Henry David Thoreau’s Defense of John Brown, Attended by Frederick Douglass, A Newspaper Account

Along with 2 editions of the Liberator, the publication of William Lloyd Garrison

On the night of December 20, 1858, John Brown engaged in a memorable raid that panicked slave-owners and transformed him, in the minds of many influential northerners, into the practical man of action needed to bring a swift end to the evil institution of slavery. He rode with twenty of his men into Verona County, Missouri, where they forcibly liberated twelve slaves from two farms and begin leading them on a successful 82-day, one thousand mile winter journey to freedom in Canada. The slave liberation prompted Gerrit Smith, the noted financier of the abolition movement, to say, “I was once doubtful in my own mind as to Captain Brown’s course. I now approve of it heartily.”

After that, Brown focused on final preparations for the Harper’s Ferry assault, raising additional men and money, and securing necessary weapons. He was getting anxious to move. “Talk! talk! talk!” he complained at a meeting in Boston. “That will never free the slaves. What is needed is action.” He finally put his grand plan into play on July 3, 1859, when he and three other men scouted the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, a town nestled on a peninsula amid the high banks that surround the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. The town manufactured more weapons than any other place in the South, and almost 200,000 weapons were stored in the United States Armory located there. Brown’s plan was to take the arsenal, arm freed slaves in the vicinity, and then retreat to the mountains where they could mount additional raids to free more slaves. The next day, he headed across the Potomac to Maryland, and rented an off-the-beaten-track place to house and train his soldiers for the raid. Over the next two months, additional recruits arrived and the men prepared rifles, studied military strategies, and relaxed in song or games of checkers and cards.

On October 16, 1859, Brown led 21 men on the long-planned raid. The early stages of the plan went well. Wires were cut and bridges taken without bloodshed. Brown, announcing his intention “to free all the negroes in this state,” seized the night watchman at the federal armory, took the arsenal and captured hostages. Brown began waiting for news of his raid to reach local slaves, whom he expected would then rebel against their white masters. Six men were sent to the countryside by Brown to get the liberation process going and to give each freed slave a pike, either for defensive purposes or to guard white slave owners so as to prevent their escape. Unfortunately for Brown, the slaves did not respond as he had hoped and were too confused and frightened to come to his aid. By the next day, citizen soldiers and two militia companies from nearby Charlestown arrived and retook the bridges and soon surrounded the federal arsenal. At that point, Brown and his company were holed up in the armory with no way to escape. As the situation continued to deteriorate, Brown and his men moved with eleven of their key hostages to the fire-engine house, a brick building that became know as John Brown’s Fort, the site of his last stand. A fierce gun battle ensued in which Brown’s son and others were killed. At 11 p.m., a company of U.S. marines commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived at Harper’s Ferry. At dawn on October 18, a lieutenant chosen by Lee approached the engine-house and delivered to Brown Lee’s formal demand for surrender. When Brown rejected the offer, marines stormed the engine-house, battering it with sledgehammers. In the fight that ensued, Brown was stabbed, but not fatally. Many of his men, however, died by either gunfire or bayonets, and Brown and four of his surviving men were taken prisoner. Brown was carried to the armory, where a group of reporters and politicians, including Virginia’s Governor Henry Wise and two U. S. senators, questioned him. He told his interviewers that he came to Virginia at the prompting of “my Maker” and his only objective was “to free the slaves.” Asked how he felt about the failure of freed slaves to enthusiastically embrace his liberation, Brown said, “Yes. I have been disappointed.” After the interview, Governor Wise, while abhorring Brown’s views, pronounced him “the gamest man I ever saw.” Brown’s exploit electrified the nation, and his subsequent trial led to his becoming, for many northerners, a saintly martyr who showed that eradication of slavery throughout the land was the only answer to the divisions in America. Brown and his fellow prisoners were transported eight miles to Charlestown, where they were arraigned on three state charges: treason against Virginia, inciting slaves to rebellion, and murder. Andrew Hunter was named the prosecutor, and later wrote, “…not only the prosecution of the prisoners was committed to me, but also everything connected with the state of affairs or with the raid. I had not only to take charge of the trials, draw the indictments, etc., but to see that the prisoners were well secured and cared for and made comfortable. My instructions from Governor Wise were to see that every comfort and privilege consistent with their condition as prisoners should be afforded them. This was religiously done…Over and over again, in accordance with my instructions from Wise, I told Brown that anything he wanted, consistent with his condition as prisoner, he should have. On October 26 the trial began in a supercharged atmosphere. There was considerable speculation that Brown would plead insanity. Brown, however, would have no part of it. He called the insanity plea a “pretext” and rejected “any attempt to interfere in my behalf on that score.” Witnesses told jurors that Brown had treated hostages respectfully, but the facts were not in dispute and Brown refused to deny that he had acted with intention to free the slaves and that the raid that resulted had led to deaths. He was convicted.

Henry David Thoreau took up John Brown’s cause. He gave a now-famous plea for the cause of Brown in Concord 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. Thoreau’s speech 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. 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.

This is the original report of that speech, given in the New York Herald, dated November 5. In attendance was Frederick Douglass. There are additional details about the raid at Harpers Ferry.