawatomie River. He stated that he was an instrument in the hand of God. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured. Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859. He became a martyr for many because of the dignity and sincerity that he displayed during his popular trial. Before he was hanged he gave a speech which was his final address to the court that convicted him. And he was thankful to Bob Butler for letting him send that text in electronic form. "This court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to the instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. 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 not wrong but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingles my blood further with the blood of my children and 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://members.
A hero is simply someone who makes sacrifices to help others, and they’re highly respected, a world changer. There are different types of heroes all over the world. The hero is Nat Turner. Nat Turner is a very independent, strong person who fought for what he believed in to change the world for slaves and African Americans. According to (google source) Turner was born into slavery on October 2nd 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia.
On October 16, 1859 , a Sunday, the time that John Brown usually commenced a Bible reading to start the day. Brown was a man that had dedicating himself to funding anti-slavery campaigns and was prepared to use any methods necessary to secure victory to be rid of slavery. One of his first moves against pro-slavery actions was the raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown had his plan staged out, he had ordered his men to detain anyone who spotted them. Luckily for Brown, they swiftly came to the bridge over the Potomac River and detained the bridge's guard, William Williams. Then came the misstep, the Ohio-Baltimore train had arrived and Brown stopped the train and out of all the chaos Browns, men killed the night
John Brown was standing against all odds to stand up for African-American slaves and their freedom even if that meant going against the government. He was a hero because he was able to help and free slaves. John Brown was the focal point of violence in many battles with the government to get slaves free but what may be overlooked is that he had saved slaves without violence. In Brown's last speech at
You also don’t have to kill anyone, conquer foreign land, or risk your life to be a hero. Anyone who influences anyone else by saving or helping save his or her lives is a hero. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the lives of millions of people by bringing justice to minorities. Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest heroes, led a nonviolent revolution to free his country.