While the United States was still deeply divided over slavery, John Brown forced the moral crisis to its boiling point and accelerated the nation on its road to war. Remembered as a martyr, freedom fighter, villain, and madman, his actions are still the subject of historical debate. Today on the HeinOnline Blog, we are examining the life and death of the most important figure in the fight against slavery immediately before the American Civil War, the abolitionist John Brown.

John Brown’s Life before 1855

John Brown was born on May 9, 1800,^[1]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. in Torrington, Connecticut. His father Owen was an abolitionist and a Puritan who instilled both values in his children. When John was about five years old, his father moved his large family to the Ohio frontier, where he operated a tannery.

As a teenager, John Brown studied the Bible in preparation to become a minister, an occupation he never formally assumed. He moved back and forth between New England and Ohio before eventually settling in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, where he operated a successful tannery and farm for ten years.

After Brown sold his farm and tannery in 1836, he and his large family—Brown was now married to his second wife and had fathered seven children of his eventual 20 children—moved around Ohio, but failed to recapture the prosperity they had enjoyed at the tannery. In 1837, sitting in church, Brown learned of the lynching of abolitionist printer Elijah Lovejoy in Illinois. Overcome with emotion, Brown stood up from his pew and proclaimed, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!”^[2]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law.

For the moment, however, John Brown’s most pressing concern was his precarious economic situation, which culminated in him declaring bankruptcy in 1842. Plagued by financial troubles and personal tragedy, with three of his children dying in 1843, the family eventually settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1846. It was here that John Brown’s antislavery views began to grow more militant. In Springfield, Brown attended lectures given by Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. After meeting Brown in 1848, Frederick Douglass described him “as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron rod of slavery.”^[3]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law.

In 1849, Brown moved his family to the Adirondack Mountains after buying land from abolitionist and philanthropist Gerrit Smith. Brown’s neighbors in North Elba were free Black homesteaders who had also benefitted from land grants from Gerrit Smith. In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act.^[4]10 Stat. 277. This law is found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Statutes at Large. John Brown’s appointment with history was set.

John Brown in Bleeding Kansas

The Kansas-Nebraska Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820,^[5]3 Stat. 545 (1820). This law is found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Statutes at Large. which had prohibited slavery in states north of the 36º30′ parallel in return for admitting Missouri to the Union as a slaveholding state. Now, under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, whether a new state would be free or slaveholding would be determined by “popular sovereignty”: the citizens of that territory would chose at the ballot box.

As a result, people flooded into the newly-created Kansas territory to influence its slaveholding destiny. In the spring of 1855, five of John Brown’s adult sons moved to the Kansas territory to fight against “Border Ruffians” from Missouri, or proslavery settlers living in Missouri who crossed into Kansas to intimidate free state settlers. Brown followed his sons later that fall, becoming a captain for a militia of free state settlers. Armed fighting between proslavery and free state settlers broke out across the territory in a grim dress rehearsal for the nation’s Civil War. Lawrence, Kansas, which had been founded by anti-slavery settlers, was sacked by proslavery settlers under the command of the local county sheriff, on May 21, 1856.

This violent period of fighting between pro- and anti-slavery settlers is today remembered as “Bleeding Kansas.”^[6]Jesse Macy, Anti-Slavery Crusade, a Chronicle of the Gathering Storm (1919). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. Bloodshed flowed beyond the Kansas territory borders. The day after the sack of Lawrence, across the country in the United States Senate, Representative Preston Brooks from South Carolina attacked Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts, beating Sumner nearly to death on the Senate floor with a cane. Sumner’s crime had been the speech^[7]Charles Sumner, Recent Speeches and Addresses (1856). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Legal Classics. he had delivered in the Senate two days before, in which he called for Kansas to be immediately admitted to the Union as a free state.

Two days after Brooks’ assault on Sumner, on May 24, Brown and his sons entered the proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. They dragged five proslavery settlers from their beds and hacked them to death with broadswords.^[8]John A. Garraty, Editor, Unforgettable Americans (1960). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. The violence did not abate as summer went on. Brown’s son Frederick^[9]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. was killed on August 30 fighting against proslavery settlers outside the settlement of Osawatomie. Newspaper accounts of John Brown’s fighting at the battles of Black Jack and Osawatomie against much larger proslavery forces^[10]Lawrence Lader, Bold Brahmins: New England’s War against Slavery: 1831-1863 (1973). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. made him famous and infamous back East. With federal warrants for his arrest, Brown left Kansas later that year.

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry

Preparations

John Brown returned east to New England to conduct a sort of hero’s grand tour^[11]Lawrence Lader, Bold Brahmins: New England’s War against Slavery: 1831-1863 (1973). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. among the abolitionist community, giving speeches in churches, lecture halls, and the parlors of New England’s who’s-who throughout 1857. The writer Ralph Waldo Emerson described Brown as “the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no by-ends of his own.”^[12]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. Amos Bronson Alcott, the father of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott, heard Brown speak in Boston and afterwards described him thus: “I thought him equal to anything he should dare: the man to do the deed necessary to be done with the patriotic zeal, the martyr’s temper and purpose.”^[13]Charles A. Madison, Critics and Crusaders (1947). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. While in Boston, Brown was granted a personal audience with Charles Sumner, who was still recovering from Preston Brooks’ attack. Sumner even showed Brown the bloodstained coat^[14]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. he had been wearing at the time.

While Brown toured New England, shaking hands, he was also collecting money from wealthy benefactors for his next fight against slavery. Increasingly frustrated with what he perceived to be the slow, pacifist pace of the mainstream abolitionist movement, Brown believed that slavery could not be abolished without violence. He conceived of a plan to incite a large scale revolt among enslaved people and establish a new, slavery-free United States. The most consequential of his financial backers for this mission would come to be known as “the Secret Six.” They were:

• Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an abolitionist and Unitarian minister
• Samuel Gridley Howe, a doctor and abolitionist
• Theodore Parker, an influential Unitarian minister who counted figures such as Julia Ward Howe and Elizabeth Cady Stanton among his parishioners
• Franklin Benjamin Sanborn,^[15]James C. Malin, John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six (1942). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. journalist and transcendentalist
• Gerrit Smith, the philanthropist who sold Brown his Adirondack farm
• George Luther Stearns, an abolitionist who would later become an important recruiter of Black soldiers during the Civil War

Brown also acquired a cache of weapons,^[16]Lawrence Lader, Bold Brahmins: New England’s War against Slavery: 1831-1863 (1973). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. including rifles, revolvers, ammunition, and six-foot pikes affixed with eight-inch blades that he would use to arm those who joined his rebellion. How much any of his benefactors actually knew about what Brown intended to do with his arms and money is debated. Most of them denied^[17]Charles A. Madison, Critics and Crusaders (1947). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. knowing exactly what Brown was plotting. Brown met with Frederick Douglass and attempted to recruit him^[18]Shirley Graham, There Was Once a Slave: The Heroic Story of Frederick Douglass (1947). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. to his scheme, but Douglass resisted, perhaps seeing the ultimate futility in Brown’s plan. Brown traveled extensively, through New York, Iowa, and Illinois. At the end of 1858, he returned to Kansas, where he liberated 11 enslaved people in Missouri^[19]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. and successfully escorted them 2,500 miles north into Canada.

He also traveled to Chatham, Ontario,^[20]Shirley Graham, There Was Once a Slave: The Heroic Story of Frederick Douglass (1947). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. a town with a sizeable fugitive slave population, where he met Harriet Tubman^[21]R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change (2011). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. and attempted to recruit former enslaved people to his cause. While in Chatham, Brown convened a constitutional convention that would govern the new state he envisioned creating in the Appalachian Mountains, where his volunteer freedom fighters and escaped enslaved people would live. Brown’s provisional constitution laid out the justification for armed raids to dismantle the institution of slavery and make what he saw to be a more perfect Union.

The recent Supreme Court decision referred to by Brown was the infamous Dred Scott decision,^[22]60 U.S. 393. This case is found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Supreme Court Library. which had recently been decided on March 6, 1857, and declared that Black people were not citizens of the United States and were not entitled to the U.S. Constitution’s protections.

As part of his preparations during this time, Brown also rented a farmhouse in Maryland, approximately four miles from Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. In June 1859, John Brown and his recruits, which included three of Brown’s sons, his daughter, and daughter-in-law, settled into the Maryland farmhouse to begin planning their final attack.

The Raid

John Brown hoped to amass an army to back him in his fight against slavery, but he ultimately recruited 22 men,^[23]Elijah Avey, Capture and Execution of John Brown: A Tale of Martyrdom (1906). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. both white and Black, to the cause. His intention was to raid the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and thus incite a revolt among enslaved people throughout the South.

They executed their attack on the night of October 16, crossing the Potomac River into Virginia, cutting telegraph wires to prevent word of their attack from leaving town. Brown’s men easily overpowered the guards posted at the armory and on the nearby railroad. A party of Brown’s men went to the plantation of Colonel Lewis Washington,^[24]Elijah Avey, Capture and Execution of John Brown: A Tale of Martyrdom (1906). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. the great-grandnephew of George Washington, where they captured Col. Washington and freed his enslaved people. An approaching train was stopped by Brown’s men, who had seized control of the rail line, but for some reason the train was allowed to continue on its route several hours later. It was a fatal tactical error. When the train reached a station with a working telegraph, the conductor was able to telegram his superiors about what was happening in Harper’s Ferry. In turn, telegrams were sent to the governor of Virginia and U.S. President James Buchanan, alerting them to the situation.

By the morning of the 17th, armed local citizens and the Virginia militia had surrounded the armory, where Brown, his men, and their hostages were barricaded inside. Two of Brown’s sons, Watson and Oliver, were killed during the standoff. The slave revolt that Brown had hoped to incite never materialized. On the morning of October 18, U.S. Marines under command of Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee^[25]John A. Garraty, Editor, Unforgettable Americans (1960). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf.—who in only a few short years would be the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia—broke into the armory and within minutes captured Brown and six^[26]Lawrence Lader, Bold Brahmins: New England’s War against Slavery: 1831-1863 (1973). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. of his surviving raiders.

Virginia v. John Brown

John Brown was arrested and charged with treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and attempting to incite a slave rebellion. His trial^[27]Steven Lubet, So Perish All Enemies of the Union, 28 Litig., Winter 2002, at 51. This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. was held in Charles Town, Virginia, after it was determined he would not be tried in federal court. Brown had been injured during the retaking of the Harper’s Ferry armory; the trial judge ordered that he be carried into court on a cot.^[28]Steven Lubet, So Perish All Enemies of the Union, 28 Litig., Winter 2002, at 51. This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. Brown’s defense team tried to have him declared insane, but Brown, rising from his cot, rejected the defense, saying, “I am perfectly unconscious of insanity, and I reject, so far as I am capable, any attempt to interfere on my behalf on that score.”^[29]Arthur T. Downey, Civil War Lawyers: Constitutional Questions, Courtroom Dramas, and the Men behind Them (2010). This book is found in a forthcoming HeinOnline collection. His trial commenced on October 27 and ended on October 31. Predictably, John Brown was found guilty of all charges.

At his sentencing on November 2, John Brown rose from his cot to address the court, saying:^[30]Charles A. Madison, Critics and Crusaders (1947). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf.

John Brown was sentenced to hang on December 2. Leaving his cell on his way to the gallows, Brown gave a note to his jailer, which read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away; but with Blood.”^[31]Charles A. Madison, Critics and Crusaders (1947). This book is found in HeinOnline’s Spinelli’s Law Library Reference Shelf. His words were all too prescient. In just two years time, the country would be split and engulfed in a bloody Civil War over the institution of slavery.

John Brown was quickly immortalized in a new marching song spun up by mobilized Union soldiers during the first month of the Civil War. The song repurposed an old folk tune that most Americans today recognize as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The new song circling through Union army camps in the early days of the war was titled “John Brown’s Body.” It opens with the verse: “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave / His soul is marching on.”

HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World

This post relied heavily on materials found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database, which brings together essential legal materials relating to the history of slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. Unique metadata is applied to the thousands of books, pamphlets, and monographs within this collection, identifying it by its pro- or anti-slavery stance, its region of coverage, and topics. Users are able to leverage this metadata with our Slavery Quick Finder Tool, allowing users to search titles by these criteria.

Slavery in America and the World is part of Hein’s Social Justice Suite, a suite of five databases offered free of charge to our core American and international subscribers, and to the libraries of any other interested organizations or institutions. We hope that in making these materials accessible to all, we can help foster knowledge, facilitate civil discourse, and encourage action for the betterment of our nation.