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"A Plea for Captain John Brown" is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. It is based on a speech Thoreau first delivered to an audience at Concord, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1859, two weeks after John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, and repeated several times before Brown's execution on December 2, 1859. It was later published as a part of Echoes of Harper's Ferry in 1860. [1]
John Brown, a radical abolitionist, and 21 other men seized the Federal armory at Harper's Ferry, the holding place for approximately 100,000 rifles and muskets, hoping to arm slaves and create a violent rebellion against the South. [2] After 36 hours, the revolt was suppressed by Federal forces led by Robert E. Lee, and Brown was jailed. The raid resulted in thirteen deaths: twelve rebels and one U.S. Marine. [3]
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in a memorial essay written after Thoreau's death, describes the first presentation of this essay: [4]
Before the first friendly word had been spoken for Captain John Brown, he [Thoreau] sent notices to most houses in Concord, that he would speak in a public ball on the condition and character of John Brown, on Sunday evening, and invited all people to come. The Republican Committee, the Abolitionist Committee, sent him word that it was premature and not advisable. He replied,—“I did not send to you for advice, but to announce that I am to speak.” The hall was filled at an early hour by people of all parties, and his earnest eulogy of the hero was heard by all respectfully, by many with a sympathy that surprised themselves.
Brown himself, after being found guilty of murder, treason, and inciting a slave insurrection, was hanged on December 2, 1859. Although largely called a failure at the time, the raid and Brown's subsequent execution impelled the American Civil War. [3]
Thoreau's essay espoused John Brown and his fight for abolition. In opposition with popular opinion of the time – Thoreau vehemently refuted the claims of newspapers and his fellow countrymen who characterized Brown as foolish and insane – he painted a portrait of a peerless man whose embrace of a cause was unparalleled. Brown's commitment to justice and adherence to the United States Constitution forced him to fight state-sponsored injustice, one he was only affected by in spirit.
A unique man, Thoreau proclaimed in admiration, Brown was highly moral and humane. Independent, "under the auspices of John Brown and nobody else", and direct of speech, Brown instilled fear, which he attributed to a lack of cause, into large groups of men who supported slavery. Incomparable to man, Thoreau likens Brown's execution – he states that he regards Brown as dead before his actual death – to Christ's crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate, with whom he compares the American government.
Thoreau vents at the scores of Americans who have voiced their displeasure and scorn for John Brown. The same people, Thoreau says, can't relate to Brown because of their concrete stances and "dead" existences; they are truly not living, only a handful of men have lived. Thoreau also criticizes contemporary Christians, who say their prayers and then go to sleep aware of injustice but doing nothing to change it. Similarly, Thoreau states those who believe Brown threw his life away and died as a fool, are themselves fools. Brown gave his life for justice, not for material gains, and was completely sane, perhaps more so than any other human being. Rebutting the arguments based on the small number of rebels, Thoreau responds "when were the good and the brave ever in a majority?" Thoreau also points out the irony of The Liberator , an abolitionist newspaper, labeling Brown's actions as misguided. [1]
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Friedrich Nietzsche considered him "the most gifted of the Americans" and Walt Whitman referred to him as his "master".
Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.
John Brown was an American abolitionist leader. First reaching national prominence for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, he was eventually captured and executed for a failed incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry preceding the American Civil War.
The so-called Secret Six, or the Secret Committee of Six, were a group of men who secretly funded the 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry by abolitionist John Brown. Sometimes described as "wealthy," this was true of only two. The other four were in positions of influence, and could, therefore, encourage others to contribute to "the cause."
George Luther Stearns was an American industrialist and merchant in Medford, Massachusetts, as well as an abolitionist and a noted recruiter of black soldiers for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Hundreds of copies of a provisional constitution were found among John Brown's papers after his 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. It called for a new state in the Appalachian Mountains, a sort of West Virginia, populated by escaped slaves from plantations, which were at lower altitudes. It was introduced into evidence at his trial as evidence of sedition.
Virginia v. John Brown was a criminal trial held in Charles Town, Virginia, in October 1859. The abolitionist John Brown was quickly prosecuted for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and inciting a slave insurrection, all part of his raid on the United States federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was found guilty of all charges, sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on December 2. He was the first person executed for treason in the United States.
It was in many respects a most remarkable trial. Capital cases have been exceedingly few in the history of our country where trial and conviction have followed so quickly upon the commission of the offense. Within a fortnight from the time when Brown had struck what he believed to be a righteous blow against what he felt to be the greatest sin of the age he was a condemned felon, with only thirty days between his life and the hangman's noose.
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, teacher, author, reformer, and abolitionist. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures. He founded the American Social Science Association, in 1865, "to treat wisely the great social problems of the day". He was a member of the so-called Secret Six, or "Committee of Six", which funded or helped obtain funding for John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry; in fact he introduced Brown to the others.
John Anthony Copeland Jr. was born free in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of the eight children born to John Copeland Sr. and his wife Delilah Evans, free mulattos, who married in Raleigh in 1831. Delilah was born free, while John was manumitted in the will of his master. In 1843 the family moved north, to the abolitionist center of Oberlin, Ohio, where he later attended Oberlin College's preparatory division. He was a highly visible leader in the successful Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 1858, for which he was indicted but not tried. Copeland joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; other than Brown himself, he was the only member of John Brown's raiders that was at all well known. He was captured, and a marshal from Ohio came to Charles Town to serve him with the indictment. He was indicted a second time, for murder and conspiracy to incite slaves to rebellion. He was found guilty and was hanged on December 16, 1859. There were 1,600 spectators. His family tried but failed to recover his body, which was taken by medical students for dissection, and the bones discarded.
The Ralph Waldo Emerson House is a house museum located at 18 Cambridge Turnpike, Concord, Massachusetts, and a National Historic Landmark for its associations with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. He and his family named the home Bush. The museum is open mid-April to mid-October; an admission fee is charged.
Shields Green, who also referred to himself as "'Emperor"', was, according to Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave from Charleston, South Carolina, and a leader in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, in October 1859. He had lived for almost two years in the house of Douglass, in Rochester, New York, and Douglass introduced him there to Brown.
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the Civil War.
James Redpath was an American journalist and anti-slavery activist.
Seven Angry Men is a 1955 American Western film directed by Charles Marquis Warren and starring Raymond Massey, Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter.
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers is an anthology of works by Henry David Thoreau, edited by his sister Sophia Thoreau and his friends William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was published in 1866, after Thoreau’s death, by Ticknor and Fields, the Boston firm that had published Walden.
The Last Moments of John Brown is a late 19th-century painting by Irish-American artist Thomas Hovenden. Done in oil on canvas, the painting depicts American abolitionist John Brown being led to his execution. The painting is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
John Brown's last speech, so called by his first biographer, James Redpath, was delivered on November 2, 1859. John Brown was being sentenced in a courtroom packed with whites in Charles Town, Virginia, after his conviction for murder, treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, and inciting a slave insurrection. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the speech's only equal in American oratory is the Gettysburg Address.
On Sunday night, October 16, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led a motley band of 22 in a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Most were much younger than him, and varied dramatically in social class and education. "It would be hard to find again such a strange party as that which upheld John Brown in his daring expedition."
The Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society was a female abolitionist organisation in Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid 19th century. This society was a significant influence on Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott.
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