American Experience; John Brown's Holy War; Interview with historian Charles Joyner, 2 of 3

let's say is that i think that that is when the press the sun's on harpers ferry and brown has access to them that he understands what has to put into what god has called them to do he understands that the sport that he can reshape his image through the press away from the mat fanatic to the christian martyr them are for the christian calls and he does it brilliantly he comes to understand that if he would be a winner he first has to be a loser and he has to do it with extraordinary courage and grace and he rises to this opportunity since as the manatees all of life and it's been one series of disaster after another all his life

he's been through one business failure one revolutionary failure one raid failure after another and now he has got his son in the side and he knows how to move the nation oh what a range of reactions around the country to stray you know how does the south restarted israeli prison you listen to them that was the immediate reaction to the raid on both sides is pretty peppy most people north or south editors do not recognize how significant this is so for about a week the southern members are sun this just shows to soft and vulnerability to attack and northern newspapers especially the democratic process in the north the sun browned it just a madman and it was quickly put down

nothing for the south to blame us for this time went on especially after a very stirring address by henry david thoreau and praise of captain john brown entitled it a very moving thing then people began to speak up sen john the justices elisa my alcott called me and he becomes spoken out in his heroic terms the press begins to pick this up and the slave holders really feel threatened at this point and they're responding and cohen saw inside a citizen the other of them absolutely hostile in the north in the southern press was depicted as all great supporters and john browne command they're trying to make a martyr of him and the northern press more and more the south is depicted as as

unilaterally are more more the south is depicted as being half of one voice and flavor of slavery and adamant that it will remain forever maybe i saw was a close out that the reaction of the north is we're setting on the raid itself at this point wants decides how to split once the sides have gone and at this point what's inside so polarized big section sage to move more moved it is it is brown's adopt and the martyr role browns turning the trial and to his story rather than the story of slavery not a story

beale los lobos story of trying to polarize of north and south as nothing had done ever before neither side so is the other as anything but unanimous and their defense so brown or their opposition to brown well he only uses ground turn it into streams that are not publicly uses the teachers the trial into something other than be about slavery that's about where the impulses whose version of the story i'm a porsche redemptions reminded the geniuses in fact it was an accident of us labor may be so effective in that transformation and this period leading up to the trial and

especially during the trial john brown manages to migrants not a trial of himself but a trial of the institution of slavery he imposes his story almost narrative that is unfolding in the country and it polarizes the two regions so that you're not halfway you dare not be no post and your support of your own religion and in this kind of crisis this polarized along with an endless ms borst is going on and our situation like this some men grasp at straws john brown says

groups his genius was to like this not the trial of a man man who had learned a crazy raid but put the institution of slavery on trial before the american people won john brown puts slavery on trial in his trial that polarized the two sections no longer or they're moderate slave holders no longer with their moderate abolitionists such these became increasingly untenable and both surgeons and mood the country for a decisive way towards some decisive resolution of this conflict which in summer sense to the compromises that by the united states constitution the

pain you call this year now he's doing everything that the forces will john brown wrote to his wife that despite all his failures all it was going to take now to redeem every bit of it was to hang by the neck a little while he knew that he had brought this conflict to the point that it was going to be solved or we were going to go to war to try to solve it to prove his lawyers and he had absolute confidence thank you yes

john brown wrote to his wife that despite all his failures that he'd come to a point now that he could redeem everything simply by hanging by the neck a few minutes and he knew that he had brought the country to the brink of war he knew he'd never doubted the ultimate trial now of his calls as he often downright before he knew that the slaves were going to be free and my take a war to do it but he knew that he was going to be the figure that they won and the battle now either fighting for advanced and that the slaves were going to be free and he knew that was going to happen to you john brown left a note in and so when he went to be hanged simon i think that this can only be at this mighty crime can only be

purged with blood so brilliant he wrote a vindication of this raid before he went off to you mr khan <unk> well france believe that he you know he might be breaking the law when he was a big us law and the trial is arguing that he was following a higher law and this is what was wary too one of the striking things about this whole crisis is that brings in the conflict two major sources of the far day an american life two mindsets to cyclists about sources before anyone is the secular government all source of authority and one as the religious and sacred sources of authority and brown had little regard for a law a cost he

was in the under the control of that he was a very orthodox calvinist to believe he was predestined to free the slaves and then this terrible wickedness that the law had sanctioned all these years and the slave holders psyche believe i'm adam law and the law had sanctions labor all these years the thought was terribly with hitler brown the day break and the law and this would save the cycle repeated an american history numerous times they brown was stealing probably the reason i wanted to go with this now from slate will respond to this man is a lawbreaker is committing arson is doing property and he frankly admitted says given how why should there been a question about what to do and the

image that he killed now all this is illegal and so their allegiance to law and secular are they put people on one side and the allegiance to religious and spiritual all of them on another the trial forced people to take sides have hard evidence position wasn't big enough or sleepiness or a new trial absolutely our polarized the people as the bill there were on a fulcrum that was just in danger that the trial

absolutely pulverized the people who were in a situation which almost as though they were a seesaw all just delicately balanced on this one central issue the trial of john brown that dominated conversations dominated letter writing dominated that the psychics were both sections of the country declared aurora browne sanders backers want to declare and say that is the reason utah well i mean there's a history of it in his family's history but neither brown nor otherwise want this gap so the couple was so i thought that was a nice ending i don't have a very firm idea about questions centered it sends out an almost

pejorative term devoid of maine and in a situation like this a lot of scholars and others have ventured opinions on rounds saturday and then many members of his family for well as parker governor was a virginia believe brown to be saying and that was an advantageous position for him the title causing border crime for treason and so brown believed himself to be signed and he was angry that some of his supporters had tried to get him off on the grounds that he was inside a brown didn't like that at all only other hand round them outgoing governor was center basically

spread big brown supporter time again alternate you know there was you know the reasons why we're done off and ultimately it was this was not something that was appealing to counter brown supporters of the time of the many scholars such us brown supporters of the time more abuse and saturday argument that disappear his release to get em all and brown was terrible angry at this probable cause they considered himself signed an unpardonable calls he knew that he could accomplish what he would accomplish by been convicted of them a martyr gore was declared him sane because governor was ordered to try and then executed and brown agreed with governor was but about that but they haven't considered wise and city well

yeah why worry that it was lined with that was wise and say look our shoes of the founder of slavery how could an assignment to really tell us the whole thing that they thought was as governor was but virginia because of the trauma art brown and executing determine that brown was signing brown determine the governor was because he was of the founder of the wicked cause of slavery was inside that still goes on brown's supporters of used insider tip worry i hope you know also including the fact that because he had members of his family that would say

on that brown's supporters calling attention to the cases of insanity and brown's family used an insanity defense to try to play in brown's release brown was quite angered at bat and now rejected the insanity defense governor was a virginia declared that brown was sane and therefore eligible a stand trial course brown said that governor wise was crazy presumably brown the locals who was defending an indefensible institution or trying to brown why is that i think the execution of john brown becomes the central part of this crisis and the thing that really differentiates a

from other similar kinds of crises such as the nat turner about nat turner went to the gallows or a likely but he did not adopt the role of the martyr and he did not have the press contacts the media coverage that john brown's execution ahead and buy them polls on his image his perception of the situation all that john brown made his execution of central half of that in american history the united states was a different country after the execution of john brown and it had been before and i think all around the country people knew it oh

oh the country there were these services who know and that's not the nature of the country the country had changed because by the time john brown was hanged there was an absolute commitment to slavery on the part of the white sox and those two senators who opposed that around uptown on rail and there was an absolute commitment to end slavery in the north and i've overstayed that republicans are not to that point then after the execution victim was not to the point in this still absolute a committed the content in slavery but he was george family was and what the void their us culp our world a striking them less a

usable for america it sounded good yemen is that they are insured or things were spiraling towards the area that was true in the southwest suburbs that was true in the cell phone owner that you know you could be a southerner slavery in the south it is totally affecting the way to sell and also our congressman by the time of john brown's execution didn't really become impossible in the south where white southerner publicly to oppose slavery if you did you are pardoned now it's on the race and say with which he had

denounced metal some abolitionist became a matter of public concerned that he didn't try out in fact are changing scientists' there i mean the trial had the right to challenge in the recycling of the south on this issue of opposition to slavery our own muscle from a nullification controversy at all given the first stirrings of an abolitionist movement had stirred the south the opposition but now it's saying that it was at the door that it was organized on raids to come down and still the slaves and inside revolution among others and on there was a very different situation from any the south the south had been worried about

losing that simple it's a national politics have been worried about a growing northern majorities in the house of representatives and now today we're at the door trying to incite an armed insurrection they didn't know how the staff was branded as well john brown gauges and a little pieces nice job you know also people are scared to be home alone there'll be a terror that is salty

moynihan great symbols those pipes that he hadn't made enough people wrote letters about the pacs to become the brown also what john brown bid to the southern psyche wisdom i don't feel that their earlier worries that our party our power has there been away became acute now that came not a worry about a fear that wrapped the door they were common with pikes p r and the slaves that was the mindset that john brown imposed almost slave holders of the south and john browne did it in such a way that he made even those who have no stake in slavery those who might and other times it even have opposed to slavery afraid to open their mouths because the race and say well which they had been out metal some abolitionist became a matter of public concern and if they actually voiced

concern about slavery opposition to slavery and a lot they could be tarred and feathered and run out of town and many of them were me they were known as they were you can question at a job rather than the longer questions later when it was no longer an issue that question this institution ose for why coming out in favor of a lot more episodes like bill clinton monica lewinsky it was you know a matter of defense of what has happened or defense of keeping private funds private this was a thing that you couldn't quite nuanced stands he's been the president i'm not absolutely certain that that that i can

read it back that far the book but i'd rather do so that but that's what we want this good amount of flour somebody else will bolster like an argument for red hair early i think the raid on harpers ferry the trial and conviction and execution of john brown and the way john brown imposed his version of events all the consciousness of people north and south and calls this poll where it makes you said it better than i did and i've forgotten your words about disco plagiarize their lives i think that john brown's the men are approaching the gallows like the cross put this whole episode of the harper's ferry

raid and its aftermath in the polarizing the american public holds center stage an american history that there was not an acceptable to both wars that could have compromised the issue of slavery any longer let's listen i've been in john brown's the manor home the girls approach and the gallows as though it john brown approached those lines across he put the issue of slavery once and for all that center stage in american history and one more and

i i believe it when john brown approached with the gallows as though he were approach on the cross that he put the issue of slavery side or splurge on america as a number of them before that from here on some solution had been they found but because he had polarized the two sections there was no solution acceptable that either side there was no possibility of compromise and it anymore it is a business solutions and yet you know it's almost like an audience figure that that's what i was fun and not all veterans for the rest of the family