Harbingers from History
Late on the night of May 24, 1856, a band of men approached a cabin near Pottawatomie creek in eastern Kansas. They were armed with an assortment of weapons including rifles, revolvers, and short, freshly sharpened artillery swords. They initially asked for directions, but when the cabin’s owner, James Doyle, opened the door, members of the party shoved him back into the house and stormed in.
The entire Doyle family appeared momentarily: Doyle’s wife, three boys, and a girl. The trespassers ordered Doyle and his two oldest sons, 22-year-old William and 20-year-old Drury, out into the night. The youngest son, 14-year-old John, was spared at the entreaty of his mother. After leading their three captives away from the house, members of the band began hacking James, William and Drury with their swords. The Doyles attempted to defend themselves and Drury tried to run, but all three shortly succumbed to their assailants.1
The party next moved to the home of Allen Wilkinson. Again, they asked for directions before charging into the house, demanding that Wilkinson come with them as their prisoner. Mrs. Wilkinson asked that they at least allow her husband to arrange for a neighbor to come stay with her and their two children (who were also present), but the leader of the band declined, and they hustled Wilkinson out the door. After slashing him in the head and torso and cutting his throat, they left his body a few hundred feet from the house.2
The party then proceeded to their final target, the home of James Harris and his family. Upon arriving and finding that Harris had guests spending the night, they occupied the house, and the leader of the band began interrogating the men one-by-one about their political activity. Harris and two of his guests were spared, but William Sherman was dragged down to the nearby Pottawatomie creek and executed in a similar fashion to Wilkinson and the Doyles. The five victims were all aligned to some degree with the pro-slavery faction in the Kansas territory, while the perpetrators claimed to be part of a “northern army” representing the free-state settlers of Kansas. Their leader and the architect of the Pottawatomie massacre was John Brown.3
The town of Harpers Ferry West Virginia sits at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and has a rich history. It served as the starting point for Meriwether Lewis and his famous westward exploration with William Clark and was industrially prominent throughout much of the 19th century—largely due to the presence of a Federal Armory from 1803 until the Civil War. That being said, Harpers Ferry is best known as the site of John Brown’s Raid on the aforementioned armory in 1859.4
Throughout several small museums there are various memorials to Brown’s life. In the John Brown Museum, for example, there is a dramatic mural in the entryway. Displays throughout the museum highlight famous historical figures and their (usually complimentary) quotes about Brown and his legacy, along with a relatively traditional narrative presentation of Brown’s life through exhibits. Despite frequent equivocal acknowledgements of the controversy surrounding Brown’s actions, if a visitor completely new to Civil War era American history were to visit Harpers Ferry today, they would be hard-pressed to leave without considering him one of America’s great heroes. Unfortunately, the town’s various attractions present a very incomplete picture of John Brown.
For starters, his catastrophic business career and bankruptcy is attributed to “different combinations of bad luck, poor decisions, illness and a national economic crisis.”5 This assessment is technically accurate but quite generous considering Brown’s habit of using loans to simultaneously finance new ventures and pay old debts; Brown would almost certainly have faced bankruptcy even without the financial crash of 1837. By the time he moved to Kansas in 1854, Brown had managed 15 different failed business ventures in four states.6 Another aspect of Brown’s life minimized in modern Harpers Ferry was his characteristic arrogance and refusal to accept any authority outside of himself, which was noted by friends as well as detractors throughout his life.7
The Pottawatomie massacre is mentioned in two places at Harpers Ferry. In the Lower Town Information Center, it is briefly referenced on a timeline of Brown’s life where the massacre is framed as a “retaliation for the ‘sack of Lawrence’,” and Pottawatomie is misspelled as “Pottawatomi.”8 In the John Brown Museum, there is one exhibit showing a sword like those used in the massacre, along with a colorful description of the carnage as told by young John Doyle after he discovered his mutilated father and brothers.
To the left of the sword’s display case is an image of the Declaration of Independence, and below it is another case holding John Brown’s personal Bible. On the right of the sword is a quote from Brown: “I Believe in the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence. I think they both mean the same thing; and it is better that a whole generation should pass off the face of the earth – men, women, and children – by a violent death, then that one jot of either should fail in this country.”9
The exhibit is set back into an interior wall of the museum so that Brown’s quote, the sword, the narrative of the massacre’s aftermath and the image of the Declaration of Independence are all overshadowed. Every other display in the museum is illuminated by light fixtures attached to the ceiling in front of them, but not the Kansas exhibit. As a result, a visitor must either shine a light on the display or place their face almost against it to read it.
Is it merely a coincidence that the exhibit that raises the most serious doubts about John Brown’s perceived heroism is so difficult to read? Possibly. That being said, I doubt it.
While there has been broad speculation and debate about the specific motivations for and significance of the Pottawatomie Massacre ever since it happened, John Brown’s defenders generally focus on some combination of two claims. One justifies the massacre as a response to concerns that proslavery elements would commit comparable atrocities against free-state settlers on the Pottawatomie creek. The other represents the massacre as a retaliation for the sack of Lawrence (as stated in the Lower Town Information Center).10
In the days preceding the massacre, a band of proslavery Missourians marched on Lawrence, Kansas. News of the incursion spread throughout the region, and the Pottawatomie Rifles, led by John Brown’s son John Jr., assembled to aid in the town’s defense. Brown himself, unwilling to take orders from anyone, gathered his other sons into an independent company and travelled with them. Shortly before arriving, they learned from a messenger that free state elements on site had elected not to fight and that the Missourians were sacking Lawrence with impunity.11
While the two companies made camp to await further developments, John Brown decided that the raid must be avenged notwithstanding the “cowardice” of free-state leaders and decided to lead his own little band in perpetrating the Pottawatomie Massacre. The caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor and earlier murders (largely unrelated to each other) committed by proslavery men across eastern Kansas also appear to have contributed to Brown’s decision to retaliate. As far as these facts go, the massacre can be fairly framed as a retaliatory measure.12
There is, however, a huge difference between recognizing these events as contributing causes of the carnage and using them as justifications. The massacre was completely outside the bounds of law and helped to ignite the extralegal guerilla war of reprisal that defined the Bleeding Kansas period. To excuse the Pottawatomie massacre as a legitimate retaliation is to sanction vigilante justice, to affirm the murder of third parties for crimes they didn’t commit based on political association, and to say that life is so cheap that it can be traded without trial to satisfy the bloodlust of the wronged.
Justifying the massacre based on threatened proslavery violence on the Pottawatomie Creek is speciously plausible, as there were documented threats from proslavery elements in the region (including victims of the massacre). However, such vitriol had become commonplace in eastern Kansas at the time, and it went both ways between factions. All said and done, very little came of this rhetoric before the massacre.13 An even bigger problem with this argument is that the Pottawatomie Rifles (and Brown and his sons) left the region around the creek functionally defenseless when they departed for Lawrence. Had there been even a reasonable possibility of proslavery neighbors committing atrocities against their families, farms, etc., the two companies would not have left the area.14
The historiographical free pass many give and have given to John Brown for his violence is not simply a case of letting bygones be bygones. Even though a careful look at Brown’s life sheds serious doubt on whether the peculiar but saintly figure of popular historiography was the real John Brown, he has generally been left on his pedestal. Meanwhile, far more consequential figures in American history are being systematically erased. School boards across the country have attempted to rename schools named for such key figures in American history as George Mason, James Madison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, with variable success.15 16 17 While the faults of such individuals are often magnified to the exclusion of all else, their invaluable contributions to the creation and development of the United States Constitution, American civil government, and to American history in general are consistently downplayed and sometimes flat-out ignored.
This is a serious problem: American history is rarely presented objectively. It is instead routinely revised through omissions, half-truths, and misrepresentations to fit a political agenda.18 19 20 It is not difficult to discern which ideology controls the narrative; in fact, studies have conclusively shown that academia is quite slanted towards the political left, particularly at liberal arts colleges, where the ratio of liberal-to-conservative faculty is currently more than ten to one.21 22 Academia largely controls the flow of information when it comes to history, and the ideological slant found in much of academia has propagated itself into the mainstream.
The John Brown museum provides an example of this narrative bias, even beyond distortions of Brown’s life. One plaque attempts to cast Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid as part of an illustrious American tradition of “protest and dissent.”23 The display attempts to render the raid as offspring of the violent protest that was supposedly the American Revolution. This portrayal is extremely misleading because it was the British government that resorted to repression in an attempt to subjugate colonists who spoke out against their lack of representation in Parliament, and it was the British who initiated military violence in an effort to subdue the colonies. The American revolutionaries resorted to war as a defensive measure.24
Furthermore, efforts to directly compare the American Revolution to John Brown’s raid are rendered even more ridiculous by the disparity in aims between the two parties. The “revolutionary” idea behind the American Revolution was to create a form of limited government that would maximize individual freedoms while providing legal mechanisms for change, thus precluding the need for uncivil revolution in the future.25 In stark contrast, John Brown hoped to incite a violent insurrection in the South, and as long as slavery came to an end it didn’t matter how many people were killed in the process. In fact, he appears to have almost relished the prospect of cultural atonement for slavery through mass bloodshed.26
The enshrinement of revolution for its own sake as a founding American principle (a prevalent theme in the John Brown museum) is a tip-off to the ideological slant underpinning the museum’s presentation of history. Despite this common claim from liberal academia and media, the American Revolution was not simply an effort to overthrow an oppressor. It had a longer-term goal: to create a civil government for all, a government with its power limited through checks and balances that protected expansive individual freedoms and provided structural recourse with which to protect that freedom.27
Cavalierly redefining America’s purpose comes at a price. When Americans reject our country’s founding principle of “civil government for all” and replace it with “the ends justify the means” — or, more accurately, “my ends justify any means" — there will be consequences. Indeed, those consequences are not an abstract future possibility; the last year alone has been a stark warning.
Last summer there was an outbreak of violent and destructive riots throughout America. Responding to virulent demands for the defunding and even disbandment of law enforcement, the Minneapolis City Council promised to defund its police department in the wake of George Floyd’s death – only to face continued violent riots and a precipitous spike in crime in the aftermath, forcing them to backtrack.28 The anticipated long-term economic effects of continuing riots paint a very bleak picture for Minneapolis’ future. Portland has faced savage attacks and counter-attacks between Antifa and far right-wing groups for months on end, and Kenosha Wisconsin was reduced to a burnt-out husk during days of riots following another controversial police use-of-force incident.29 30 31 32 In Seattle, a particularly acrimonious group of rioters initiated an anti-law enforcement insurrection in a six-block area of the city. The result was near anarchy resulting in uncivil unrest and even murder, leaving at least one father with a dead child and no answers because authorities had been forcefully prevented from entering the “organized protest” to investigate his son’s shooting.33 While these cities present the most glaring examples, unrest was widespread throughout the country. My own hometown of Manassas, Virginia, which is hardly a metropolis, faced riots in late May/early June in which protestors injured several police officers and vandalized several businesses that were boarded up or inoperative for months afterwards.34 One of these riots occurred very near my own home when protestors attempted to march on and “take down” the City of Manassas police headquarters but were turned back by a police line.35
Then on January 6th, America watched in horror as an insurrectionary mob of primarily Trump supporters stormed onto the Capitol grounds, overwhelmed the unprepared Capitol Police, and forced their way into the halls of Congress, breaking windows and climbing scaffolding.36 Once inside they destroyed furniture, rifled through the belongings of members of Congress in unoccupied offices, took “souvenirs,” and attempted to break into occupied suites and offices where Congressional staffers had barricaded themselves.37 Congress was narrowly evacuated, but if it weren’t for the heroic actions of Officer Eugene Goodman, rioters might have arrived on the Senate Floor before all senators present had escaped, which would have resulted in a deadly firefight. The insurrectionaries were armed with weapons, zip-ties, and more, suggesting that at least some of them intended to kidnap, hold hostage, or possibly even murder members of Congress.38 39
In the aftermath of both the past year’s riots and the Capitol insurgency, the weight given to the reprehensibility of the actions themselves has seemingly paled in comparison to the mutual political affiliations shared between perpetrators and some reactants. Even as American cities have been burned, looted, and threatened by riotous violence over the past year, many (though not all) Democrats have sought to justify the lawlessness by claiming that revolution is an appropriate response to a myriad of perceived injustices (any one of which would require its own article to address, so I won’t here). In the wake of the Capitol insurrection, many (though not all) Republicans used their belief that the election had been “stolen” to justify the actions of the insurrectionaries. Using the political goals of perpetrators to justify one riot or insurrection while decrying another is blatant hypocrisy, period. That being said, I’ll refrain from digressing into the oft-trodden subject of runaway divisive partisanship because I consider it to be merely a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.
The deeper issue is the pervasive effort to reframe the purpose of American society as unifying all citizens under one ideological framework, through revolution if necessary. The political left has been pushing its vision for America based on Critical Theories through media and academia for decades, especially recently. The biased presentation of history seen at Harpers Ferry is only one small example. Similarly partisan rhetoric has been concurrently adopted by a fringe group of populist conservatives who rallied behind Donald Trump. With the rise of this populist right-wing into the conservative mainstream and the ideological firefight that has developed between it and the more established liberal variant of collectivism, Americans have begun to imbibe a dangerous conception of American politics as an all or nothing tug-of-war between political parties.
In reality, America was designed to be an intentionally divided government with checks and balances that preserved freedom for all by preventing any one faction from ever consolidating power.40 America should not and does not need to be “unified” under one ideological banner. The whole point of designing a limited constitutional government was to facilitate the coexistence of individuals and factions who think very differently.
John Brown is one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. In one man is combined an enlightened understanding of the inherent equality among all people, a disturbing fixation upon perpetrating violence against his ideological opponents, and a monomaniacal fixation on being the moral accountant for the entire country.41 Brown’s propensity for violence does not efface the merit of his understanding of equality, but that virtue does not excuse his superiority complex and his obsession with wreaking savage vengeance.
Brown’s propensity for violence, both in Kansas and later at Harpers Ferry, foreshadowed the epidemic of guerrilla violence that raged apart from main campaigns of the Civil War. While many historians focus upon the larger engagements between armies, the many spasms of violence at the regional, local, and even personal levels are often forgotten or ignored.42 These smaller incidences of brutality during and after the war were related to the deterioration of civil government across large swaths of the South and Old Southwest and left wounds in our national memory that have proven difficult to heal, all the more so due to the tendency of Americans of all political persuasions to ignore them. Whether Americans across the political spectrum will admit it or not, discarding civil government in favor of hyper-partisan politics in the interests of political conquest inevitably creates far more problems than it purports to solve; we have only to look to our own history to see the point proven.
Brown was one of those men with a unique talent for quotable phrases. In light of our tenuous national moment, one in particular from shortly after his raid on Harpers Ferry has stuck with me: “You know that Christ once armed Peter. So also in my case I think he put a sword into my hand….”43
When the Apostle Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of one of Jesus’ capturers, Jesus said: “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”44 This fate came to pass for John Brown. The result of his persistent use of unlawful violence to effect the change he desired was the assassination of his son Frederick in Kansas, the deaths of his sons Watson and Oliver at Harpers Ferry, and his own hanging.45
We as Americans need to reevaluate the price that we’re willing to pay to have our way politically. Is it worth twisting history into political drivel? Or “cancelling” anyone who disagrees with us? Affirming riotous and insurrectionary violence? Unravelling civil government?
If Americans continue to treat their political aims as something to be had by any means necessary, then America may very well go the way of John Brown.
[The opinions expressed in this magazine are the author's own and do not reflect the official policy or position of The Spectator, or any students or other contributors associated with the magazine. It is the intention of The Spectator to promote student thought and civil discourse, and it is our hope to maintain that civility in all discussions.]
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Endnotes
In the interests of keeping my sources approachable for the reader, I have recorded the citations for all my online research (including news articles, journal articles, etc.,) in the format used for web sources under the Chicago style.
[1] Stephen B. Oates, To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 93; 130; 134-135.
[2] Oates, To Purge This Land, 135-136.
[3] Oates, To Purge This Land, 136-137
[4] “Meriwether Lewis at Harpers Ferry,” National Park Service, April 10 2015, https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/meriweather-lewis-at-harpers-ferry.htm
[5] Quoted from an exhibit in the John Brown Museum.
[6] Oates, To Purge This Land, 34-39; 44-47; 55-57; 76-77. If anything, I have understated this point. Brown could serve as a case study for how not to conduct business.
[7] Oates, To Purge This Land, 20-21; 37-39; 44; 57; 108-109; 264.
[8] Quoted from an exhibit in the Harpers Ferry Lower Town Information Center.
[9] Quoted from an exhibit in the John Brown Museum.
[10] A more expansive accounting of theories for Brown’s motivation for perpetrating the massacre can be found in the notes to chapters 10 and 11 of Oates’ biography on pages 384-385 and 387-388.
[11] Oates, To Purge This Land, 117-118, 124-127.
[12] Oates, To Purge This Land, 127-129; 137.
[13] Oates, To Purge This Land, 122-123, 385.
[14] Oates, To Purge This Land, 123; 126; 383.
[15] Jill Tucker, “Abraham Lincoln Was Once a Hero. In Some S.F. Education Circles, He’s Now a Bad Guy,” The San Francisco Chronicle, December 14 2020 https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/Abraham-Lincoln-was-once-a-hero-In-some-S-F-15798744.php
[16] Steven Hall, “Petition Calls on San Francisco School Board to Focus on ‘Improving Schools, Not Renaming Them,’” The Daily Signal, February 9 2021, https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/02/09/petition-calls-on-san-francisco-school-board-to-focus-on-improving-schools-not-renaming-them/
[17] Dick Uliano, “Falls Church School Board Votes to Rename Thomas Jefferson Elementary and George Mason High,” WTOP News, December 9 2020, https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2020/12/falls-church-school-board-votes-unanimously-to-change-names-of-2-schools/
[18] Mike Gonzalez, “Biden’s Disbanding of 1776 Commission Shows Left’s War on U.S. History,” The Heritage Foundation, January 20 2021, https://www.heritage.org/american-founders/commentary/bidens-disbanding-1776-commission-shows-lefts-war-us-history
[19] Jarrett Stepman, “A Sign of Sanity in San Francisco,” The Daily Signal, February 22 2021, https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/02/22/a-sign-of-sanity-in-san-francisco/
[20] Allen C. Guelzo, “‘The 1619 Project’ Tells a False Story About Capitalism, Too,” The Wall Street Journal, May 8 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1619-project-tells-a-false-story-about-capitalism-too-11588956387
These three endnotes (17, 18, and 19) document just a few examples of this phenomenon.
[21] Mitchell Langbert, “The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty,” National Association of Scholars, March 29 2019, https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/homogenous_the_political_affiliations_of_elite_liberal_arts_college_faculty
[22] Jon A. Shields, “The Disappearing Conservative Professor,” National Affairs, 2018, https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-disappearing-conservative-professor
[23] Quoted from an exhibit in the John Brown Museum.
[24] Anthony James Joes, America and Guerilla Warfare (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 2000), 8-9.
[25] Alexis de Tocqueville; Mansfield HC; Winthrop D., Democracy in America, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 98, 107-108.
[26] Oates, To Purge This Land, 213-214; 222; 258; 291. The quote I referenced from the Pottawatomie exhibit in the John Brown Museum also illustrates this conflation.
[27] Tocqueville et al., Democracy in America, 98, 227-229.
[28] Jemima McEvoy, “Minneapolis Cuts Millions From Police Budget Amid Crime Spike,” Forbes, December 10 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/12/10/minneapolis-cuts-millions-from-police-budget-amid-crime-spike/?sh=64001d9e701e
[29] Reuters Staff, “Anti-Fascist Protestors Vandalize Buildings in Portland and Seattle,” Reuters, January 21 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-inauguration-portland-prote/anti-fascist-protesters-vandalize-buildings-in-portland-and-seattle-idUSKBN29Q0H9
[30] Casey Michael, “How Portland Became a Nightmare for Democrats,” Politico, September 23 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/23/portland-problem-democrats-cant-solve-420152
[31] Erin Ailworth, “Kenosha Businesses Grapple with Damage to City,” The Wall Street Journal, September 10 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/kenosha-businesses-grapple-with-citys-destruction-11599730333
[32] Rachel Sandler, “Fire Damage from Kenosha Unrest Tops $11 Million,” Forbes, September 16 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/09/16/fire-damage-from-kenosha-unrest-tops-11-million/?sh=37241efa155a
[33] Valerie Richardson, “‘That Was My Son’: Father of Black Teen Killed in CHOP Still Hasn’t Heard From Seattle Officials,” The Washington Times, July 2 2020, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/2/father-of-black-teen-killed-in-seattle-chop-still-/
[34] Staff Reports, “Police: 4 Officers Injured, 5 Arrests in ‘Civil Unrest’ Following Manassas Protest Sunday,” Prince William Times, May 31 2020, https://www.princewilliamtimes.com/news/police-4-officers-injured-5-arrests-in-civil-unrest-following-manassas-protest-saturday/article_c92c0932-a362-11ea-b3ca-83a2ba8491c1.html
[35] “Rioters Aimed to “Takedown” Manassas Police Department, Targeted Its Chief,” Potomac Local News, June 4 2020, https://potomaclocal.com/2020/06/04/rioters-aimed-to-takedown-manassas-police-department-targeted-its-chief/
[36] Ted Mann and Andrew Restuccia, “At the U.S. Capitol, Milling Crowd Sparked Riot in a Few Crucial Minutes,” The Wall Street Journal, January 8 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-the-u-s-capitol-a-milling-crowd-sparked-a-riot-in-a-few-crucial-minutes-11610067766?page=2
[37] Karoun Demirjian et al., “Inside the Capitol Siege: How Barricaded Lawmakers and Aides Sounded Urgent Pleas for Help as Police Lost Control,” The Washington Post, January 10 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-capitol-siege/2021/01/09/e3ad3274-5283-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html
[38] Rebecca Tan, “A Black Officer Faced Down a Mostly White Mob at the Capitol. Meet Eugene Goodman.” The Washington Post, January 14 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/goodman-capitol-police-video/2021/01/13/08ab3eb6-546b-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html
[39] Jack Healy, “These Are the 5 People Who Died in the Capitol Riot,” The New York Times, January 11 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/who-died-in-capitol-building-attack.html
[40] Tocqueville et al., Democracy in America, 147-149.
[41] Oates, To Purge This Land, 222; 243-247; 258; 264; 333-334; 351. The previously referenced John Brown museum quote is again applicable.
[42] Brian D. McKnight and Barton A. Myers, “Introduction: Guerilla Warfare’s Place in the History of the American Civil War,” in The Guerilla Hunters: Irregular Conflicts During the Civil War, Brian D. McKnight and Barton A. Myers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017), 2-3.
[43] Oates, To Purge This Land, 339.
[44] Matthew 26:52
[45] Oates,To Purge This Land, 168-169; 302; 352.