John Brown Failures

John Brown led a midnight attack on the pro-slavery settlement as retaliation for the raid that caused the death of two and destruction of a hotel and two printing presses; five people were killed by Brown and his following; Brown's sons and their

Some may say that John Brown actually helped the gain of Lincoln’s presidency. His actions increased the Republican’s party’s chance of winning. Even after Lincoln was elected president, John Brown continued to shine. He managed to shake an image of insurrection in the minds of many of the South and North. In addition, he polarized the two dividing sections. Some saw Brown as a terrorist, whereas others saw him as a hero. His ideas where quarreled upon and talked about by many. With the Harper’s Ferry attack being the most prominent, his acts didn’t go away unnoticed. People, particularly in the North, began to see the big possibility of the North taking substantial measures to overthrow slavery. John Brown took abolitionism to higher degree that no other abolitionist took before. With his use of destructive protesting, a legitimate conclusion can be made that John Brown helped speed up the Civil War by wasting no time to take extreme action about abolishing slavery. If John Brown had not done his doings, the seriousness of slavery wouldn’t have been taken as quickly as it

John Brown was an extreme abolitionist that lived in the mid 1800’s. John Brown and his group were against the idea of slavery, and in the end, John Brown would end up giving his life to try and stop it. John Brown is known for taking a “small army of 18 men into the small town of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. [Also, he took] the arms and ammunition in the federal arsenal” (Document A). In this raid, John and his group killed many people, and some were even innocent.

“John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was a radical abolitionist from the United States, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery for good. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. He was tried and executed for treason against the

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

On the night of May 24th and early morning of May 25th, Brown murdered civilians because they were pro-slavery. Late in the evening of May 24th, Brown and his party ordered James P. Doyle out of his home along with his two adult sons, William and Drury. They were escorted into the darkness and killed with broadswords. Then, they made their way to the house of Allen Wilkinson, ordered him out, and slashed and stabbed him to death. After midnight, on the morning of the 25th, they pushed their way into James Harris’ house.

He led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859, hoping to arm enslaved people and start a revolt. However, the raid failed, and Brown was captured and later executed. Brown's actions were controversial then, but he is remembered as a martyr for the abolitionist cause. Like the story of John Brown, many other people like Martin L. King, Ralph Emerson, and Elizabeth Stanton

In the article by Brendan January, he states what John Brown was trying to accomplish with his acts, “Brown rose from his seat and declared that he would spend the resto fhis life trying to destroy slavery” (January 3). Aboloshing salvery was John Brown’s life goal, because he strongly believed everyone had the same right to be free. If Brown was not recognized for his brave actions, the severety of slavery may not have been as strongly noticed. He was eventually killed for his decision on trial, and was a martyr for our country. Brown’s death upset many people because he was only doing what he thought was

Those who think of Brown as a villain say that he tries to the slaves to rebellion. “Brown first revealed his plans to incite slave insurrection in the South to Frederick Douglass when the famous African-American abolitionist visited his Springfield, Massachusetts hone in November 1847.” (Linder 2) The slaves rebelled on their own and not by the command of anyone. John Brown takes down the lives of the slave owners, for they have innocent blood at their hands.

Brown commanded forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie during the conflict of Kansas. Brown and his antislavery men killed five proslavery men in Pottawatomie. Brown led an unsuccessful raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. During the raid in 1859, he captured the armory. Seven

According to Gilbert, “on many occasions Brown expressed his solid belief that society, particularly a society that would embrace slavery, was sick beyond its own cure.” (589) Brown believed that the United States was incapable of reforming itself by abolishing slavery; therefore, Brown gave up on all public policy reforms and legal remedies regarding slavery. Secondly, “as to the terroristic belief that violent government can only be overcome by violence, Brown’s convictions were preserved for posterity by a note he handed to a jailer while being led to the gallows.” (589) Gilbert argues that Brown’s beliefs and actions reflected his morality in which served to justify numerous crimes and multiple homicides. Brown’s actions conform to the definition of terrorism as Brown’s arrogant and insensitive attitude led to reasonable rationalizations for his reckless behavior. In fact, Brown demonstrated a guilt-free conscience on many occasions and rationalized his violent behaviors with moral and religious conviction. For example, Brown, along with eight other men, kidnapped and murdered five Kansans in which they were brutally hacked to death by repeated sword blows. Brown believed that the use of violence and terror was the only way to abolish slavery. On May 26, 1856, later on known as the Pottawatomie Massacre, Brown led a small

Throughout history John Brown has been described as a terrorist, mentally ill, and a failure among other things. Because he stood strongly for what he believed in, and his goal was eventually achieved he can be seen for the most part as a hero. Brown was described as “an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans be free” (Chowder,6). Brown was a headstrong abolitionist who claimed that he was told by God to end slavery causing him to see himself as “a latter-day Moses” (Chowder, 6). With this, he stopped at nothing to fulfill these expectations. Brown’s heroism is displayed through how he was recounted by others during and after his lifetime, the actions though drastic he took when fighting for what he believed in, and

Other northern abolitionists chose to support Brown financially in pursuit of the same goal. Brown’s raid sparked a fear and paranoia that the northern abolitionists were plotting to attack which lead to the torture and lynching of thousands of slaves. (Boyer, pg 419-420) Three years earlier, after the Sack of Lawrence, Brown and seven accomplices killed five men associated with the Lecompton Government. Known as the Pottawatomie Massacre, this attack confirmed the name of “Bleeding Kansas” and successfully created a battleground between the North and the South. (Boyer, pg 412) Brown was eventually tried for murder, slave insurrection and treason where he was convicted and hanged. Although he was not successful in causing any sort of slave revolt, John Brown’s actions resulted in tensions directed towards the Republican Party, northerners and eventually Abraham Lincoln himself. (Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica,“John Brown”) A second influential abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was responsible for gaining the support of many northerners with her antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was said by David Potter that the

John Brown was an African American slave abolitionist who caused much conflict with his radical views to overthrow slavery. One of his many defeats where he tried to defeat slavery with violence was the armed slave rebellion on Harper’s Ferry. “In a speech to the court before his sentencing, Brown stated his actions to be just and God-sanctioned.” Brown lived a life full of dispute; yet it was not until after Harper Ferry where his madness was confirmed. “Brown soon became a hero in the eyes of Northern extremists and was quick to capitalize on his growing reputation.” Brown’s radical abolitionist movements and wicked violent actions on slavery promoted his reputation in the north and were the cherry on the sundae to validate his insanity.

The year was 1850. President Millard Fillmore had signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law, giving southern slave-owners the right to claim slaves they alleged had run away from their property in exchange for the federal government claiming California as a free state. Fillmore would not have signed the act without the pressure created by numerous slave rebellions over the last fifty years, with Nat Turner’s 1831 insurrection in Virginia being one of the most notable. Nevertheless, the law didn’t stop dissidents like John Brown in 1859 or Harriet Tubman from committing civil disobedience: in fact, such actions only strengthened the abolitionist movement and increased the likelihood of a civil war. Some of their supporters identified as transcendentalists, or writers and philosophers who believed that by looking to nature, a divine creation, society could solve its problems. In effect, they believed that because African-Americans were also God’s creatures, they too had agency. Three iconic writers associated with the movement made up for their financial failures as writers to become influential volunteers and activists that educated the American public about the repugnant nature of slavery, effectively rallying them to support their cause and the preservation of the Union.