American Experience; John Brown's Holy War; Interview with historian James Brewer Stewart, 1 of 5

ertha <unk> ce <unk> we're just talking about what it was like and what people say about brown that he was somebody who lived on the edge of society and was always one place or another trading for cheap or being involved in one at a commodities exchange never really had one spot that's really in some ways the way that many americans

lived in the thirties and forties i think the thing to remember is that by eating forty perhaps thirty forty percent of people in north were immigrants most people that lived at least one other place the subtle kinds of communities that were common a generation earlier just after the revolution had already broken up and westward expansion expansion of commerce and trade railroads credit investment speculation all the things that does seem to preoccupy brown so much heat wave from his family away from home in debt all the various things that historians look for to try and give a sense that brown somehow was at war with his world suggest to me instead that this was a war world world at war with itself to the values were uncertain you can never tell exactly who was telling the truth never sure that the deep ditches signed it was actually leo couldn't tell whether the currency were trading it was going the next county and for some deep countless

sympathies somebody who had deep religious feelings as many many americans did in that time true direct legacy from the puritan strain an american character this whole business of vitriol was an uncertainty rick world with a sense of conscience sense that there was something deeper and more rooted that was the road and to an extent i've always thought that brown was someone who was more registering the war of his society within himself rather than someone who was exceptional to the way that the eighteen thirty some eighteen ford is actually working particularly in the north was that oh certainly not i think that if we were to think about the world today and think about the tremendous explosion of evangelical religion in american politics that we've noticed over the past decade and then try to think not of a decently interest in american society as it is today but instead a style that everybody participated the idea that actually church

and state were separate was something that the constitution guaranteed that something that civil society quarrel with all the time should the males run on sunday should ministers be allowed to greet political science should every candidate for office be a christian those are the kinds of questions that spilled over from the great religious revivals in the g twenties and thirties which really were the great uproarious a popular religious enthusiasm that they're brown received in his own life before the browns bible receiver and bible it's most heavily annotated documented the world every chapter and it has locations alongside every chapter in it has little index references to other parts of the bible in a sense the scripture becomes wade filter politics to explain life to develop meaning and of course the secret was that everybody who was inclined in this direction didn't exactly brown to try to find his own or her i'm religious wars

read the bible democratic whip came to one's own conclusions and the debate of them publicly over and over again so and this world of economic uncertainty aaron financial insincerity or and manipulation of the idea that somehow there was word of scripture in a world of sacredness and wrote a fixed value the quote with little time was something that russell abram registered but certain many americans register create incredible so many cities fighting slavery yes you are i've swum of all not responsive to start cleaning my question will disappear so i just say yes oh i see i got to focus on the other forming

before stern okay conversational ok well it must've created a certain moral true of the brown suit the one hand want to be gay himself so much to this moral and spiritual life against slavery and yet having to sue to participate in the financials seems to that well yes and i think i'm very deeper levels because the kind of on conflict with that brown would feel between his own private life in the way he has to conduct his business on the one hand which is always sort of shifted and on the edges of things and the feeling that life is moral life has centred life is right life was

wrong double smite you if you're not on the correct side of god's truth complicated by the fact that slavery itself to someone like brown which same manipulation would seem insincerity would seem the use of a legitimate power and in such a way that slavery would actually corrode family would carry on people away from old people wives away from their husbands slave holders were people who in their judgments of people like brown and many many abolitionists lived off the ill gotten gain of the slaves that they raped of the children that they separated of the bodies that they bought and sold the whole relationship between earning a living illegal your wife plans on partial dilemmas but then at the same time transfer to a critique of slavery which brings the two problems together in

other words what i'm trying to say is the browns' hatred of slavery filters through the dougie dougie inconsistency man especially someone who saw himself so much as a page or so much as the leader of his flock and his flock are people that are genetically connected would feel in having to work in this world of uncertainty insecurity manipulation of corruption slavery the world of insecurity manipulation corruption becomes a way to work out that war the war is off fb we'll let francine it's going on a time there's a sense of people are just getting swept up in land prices are escalating many many many people are and in fact in

john brown's ohio the places where he spent so much of his time the whole story of land speculation bubbles of prices that inflate and inflate and inflate and then collapsed and collapse a collapse has told over and are again between eating forties and fifties part of the reason for that has to do with the transformation of farmland and rights of way this is a place for the canal my god this is the place for the turnpike my car this is the place for the railroad right of way may have the whole idea that land is no longer simply the vehicle by which to bring goods to market growth next decider families but instead as a un certain commodity treated like other futures market might be in chicago or trade today the idea of buying an abstraction a piece of land that you've never seen simply because you understand a story about what it might become they're hoping to be able to turn that the deed and property over to someone else prior to the time that someone told another

story about this is very much the world of them many many of the great anti slave or politicians it came from the same state made fortunes and was fortunes in the buy insulin to wind up before the civil war and in certain ways like brown i ended up taking their financial experience isn't using them as the basis of a critique of slavery slave labor and the more relatives the southern way of doing business that very second round so a lot of people think it is the panic as a team to resell woes certainly are financial waterloo for john brown but it was also a financial waterloo for the entire democratic party of the united states which was indicted because of its economic policy for creating this tremendous deep deflation of currency and values this was the largest bankruptcy

largest economy that the united states ever had brown in the number of ways was what the warm in it occurred to default and collapse and recovery the last really into the early in the dating forties it was the most severe financial setback that a rapidly expanding economy i could ever possibly imagine and people's psychological response to the paddock making thirty seven were not so much to criticize the economy from being a managed but instead to critique the moral basis of america that would cause such greed and corruption to overcome or better values virtues brownfield that weight to oh gracious know certainly not brown would be a typical story of someone who's been tested as thousands dead and lost thousands as thousands that as well that's it

that was a the world hutson is again a good example of a small circled community that was swept by this great tide of development and innovation that the economy put forward into places where rolled began to change or speculation where development and were new ideology focus all at once hudson course were is there in the early thirties a place of tremendous divisions and the problem of slavery had a mathematics professor at by the name of a loser right jr president biden and brian green who was

very very deeply committed during activists who believe that all slaves in the united states should be emancipated ones that all free african americans in the north should be granted immediately in full citizenship and they were in a sense the euro dominant or insurgent faction and the faculty of where western reserve college which had more buildings more visibility and little town of hudson right down from the town green over it but his focus was in this debate divided the town very very deeply between people who became committed media watch lists and others who really felt themselves much more enlightened and moderate man which they were who believe that the answer to the problem of slavery and involved not the immediate emancipation of our slaves of the south that the gradual colonization a free blacks and slaves to west africa where the american colonization society which was sponsored by some of

the most important politicians and businessmen and clerks in the united states had founded a colony in liberia so the division or questions of slavery race were in certain ways the divisions that we were to follow brown and disturb around his entire life the position of the young abolitionists who said that skin color doesn't matter when it comes to citizenship and write that slavery is a sin that slavery is a national problem that all men are created equal and colonization this to work from an absolutely opposite promise of saying this is a white man's republic and that the problem of slavery if we're going to think about managing debt or solving it has to do with making or inviting people dark skin to leave the united states and those two visions are so different than one another and so full of moral antagonism for one another one values the

president's people were deferred basis on white supremacy and work and if one were to think about the basic provisions in hudson during the time that the whole question of slavery first came to that town those would be the fundamental things that divide us and it's not hard to understand how someone like john brown with people today and begin to make deep deep judgments was on because it's a very coarsely chopped you can't decide that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between a republic were finally as was said in the dred scott decision white man had no rights that white men are bound respect and if you're the american republic that demands of slavery be abolished it once and inequality you respect of their skin colour be the signature american citizenship it was and initially talking

to those posts the split between politicians and the media publishes it's a split that is a debate they attack each other very bright pamphlets against each other the deepest and most important innovation in this debate and i think it's terribly important for understanding john brown it's a debate in which african american people from really the first time to develop a full political voice for african american people to help indignation meetings rejection meetings excoriation meetings of colonization at it and see how deeply insulting in a grieving and threatening the whole idea of powerful white asking me to leave would be and so when white abolitionists became part of the stupid they started re publish and what black people are published they started inviting african americans to make their own testimonies about how they would feel about being invited to leave the debate is one that

is for the first time in american politics in a racial debate or black voices are valued or white people were abolitionists publish what white people have to say respected stand aside for value the authority of that and what was going on in hudson he nearly eighteen thirties was going on all over the east coast and all over new england and those kinds of debates after a while became more than debates they became riots gang violence they exercise white supremacists in the north sank like you can't speak like people like look at me i'm podiums together they shouldn't be publishing each others' works major race riots in boston new york philadelphia cincinnati the period of race violence surrounding the debates and what's all across the north probably the most violent period american history before the end of reconstruction so the debate is part of a much much larger and very very

deep assertion of equality in the face of growing white supremacy in american political culture and brown has witnessed all that and what's that there's a record there says pastors will be part of the world about what garrison was promoting and the dangers that he faced in business when workers making thirty one seemed to burst onto the political scene all at once with a great vibrant message of black equality and immediate emancipation but i think it has to be understood that gerson learned to say these things from african american people the eighteen twenty nine a

black abolitionist and boston wrote a very famous document called david walker secure which was a very strong very revolutionary message about black resistance about white supremacy that gerson spent time in baltimore living with three african americans who told him what it felt like to be free in a land of slavery that he is holt approach to demanding that slavery be abolished it once and we snuck out in america was a message that was so strange so for and so threatening to so many white americans that right from the very beginning the possibility of repression fact of repression from a society deeply dedicated to white supremacy was really the basic problem that all abolitionists fixed the fact that abolitionists welcome to people of both skin colors and both genders to their meetings flew in the face of that all of the political conventions and all the social mores of the time

these threats of mobs the actuality of being violently stripped of your right to speak violently stripped of europe to publish and more the possibility that the helpless an innocent black communities in your own cops would be the place is filing for vengeance would be taken put a tremendous obligation and abolitionists to say over and over again we are peaceful people part of the reason for being peaceful was because slave holders were violent part of the reason for being peaceful others because jesus said do not evil that could make up part the reason for being peaceful was to make sure that you survive in a world of violence and hurt where mob rule and politics for twins were men who mobbed were also men who voted where editors are whipped up mobs with editorials in the newspapers and then blame victims for having approval not with inflammatory messages about racial equality

and the mixing of racism puppet places so abolitionists from the very very beginning were faced with terrible terrible problems of repression and whenever it was that abolitionists did not practice mob violence as was the case with a newspaper editor in illinois and it was a joy who tried to defend his press from being thrown in the river three times before finally loading his revolver he ended up being shot as he left the burning building with a mop circling around him that's a terribly important less for the abolitionist about why not violence was not only more the terrible practical so those are the dangers it seemed to me the sort of frowns fossil lovejoy says that you know they hate his life and yet he really is not backed up for that that x number of years why you know what i think will help brown from your will occur is

dedicated to his wife and yet it is not fully go i thought about that a lot and the you know the answer to that question it seems comes from an understanding that brown could not have become a professional reform actually the career of being a professional reformer was born in the age of abolitionists the idea that you get a paycheck a salary be supported in your life and work by giving speeches by being an editorial writer by being someone who could as william lloyd garrison good begins reform or even as a young boy and eighteen teens and twenties before became an abolitionist and never really put their career down until they died in a concert tonight i want to be a great speechwriter to be a great public figure to be someone who was able to mix in the main lion middle class respectable society was one of the rookies to be a

professional reporter and that was not john browne and like we were gerson had many children but on like william lloyd garrison did not have the kind of gift for a leadership gift for polemic gift for wanting in one way or another to stay in one place we more interesting was always associated with boston frederick douglass became associated with rochester one thinks about the great performers who go on for decades and decades leading social movements that are many decades longer than anything that's ever happened sense and they're centered people around in the world of speculation brown in the world of having to make a living by what about living hand to mouth brown in a number of different ways so it was trapped in a world of survival rather than having the kind of stable base of culture and robin identity that would allow him to be able to really think about himself as

a professional performer then the same time i love to be able to get more concise version of the people think it's really isn't doing it more from just rational but i think what those documents would appear the reason for brown's singing in attention to the problem of slavery for such a long time i think it's a handsome at least in part by the fact that he could never find a place to stay but he was a man who was forced to be without roots that he was forced to be a man on the goal and that is a job in the world was to try and get even and i mean by that financially get even to somehow rebound from the last financial reversed to find one more opportunity to try and bring some stability to his himself and to his family it very much i like the career the famous people that we remember were all great reformers who worked for

decades to abolish slavery in one place frederick douglass found his voice in rochester new york which lloyd garrison found his voice and on boston massachusetts libyan riot child found her voice in new york city john brown is never in a place long enough never allowed to be centered long enough it's as if in a sense he's being carried from place to place to keep his work together and under those conditions is very very hard no matter what you feel to develop a systematic program from year to year to year to feel that you are addressing the problem of slavery a systematic way a car yet they get the skills that yes that works in a financially right phil well add that there's another way to do that the skills that he has for finance are the skills that he has resisted that they're the skills of a private entrepreneur that the skills of a salesman and sales of somebody who's working

with you will not want to sell you a program for the skills of someone who has spent his life john brown skills are personal magnetism charisma locking his eyes on you and making you feel as if you're seeing into the depths of soul someone will draw you in the conversation so that you feel like you're only a foot away from him very intimate skills they're not skills will platform ordered them at the skills of an odor and not the skills of a movement organizer in the public sense that the skills of an insurgent there the skills of a man on fire and then on fire brings much more private and bronze gives them publicly and so in a sense the same skills that he tried to use to work his way as an entrepreneur and failed to become the skills that empowered him when finally he's able to talk about his deepest or out in his private conversations as a moral entrepreneur pulling together money pulling together a

financing pulling together converts of recruits for tours in kansas and raid on harpers ferry with veils on them was capable was capable of going out that he's a success my my feeling is that his failures have everything to do with explaining successes his failures of the failures of a man trying to do things that have no moral center wall has no moral center land has no shorts or try to sell the inner soul of a person to someone else for wendy is very very different than selling the soul of a person for the prospect of changing the course of history of bringing the hand of god in human affairs

liberating millions of people purging is lined with blood when brown was able to get his moral interiors together with his charisma as a salesman and as a speaker in private conversations problems with people far above him in terms of social class he could bring them to his level or maybe from his point of view elevate them as well as the planet's surface