As I've come to read some about Brown, I've started to question my view of him. He's always been portrayed as a crazy fanatic that was off his rocker but I read Frederick Douglasses third autobiography and he humanized him and made him out to be a calm and balanced person. Is this persona part of a hit piece on his legacy or is there verifiable proof that he was a lunatic?
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John Brown and His Crazy
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Last: 5 yr ago by BQ78
As I've come to read some about Brown, I've started to question my view of him. He's always been portrayed as a crazy fanatic that was off his rocker but I read Frederick Douglasses third autobiography and he humanized him and made him out to be a calm and balanced person. Is this persona part of a hit piece on his legacy or is there verifiable proof that he was a lunatic?
That is a question I have wondered many times myself.
I taught American lit and I always covered Brown when I talked about the Transcendentalists. Thoreau was a staunch defender of Brown and delivered speeches and wrote essays on his behalf.
Brown defended his actions by quoting from the Bible.
It is commonly accepted that Brown and some of his followers murdered some pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, but there was a lot of that going around.
I think Brown's position could be paraphrased as, You call me crazy, but we live in a society in which God's children are kept as work animals. What could be more crazy than that? They should be freed by any means necessary.
To me, Brown is similar to someone who is so opposed to abortion that he kills others in order to end it.
I found this excellent essay on Brown. It is supposedly a review of David Reynolds' massive biography on Brown (2005) but in fact becomes a long rumination on the meaning of Brown and his fixed obsession. Well worth a read.
I taught American lit and I always covered Brown when I talked about the Transcendentalists. Thoreau was a staunch defender of Brown and delivered speeches and wrote essays on his behalf.
Brown defended his actions by quoting from the Bible.
It is commonly accepted that Brown and some of his followers murdered some pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, but there was a lot of that going around.
I think Brown's position could be paraphrased as, You call me crazy, but we live in a society in which God's children are kept as work animals. What could be more crazy than that? They should be freed by any means necessary.
To me, Brown is similar to someone who is so opposed to abortion that he kills others in order to end it.
I found this excellent essay on Brown. It is supposedly a review of David Reynolds' massive biography on Brown (2005) but in fact becomes a long rumination on the meaning of Brown and his fixed obsession. Well worth a read.
Many radical Abolitionists in the north were the really crazy ones. Some believed in genocide of southern whites; others believed that up to a third of southern whites should be killed. They purchased rifles for paramilitary Abolitionists in Kansas as well concealed in crates of Bibles.OldArmy71 said:
That is a question I have wondered many times myself.
I taught American lit and I always covered Brown when I talked about the Transcendentalists. Thoreau was a staunch defender of Brown and delivered speeches and wrote essays on his behalf.
Brown defended his actions by quoting from the Bible.
It is commonly accepted that Brown and some of his followers murdered some pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, but there was a lot of that going around.
I think Brown's position could be paraphrased as, You call me crazy, but we live in a society in which God's children are kept as work animals. What could be more crazy than that? They should be freed by any means necessary.
To me, Brown is similar to someone who is so opposed to abortion that he kills others in order to end it.
I found this excellent essay on Brown. It is supposedly a review of David Reynolds' massive biography on Brown (2005) but in fact becomes a long rumination on the meaning of Brown and his fixed obsession. Well worth a read.
Quote:
The antebellum United States was a deeply unstable formation, suffused with the symbolic and physical traces of the Revolutionary War and, government officials feared, teetering on the verge of anarchy.
------
Sex radicalism, experiments in communal living, and free love were prominent within the broader terrain of anti-slavery, labor, anarchist, and feminist activism in the nineteenth century. Yet histories of abolition have long sanitized the movement, overlooking the extent to which anti-slavery activists were often also involved with movements to abolish marriage and dismantle heteropatriarchy. Indeed, abolitionists and other reformists were often discredited in the press for their fanaticism and for their reputation as "queers."
-------
...when (radical Abolitionist) Fanny Wright left Nashoba, she put a cruel and abusive overseer-type in charge. He whipped black residents, coerced them into plantation labor, and fueled a culture of sexual terror. Here, the transformation of an idyllic agricultural paradise into a racial dystopia is a reminder of the disingenuity with which some communal experiments sought to fulfill and extend the American experiment. The sadism of Wright's inheritor also reveals the continuity between the (white) commune and the plantation, as a space that gave free reign to white libertinism, sadism, and the exploitation of black flesh.
http://bostonreview.net/race/britt-rusert-radical-lives-abolitionists
“If you’re going to have crime it should at least be organized crime”
-Havelock Vetinari
-Havelock Vetinari
The abolitionists were an extension of Puritanism, which has always been an evil and destructive force, both in England and in North America. The militant abolitionists in Kansas were largely New Englanders, and received a lot of their funding etc from Massachussetts. Puritans, abolitionists etc. are iconoclasts, they seek to annhilate (literally and in terms of historical memory) the lives and symbols of their enemies. There is no limiting principle on their ideology, and in that way are a western version of ISIS or salafism in Islam. The worst tyrants are those who inflict evil with the approval of their own conscience etc.
John Brown was a wicked man whose belief in his own righteousness led him into becoming a murderer.
(My screen name is strictly sports related)
John Brown was a wicked man whose belief in his own righteousness led him into becoming a murderer.
(My screen name is strictly sports related)
Most of the abolitionists were from New England, but most of them were Unitarians and Transcendentalists, not Puritans.
My understanding is that the actual theology had moved on by the 19th century (there weren't significant numbers of "Puritans" in the 17th century sense left by that time) but we're essentially talking about the same people and the heirs to the same current of political thought.OldArmy71 said:
Most of the abolitionists were from New England, but most of them were Unitarians and Transcendentalists, not Puritans.
Fortunately they went whole hog for secularization and contraception and have largely bred themselves out of existence in our own time. Walking down a street in Beacon Hill in Boston and looking for "brahmin" Yankees would be like expecting to find Carthaginians in Tunisia. I suppose their spirit lives on left wing politics but these people aren't really with us any longer. I hope the southerners will persist in some form.
And to think I saw a pic shot in San Fran of mock gallows hanging the descendants of slave owners. The Spirit of John Brown lives on in the radical loons in Antifa and BLMUTExan said:Many radical Abolitionists in the north were the really crazy ones. Some believed in genocide of southern whites; others believed that up to a third of southern whites should be killed. They purchased rifles for paramilitary Abolitionists in Kansas as well concealed in crates of Bibles.OldArmy71 said:
That is a question I have wondered many times myself.
I taught American lit and I always covered Brown when I talked about the Transcendentalists. Thoreau was a staunch defender of Brown and delivered speeches and wrote essays on his behalf.
Brown defended his actions by quoting from the Bible.
It is commonly accepted that Brown and some of his followers murdered some pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, but there was a lot of that going around.
I think Brown's position could be paraphrased as, You call me crazy, but we live in a society in which God's children are kept as work animals. What could be more crazy than that? They should be freed by any means necessary.
To me, Brown is similar to someone who is so opposed to abortion that he kills others in order to end it.
I found this excellent essay on Brown. It is supposedly a review of David Reynolds' massive biography on Brown (2005) but in fact becomes a long rumination on the meaning of Brown and his fixed obsession. Well worth a read.Quote:
The antebellum United States was a deeply unstable formation, suffused with the symbolic and physical traces of the Revolutionary War and, government officials feared, teetering on the verge of anarchy.
------
Sex radicalism, experiments in communal living, and free love were prominent within the broader terrain of anti-slavery, labor, anarchist, and feminist activism in the nineteenth century. Yet histories of abolition have long sanitized the movement, overlooking the extent to which anti-slavery activists were often also involved with movements to abolish marriage and dismantle heteropatriarchy. Indeed, abolitionists and other reformists were often discredited in the press for their fanaticism and for their reputation as "queers."
-------
...when (radical Abolitionist) Fanny Wright left Nashoba, she put a cruel and abusive overseer-type in charge. He whipped black residents, coerced them into plantation labor, and fueled a culture of sexual terror. Here, the transformation of an idyllic agricultural paradise into a racial dystopia is a reminder of the disingenuity with which some communal experiments sought to fulfill and extend the American experiment. The sadism of Wright's inheritor also reveals the continuity between the (white) commune and the plantation, as a space that gave free reign to white libertinism, sadism, and the exploitation of black flesh.
http://bostonreview.net/race/britt-rusert-radical-lives-abolitionists
He was a bad man.... You don't send the U.S. Marines to go after a common criminal.
It takes a certain amount of moral disengagement to pull men out of their beds and hack them to death with axes in front of their screaming wives and children.
BQ78 said:
It takes a certain amount of moral disengagement to pull men out of their beds and hack them to death with axes in front of their screaming wives and children.
That's where my brain was going before I saw your post.
Weren't there swords and axes? Or was the sword hacking event a different story that I'm lumping in.
I think it was a combination of weapons but most were custom made broadswords bought and paid for by many of his transcendental NE friends.
I hardly ever get to talk about literature anymore, so I'm including excerpts of the essay Thoreau published based on the speech he gave numerous times defending Brown. This essay reflects the different times that parts were composed (sometimes Brown has not yet been hanged; at other times he is dead).
One of the many things to note here is that Thoreau was not a pacifist, as he is sometimes mistaken for.
One of the many things to note here is that Thoreau was not a pacifist, as he is sometimes mistaken for.
Quote:
He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater as she is. He was not fed on the pap that is there furnished. As he phrased it, "I know no more of grammar than one of your calves." But he went to the great university of the West, where he sedulously pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had early betrayed a fondness, and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. Such were his humanities, and not any study of grammar. He would have left a Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up a fallen man.
When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my townsmen observed that "he died as the fool dieth," which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly that "he threw his life away" because he resisted the government. Which way have they thrown their lives, pray? I hear another ask, Yankee-like, "What will he gain by it?" as if he expected to fill his pockets by this enterprise. Such a one has no idea of gain but in this worldly sense. If it does not lead to a new pair of boots or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. "But he won't get anything by it." Well, no, I don't suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year round; but then he stands a chance to save a considerable part of his soul. No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to. . . .
The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers in the liturgy, provided you will let him go straight to bed and sleep quietly afterward. All his prayers begin with "Now I lay me down to sleep," and he is forever looking forward to the time when he shall go to his "long rest." Accordingly they pronounce John Brown insane, for they know that they could never act as he does.
What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day?
It was John Brown's peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others. Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.
I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. I think that for once the Sharpe's rifles and revolvers were employed in a righteous cause.
It seems as if no man had ever died in America before, for in order to die you must first have lived. Only a half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you are going to die, sir? No! there's no hope of you. We've wholly forgotten how to die. These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live.
I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character--his immortal life. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.
They sent Marines (led by Robert E. Lee, a Lt. Col at the time, IIRC, and seconded by J.E.B. Stuart) because Brown and his crew had stormed and captured a Federal arsenal, making it a Federal issue. The Marines were the closest Federal troops available, and Lee was in Washington (at Arlington, actually) on leave at the time.Rabid Cougar said:
He was a bad man.... You don't send the U.S. Marines to go after a common criminal.
Quiet true and correct about Stuart. You send the every best!Langenator said:They sent Marines (led by Robert E. Lee, a Lt. Col at the time, IIRC, and seconded by J.E.B. Stuart) because Brown and his crew had stormed and captured a Federal arsenal, making it a Federal issue. The Marines were the closest Federal troops available, and Lee was in Washington (at Arlington, actually) on leave at the time.Rabid Cougar said:
He was a bad man.... You don't send the U.S. Marines to go after a common criminal.
I guess I'm curious about the ideas of the abolitionists? Would their rhetoric be any different to the rhetoric we would use against those that would enslave us? Or enslave a portion of our country?
Rhetoric, probably not. Actions, maybe.
BTW, I finally watched that trailer-- it looks terrible.
BTW, I finally watched that trailer-- it looks terrible.
Yeah, it looks awful. Like someone decided to bring Django Unchained to "real" history.
Had 7 children in 10 years of marriage to his first wife.
When she died it took him less than a year to find his second wife of 16 years of age. He was 31. She bore him 13 more kids.
Harpers Ferry Raid.
When she died it took him less than a year to find his second wife of 16 years of age. He was 31. She bore him 13 more kids.
Harpers Ferry Raid.
They don't mention Heyward Sheppard in your link Rabid Cougar.
I'm sure you know, the first victim of the raid killed by Brown and his raiders was Heyward Sheppard a free black man
The UDC monument to him in Winchester is one of the most embattled of this summer and as far as I know it is still there but the leftists really want it gone.
I'm sure you know, the first victim of the raid killed by Brown and his raiders was Heyward Sheppard a free black man
The UDC monument to him in Winchester is one of the most embattled of this summer and as far as I know it is still there but the leftists really want it gone.
What's their beef with a monument to a Free Black Man?
Stive said:
What's their beef with a monument to a Free Black Man?
Who knows what the rules are anymore? And do I care what the rules are?
Not to get too far out there but the whole monument removal push is more about erasing all of American history so that it can be easily replaced. Think Maoist revolution times.Stive said:
What's their beef with a monument to a Free Black Man?
God loves you so much He'll meet you where you are. He also loves you too much to allow to stay where you are.
We sing Hallelujah! The Lamb has overcome!
We sing Hallelujah! The Lamb has overcome!
They say it perpetrates the myth that southern blacks were all loyal to the south and happy in their oppression.
Yep, they did.BQ78 said:
They don't mention Heyward Sheppard in your link Rabid Cougar.
I'm sure you know, the first victim of the raid killed by Brown and his raiders was Heyward Sheppard a free black man
The UDC monument to him in Winchester is one of the most embattled of this summer and as far as I know it is still there but the leftists really want it gone.
"Walking through a heavy rain, they reached the town in darkness, capturing several watchmen and cutting telegraph wires. Hayward Shepherd, a black man who was a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad baggage handler, confronted them and was killed, the first fatality of the raid".
Sorry reading is fundamental, no?
I point no fingers because three would be pointing back at me and the thumb being the thumb would be saying "shut up you dumb a$$"BQ78 said:
Sorry reading is fundamental, no?
They may be right in this case. He was held up as a martyr for opposing Brown, but he was probably just an innocent bystander, not someone who opposed Brown.BQ78 said:
They say it perpetrates the myth that southern blacks were all loyal to the south and happy in their oppression.
Well he was raising an alarm when shot
BQ78 said:
Well he was raising an alarm when shot
My understanding was that he turned to run and was shot. I don't think he lived long enough to determine what he was doing, other than fleeing.
If a pro life person stormed an abortion doctors house and hacked the adult males inside to death with swords, there would be no debate as to whether he was crazy.OldArmy71 said:
That is a question I have wondered many times myself.
I taught American lit and I always covered Brown when I talked about the Transcendentalists. Thoreau was a staunch defender of Brown and delivered speeches and wrote essays on his behalf.
Brown defended his actions by quoting from the Bible.
It is commonly accepted that Brown and some of his followers murdered some pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, but there was a lot of that going around.
I think Brown's position could be paraphrased as, You call me crazy, but we live in a society in which God's children are kept as work animals. What could be more crazy than that? They should be freed by any means necessary.
To me, Brown is similar to someone who is so opposed to abortion that he kills others in order to end it.
I found this excellent essay on Brown. It is supposedly a review of David Reynolds' massive biography on Brown (2005) but in fact becomes a long rumination on the meaning of Brown and his fixed obsession. Well worth a read.
Some accounts say he was raising an alarm as he ran away (primarily the UDC). He was shot when he turned and ran away after being ordered to stop. Actually he died in a lot of pain. He made it back to the station before he collapsed and didn't die until 3 p.m. the next afternoon, several hours after being shot.
It has always been unclear to me why his crew didn't stop at kidnapping the enslaved, why did they also kill the white family?Buck Turgidson said:If a pro life person stormed an abortion doctors house and hacked the adult males inside to death with swords, there would be no debate as to whether he was crazy.OldArmy71 said:
That is a question I have wondered many times myself.
I taught American lit and I always covered Brown when I talked about the Transcendentalists. Thoreau was a staunch defender of Brown and delivered speeches and wrote essays on his behalf.
Brown defended his actions by quoting from the Bible.
It is commonly accepted that Brown and some of his followers murdered some pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, but there was a lot of that going around.
I think Brown's position could be paraphrased as, You call me crazy, but we live in a society in which God's children are kept as work animals. What could be more crazy than that? They should be freed by any means necessary.
To me, Brown is similar to someone who is so opposed to abortion that he kills others in order to end it.
I found this excellent essay on Brown. It is supposedly a review of David Reynolds' massive biography on Brown (2005) but in fact becomes a long rumination on the meaning of Brown and his fixed obsession. Well worth a read.
BTW, Brown's raid on the armory was the first time news was spread by electronics (telegraph) in a big way.
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