American Experience; John Brown's Holy War; Interview with historian James Brewer Stewart, 3 of 5

so slate recently tamiami know is is now people already had plans in a way they never imagined of the ruling elite steve the fifties in new england was a time when gentlemen began to think of themselves as revolutionaries gentlemen were the sons of wealthy families that had been involved in the china trade or made their fortunes and cotton and these younger gentlemen began to understand in certain ways that their world had been structured for them by slavery that the fortunes that surrounded them the big textile mills open will the big commercial banks on boylston street all somehow were dictated by cash

flows credit commerce that all was extended back to virginia always extended back to south carolina and the realization somehow the boston employees of sam adams john brown night at the place of christie's x great black revolutionary of the boston massacre has somehow now become a place where slavery trades in the marketplace and for harvard is supported by southern fortunes in some senses that's another example of a slovak or c are great expansive and infiltrating influence that slowly before you can even begin to realize it has reached its tentacles into the center of your world and begin to pollute it became corrupted and the necessity to begin to resist the idea that somehow this is the new king george the third the new

menace to republican liberty the new terrifying moral evil that the good men a boston have to rally against is something that becomes more and more clear in the minds of many many wealthy bostonians were politically sophisticated and who become willing especially in the to consider the idea of violence to consider the idea of opposing especially the infiltration of slavery into their own communities and in that way they resemble the free blacks of boston who fear so passionately the fugitive slave catchers the men were coming to town to rob them of recovery the two stories of the boston aristocrat and the hiv free blacks to fight an open the vigilance committees he gets a slave catcher those two stories emerged in the fifties in a willingness to consider confrontation to consider armed resistance to consider the possibilities of violence

what is it answer the door of the courtroom phillips on two levels one isn't the point you don't go that is john brown's not here at this point to raise the first ally of the ways that they had the idea that boston would fight the american revolution over and over again in the eighteen fifties became an idea that became familiar to bostonians and the issue that made that idea from earlier was the issue that surrounded to recapture a fugitive slaves the idea that peaceful citizens of your own town could be captured by federal marshals thrown into jail given

no opportunity to testify given no standing law given no legal defense to speak was for many many bostonians with a strong commitment to civil liberties to the idea that american freedom meant something specifically in boston a compulsion to get out and protect american liberty as bostonians understood so when at fifty four eighth black fugitive name anthony burns was captured by federal marshals hauled into jail the town of boston turned out to surround the jailhouse to surround the courthouse and higgins sometimes went with higginson wendell phillips samuel gridley howe lewis hayden was a very very important black activists who represented the boston vigilance committee all began tried to figure out how to be able to liberate

this poor unfortunate and the birds from slavery and there is no time to go to court there's no point in going to court the rules are stacked against you the president of the united states had already mobilized a large contingent of federal troops to walk into boston and make sure that this region are captive was returned to slavery what's left a whole closet or political order have repeatedly done it a battering ram go to a front door the courthouse says lay siege to the place and tried by force of arms as best she could to be an american patriot was liberating the victims of the slade part justice john brown is he's been very frustrating for him to be here not connected to this new security so fascinated with is

that it's interested most passionate man i would think that john brown would have felt deeply frustrated not john browne would have felt deeply frustrated at fifty split the streets okay let's start over again john brown would've had to feel very frustrated and perhaps even powerless and you can fix them men who had not been involved and the deep levels of working underground rarities he had when i had a struggle for a place in the world as he men who were rich men who were privileged men were rooted now hulu boston as their home for three generations for generations the men who trace their puritan ancestors back for five generations could stand up and protect their place that was very much the

motivation of many of the white men and women who turned out to oppose fugitive slave catchers and the fugitive slave law in towns and cities all across new england where is john brennan sports with jon ronson center the place that john brown could be routed and said this is mine and i protected from all that evil in the world john brown had no place john brown in some respects was a de centered person who had only a pledge to look for from wherever he was could not join in could not be a part of a greater monstrous is the white eye and made so many headlines in showing the north's determination finally to resist the slave potter must have been awful for chopra to have to think of himself as being a marginal and away from so many of these things at the same time it gave john brown a tremendous advantage with these people those new

science of many generations are exactly the sort of people that then finally he was able to talk to personally to bring into his world thomas wentworth higginson samuel gridley howe garrett smith men of great privilege and wealth in place who'd brown later was able to bring into his world of insurrection and revolutionary violence so in a sense at the end of the eighteen fifties john brown was in control of those people at the beginning of the eighteenth fifties he was far outside of people too long certain like you'd think he was trying to reframe at yale law and sometimes it's hard to back forty i know i don't you know i've been reading chapter spoke with senator graham you talked about the violence

well it really does wrestlers of this as well as the violence that exists and maybe the idea that the senate needed a job that is not going to work i would imagine that john brown and chris rock star in nineteen fifty at fifty five at fifty nine john brown would've felt a world of violins pulsating around him violence was in him violence needed to be expressed by him in order to be able to make his supreme statement about slavery but violence was also on world outside of him that came at

him from many many many directions i think most fundamentally important to emphasize the institution of slavery itself is violence it's based on corps you space to making people who deeply do not wish to do things to do them anyway and that the relationship a master and slave in some sense registered throughout so many other areas of american life in the aging fifties and while brown philpot violence inside him that violence was taking place on the floor of the us senate where in a southern congressman and preston brooks assaulted a us senator from massachusetts charles sumner and disabled left him unconscious on the senate floor as his southern colleagues applauded what does one make of that expression of the violence of slavery

in response northern congressmen could be seen walking into the senate with handguns and boeing jets ready to take on slave owners in case anything like that ever happened again or perhaps just for retribution the whole idea of civil society that we our government of law we express our will buy bullets rather than ballots john brown would hear over and over again throughout the teen fifties that that's not true that the way that political issues in kansas are to be solved is by people engaging in ethnic warfare and racial warfare i mean if you please let's just talk about the way that violence was in dissent justice o'connor actually why these events the book is really about violence and said okay okay well yes yes

yes because the attack and just to show it right you will academics is hard it's the fifties john brown would have sensed in politics at rapidly rising tempo lost the violence and the idea is that feels this sense that slavery had to be resolved in bloodshed and violence was not an idea that came from him alone it had to do in large measure with the breakdown of the political process itself into violence and one of the clearest ways to be able to document that process is to simply see how

your elected representative behaved in congress drew all the great political debates in battles over the expansion of slavery in the territories political civility in congress almost died instead be able to elect a speaker of the house in a normal sort of way gretchen was fighting concerns over slavery related issues dictated that a truck at one point a hundred and twelve votes to elect a speaker of the house which was unheard of during that time there were dozens of candidates during the time that those dozens of candidates were voted on there are dozens of fights people were blotting each other's noses in the halls and the meeting rooms outside the legislative assembly according to one newspaper at least twelve deals were proposed during that period of time as that

legislative process was supposedly going on people were coming into congress as drunk as they could be to be as angry as they could be to get into fights as rapidly as they could be and one wonders under those conditions exactly where the violence and political system really culture doesn't come from john brown exclusively now john brown lives in a world where the responsible elected officials were behaving in a way that certainly suggested that slavery generated a kind of violence of its own that can often only be settled when people gave in to their deeper passions about the subject it apart this work right well it's a bargain it's just getting that connection not because we're tall you know we're going to tell a look at the cia personnel we acquiesce or stopping and although the dalton i hear you fire december were allegedly

participating fifties certainly lived in a world of violence and if if you wanted to really understand how violent was just had got a washington in the aging fifties and see the behavior of congress this and let's pick john mulligan the world of violence it's a world of political violence that was in many places in the united states in the eighteen fifties and certainly he would have understood and respond to all that john brown would certainly understood and responded when he noticed in congress elected representatives spent more time than ever before fighting with each other physically on the floor of congress

getting into personal duels bringing arms and before we wear or it can be over the world are on the world of violence even in congress and congress representatives began to confuse voting with it began to confuse the idea of the legislative process with having to challenge one another in the halls with jewels with threats of violence within directing each other speeches with how raise that set off a new dam scoundrel and then charging the offending party and fred wrestling into a seat at one point during the election of the speaker of the house which took hundred and four can bounce it was reported that there were at least twelve challenges for jules as a consequence of the anger and the passion

that went on between northerners and southerners slave holders in non slave holders about the issues connected with governments having to do with slavery yes it was a world of violence the political violence and john brown certainly understood that go slow certainly it was a world of violence as a world of violence that was much bigger than chaka ra john brown was only one person at the federal government the congress of the united states as the people doing the people's business and congress and when the congress of the united states dissolve more more frequently and a personal challenges and tools rather than votes when it becomes even commonplace for someone to be giving an anti slavery speech on the floor of congress and have suddenly another congress says okay

dc got out ok ok yes it was a world of violence it was a world of violence much bigger than john brown that it's seeped into congress itself where instead of simply doing the legislative business of the nation people did violence to one another instead of simply voting they challenged each other to do was instead of simply giving speeches they interrupted each other and try to beat each other with clubs he appeared in congress from time to time the whole idea of it violence is a part of slavery that slavery is discussed in politics that slavery makes the discussion of politics violent and violence then takes place within the cancellation is something that john brown certainly so and certainly everybody understood what was going on when it took a hundred and twelve ballots to elect a speaker of the house in eighteen fifty six and during that time according to at least one newspaper account twelve different sets of congressmen challenged each other to tools yes it was a violent world much bigger than john brown and one that involved

the elective representatives the american people but angelica what it is a union i think it's a surprise that it is the kind you know even gets to congress has autism what you know sort of like you were going there you know either of the two thank you yes it was a violent world in the fifties and it's surprising how rapidly that violent spirit spread to congress i think it even shocked people at the time that it did so so rapidly instead of voting and debating people increasingly congressman began fighting with each other and began calling each other insulting

names began challenging each other to jewels to fights in the halls appearing in congress appearing in congress are the big issues they were debating were issues of slavery and the way that they were debating that now far more changed with crystal anchor with the panama city in one instance eighteen fifty six when finally for the first time a northern speaker of the house who didn't represent the interests of slavery was elected speaker to get to that point it took a hundred and for to balance and according to one newspaper account shocking over twelve issues of dueling challenges congressman to do with each other were actually issued during the course of that debate at the same time people were bloody each other's noses and calling each other the kinds of names that insulted families honors mothers all transfixed point is that the violence was everywhere right into the nation's capital and

americans were shocked at this that was also signed for many northerners including john brown that the slave power has really triumphed in the governing of the country because government was now is corrupting its conduct of business as plantation owners work with the management and abuse of their own slaves what is it damages and i feel i just want to say so trying to say no gen brown lived in the world of violent much bigger than us congress became a violent place especially when

congress debated the violent question of slavery because slavery was a violent institution the man who represented the south were slave holders naturally the depression congress became a place were fistfights became common congress became a place for people to mark congress' became place for people flight boeing lives lowering emissions and making violent not possible eighteen fifty six for instance it took a hundred and twelve ballots to elect a speaker the house of representatives a northerner who did not represent thinks institution of slavery this was the first to get there but at least twelve challenges of tools between northern and southern congressmen on the floor of congress if newspaper reports of that struggle are to be believed john brown's violent world extended deeper into the governing of the nation and extended originally from way down in the plantations where this violence

began so better for your your comments are really very hot kansas leave kansas city kansas to serve as the opening act of the opening salvo of the plantation class in escalating this crisis to nebraska kansas nebraska act so that the safer where most of the south is now a kansas kansas was a disaster for the people too very good reasons that historians can understand that it was terribly important in eighteen fifty four to open new territories in the west for slavery the disaster came when it became so clear that people were not going to peacefully cheuse what

kind of government that people were not to peacefully come to kansas people did not peacefully go to kansas with the intention of setting up a new tourre coral government people came to kansas armed people came to kansas prepared to fight people tear into cans is pretty much expecting to see their enemies and the minute the pro slavery and anti slavery settlers came within hailing distance of each other guerilla war began bloodshed began political violence began and the disaster of proportions that slave holders had never forecast began to overtake the whole political process in the united states became what it became impossible to control and pitched the nation very very rapidly toward civil war ii

we want to say that it was okay it was a disaster firstly voters and for politicians who supported their aspirations stephen a douglas was one of those politicians and he truly believed that the issue of slavery could best be resolved if people in new territories were able to vote about the question whether they want slavery in their new state or whether they didn't want slavery and their new state the disaster became apparent when settlers from the free states and settlers from the slave states

confronted each other in kansas with no intention of voting peacefully they came armed they came as representatives of antagonistic civilizations became his warriors on behalf of their cultures became heavily financed by outside forces they had no regard for constitutions they had no regard for peaceful settlement stephen a douglas has dreamed that we would settle slavery questions peacefully and locally turned instead into bloodshed into carnage and to political mayhem that's great what is it that that maurice and are starting to say i'm going to what is it that motivates the north historically the settlers why why are they so actively supporting the surface is easy