American Experience; The Abolitionists; Interview with R. Blakeslee Gilpin, part 3 of 5

Why did Douglass answer Brown's summons to go to Chambersburg by this point, Scott declared Brown's trouble and Douglass doesn't need more trouble. Right. I mean, I think part of the reason why Douglass ends up in Chambersburg, you know, on the eve, so to speak, of the raid, is that these guys are very close. I mean, they're probably the most sympathetic two individuals in radical abolition. And though I think Douglass is moving away from Brown's methods, even at this time, they've got a pretty long relationship. I mean, this is over a decade of sort of intimate plotting, in some degree or another. I plotting, I'm using that term vaguely because Douglass is largely trying to talk Brown out of this plot, and Brown is trying to talk Douglass into it. But you know, there's that sense of obligation.

And again, this group, this group of people is so small, so marginal, that I think Douglass feels the need to support Brown in this intimate, you know, understanding of friendship, that he sort of goes there, I mean, maybe for the last ditch effort to talk Brown out of doing this, but certainly because they're such close friends, and he feels the need at Brown's request to at least hear him out. And so, but Douglass doesn't know about Harbysfari, what does he expect to hear from Brown? I mean, I think it's pretty complicated. Like what is Douglass know, this is kind of like the Brown origin myth, you know, what do people know at various times is another big game that historians like to play with Brown and his compatriots. I think Douglass knew pretty well what Brown had in mind. I mean, the specific target probably not, but he might, he very well might have. And I mean, the whole problem is that Brown's children sort of recollections of Douglass's

role in their father's life are very different from Douglass's recollections of his role in their father's life. But I think he knew that Brown was under, underwains in a very, you know, this thing was about to happen. It's about to go off. And Douglass is going there, you know, ostensibly to try to convince him maybe not to do this, but at least to try to talk him out of various versions of the plan that Brown had presented to him over the years. You know, there are more and less extreme plans that Brown had proposed. You know, the first plan in 1848 is a plan that's much more like the Underground Railroad. And that's what this flag is about. It's the subterranean passway. The subterranean passway is a sort of route in the mountains that he, that Brown is going to spear its slaves out of the South. Okay? This is really, you know, a tubminesque understanding of what to do about slavery. That plan has gone into much more dramatic sort of iterations by 1859, which are included

in Compass, what actually happens, which is Brown invading the South and occupying the South and taking over the South, you know, sort of building this republic out, you know, one mile at a time. And that republic is going to be a new country with Brown as the president. I mean, that's, that's kind of getting a little wacky for Douglass, I mean, for sure. But I don't think Douglass knows exactly which thing Brown plans to do. And my belief is, I mean, I think the documents bear this out, is that what Douglass was hoping to do was to talk him into the early plan. Go for it. Go for the tubmin. And spear it the slaves out. That might work. I mean, Douglass is pretty pessimistic about even that. But I think he's saying that could work. But this plan about taking over the South, you don't understand what this, what this system is like, what this world is like. If you think that that's going to be possible, you're mistaken. And how practical was Brown's plan, what were the hurdles that Brown faced in taking

Harper's Ferry and taking over the South? Oh, I mean, the thing that I always, that I always ask people when they're, when they're requiring about Brown, and you know, they have a vague notion of this guy having this sort of crazy plan to take over the South, is I say, you know, have you ever seen a picture of the town of Harper's Ferry? Or have you been there even better? Because if you have, this is not the place you would choose to invade. You know, it is at the bottom of a hill, not so good strategically, all right? It's at the confluence of two rivers. So you've got nowhere to go, even if, you know, if forces come in from the top of the hill, you're going to swim to safety. I mean, this is not, it's not a sound plan. And I think part of Brown's, I mean, I find the choice of target very curious. But it's symbolic. You know, if we think about his use of broad swords in Potawatomi, this guy and his, his homemade flag, he understands symbolism.

I mean, famously, Brown, after the Potawatomi massacre, paraded across New England, carrying the chains that had held his son who died, you know, after being captured by federal troops, he would carry these chains, and he would throw them down on the desk of the Massachusetts State Legislature in the sort of fancy parlors of New England, sort of literati, and say, these are the chains that held my son, Frederick. That's what Harper's Fairies about. It's a symbolic target. It is in the South. It's a federal armory, great symbolism, right? He's got these pikes that he's going to give to the slate. I mean, this is the most po, it's so, it's so outdated. It's, it's sort of, you know, we're going to give them butter knives and tell them to rise up. It's really kind of silly, but it's symbolically very powerful. It's biblical pikes with, you know, these, these sort of metal sort of bayonets on the end. I mean, that's really, there's very powerful symbolism there, and that's why he chooses Harper's Fairie.

It is because, I mean, the Brownie acts, you know, the Brown historian is all the people who, who, who love to talk about Brown, disagree with this, you know, violently, but I actually, I really do believe that Brown kind of knew. He kind of knew that it was going to fail. And that's what I mean when I said there's this understanding and a Calvinist sense of his destiny. Then when he's sitting in that farmhouse, and he's sitting in the Kennedy farmhouse for those months, waiting for the raid to take place, there's something, there's something about fate, he's meeting fate. He's, he's confronting his own fate in that time, and that, that raid, it's probably not going to be that great if it succeeds. If it fails, it's going to be just as good as if it succeeds, because it's going to really, like, put everything in motion. He is a real keen understanding of how, I mean, Potawatomi is proof of that, that symbolic moments, symbolic actions are enormously influential. He really understands that going into Harper's Fairie. I guess with Pikes, they could take over the Tower of London, or something.

Exactly. Yeah, not much worth fighting against guns with those things though. So I wonder if you could just describe the scene in the engine house a little night? Oh, hand the engine house. So Brown holds up in this engine house, you know, this is where he ends up, you know, by certain, you know, circumstances and events, we basically end up with him in this engine house with only, he and two other raiders that are, you know, living his, one of his sons is dead already, his other son is dying. You've got a sort of handful of, you know, quote, unquote, liberated slaves. I mean, that's a pretty loose definition of liberation. These are slaves that have basically been kidnapped just like the white captives that they're holding in this engine house. You know, this is really motley crew of people. And his son is dying, and these statements that the various captives, you know, recall about what is going on throughout the night is, you know, the Virginia militias basically

lay siege to the engine house are just wild, you know, brown sort of this stoic, remote figure who's speaking to his son, but he's never, he's never really standing over me. He's, you know, he's across the engine house and saying, you know, keep up your courage, you know, if you die like a man, you'll know that you died in a righteous cause. I mean, are those comforting words when you're, when you're dying from, you know, stab and blood wounds? I'm not sure that that's what I would want to hear. I might want to hold my father's hand when that was happening, but brown is really not in that mode. He's sort of pacing around very, you know, he's very, he's, he's sort of in his own mind. And I really, this is the moment when, if he didn't realize it before, he knows that there's, that this is really what he was meant for in some greater sense, that there's going to be, you know, there are all these curious actions that take place during the raid, you know, he lets the train go, you know, not necessarily good strategic decisions. I mean, not that he's a very sound military thinker as we can, we can just sort of understand

when we look at harbors fairy, but when he lets the train go, you, you think yourself, you know, there's some other logic operating here and it's, it's the logic that, you know, of just being a press event. I mean, brown very famously, corded, intimately corded reporters in bleeding Kansas, you know, kind of took them into his confidence and would, you know, sort of show them these sort of dramatic things that were going on, but never let them go along for the whole ride, you know, it's this very romantic sort of like the black panthers in the 60s, you know, like let the, let the Eastern journalist kind of participate in this, in this sort of dramatic event, but you're never going to show them the whole, the whole show. And in the engine house, I think brown really, I mean, I think it just really clicks for him that this is, this is it, this is what he's meant for, you know, and when they send these emissaries to sort of hopefully peacefully get these people out of the engine house, brown set, you know, they say you can surrender and he says, you know, I would rather die with

a rifle in my hand, you know, for this glorious cause. I mean, that's, that's intense, you know, that's a real, that's a real shift, or I mean, that's a real understanding of this guy's symbolic power within himself. You know, he is, I mean, and this is true from the beginning of the raid because who, what else does he have in this engine house? He's got George Washington's sword, you know, this is a pretty curious thing. He's speaking to those roots, you know, he's got Calvinism, he's got Puritanism, and he's got the revolutionary generation in that engine house. He's got George Washington's sword, which is the first thing he went to do, he didn't go to the armory, he goes to Lewis Washington's house to get this sword that he knows is in this town, and he's carrying this sword for the entire night. I mean, it's just that, that to me just shows this guy really can. He is a symbolic mastermind because he knows that this is the, these are the symbols that he wants to play upon. I, because my family is, he thought he was going to die in that engine house. It ended up better for him that he didn't, but there's a real sort of, that fate, he's

meeting fate in that, in that, in that night, and it's all going to go down. That's great. The, I mean, you've alluded to this before, but they, there's a day, several of our characters have a dedication to the American experiment that is, and not incomprehensible to us, but certainly, just that we don't get that it's something that they, they feel that they, they, they, one of the constitutions that I put that and so on, but, but what they are dedicated to is, it's, it's, it's the American experiment. Yeah. And so I wonder, if you could, if you could talk about it, not just with Brown, but just put us in that time and why, how they see it differently and how their dedication to it is different from what we understand as, you know, I mean, I think part of the trouble with, part of the trouble with understanding the antebellum mindset, and this goes right

up through the Civil War, is that we've lived through the last 150 years, you know, they've softened our understanding of the things that were going on there, but for these people, it was their, some of them, it was their fathers, most of them, it was their grandfathers who, who fought in the revolution. I mean, there is a tangible sense, and I mean, this was a, basically, this was how you established your sort of status in antebellum America, particularly in the Northeast, was did your grandfather, who was your grandfather, what regiment did he fight in, you know, was he in the revolution? That's hugely important, hugely important, and they're understanding of what that meant is really curious because it's an American experiment. It's this American experiment in democracy in a government that doesn't have more power than the people. That, that sort of very fragile process, that fragile experiment is something that's going to be tested again and again, every compromise that is made, particularly, you know, starting

with a Missouri compromise, are all struck with that understanding in mind. You know, Thomas Jefferson's famous line about the Missouri compromise, like we're grabbing the wolf by the ears, and we cannot, you know, safely let him go or keep holding on. That is, that's about the American democratic experiment, but there, it's the stakes of that fight that I think are so alien to us as modern Americans, and those stakes are that if we let this experiment fail, okay, if this experiment goes wrong, we are, we are losing out in world history in thousands of years where the Romans and the Greeks are going to be remembered, we will be forgotten because we failed in this experiment. We didn't, I mean, here's a pure spirit work ethic for you. We didn't work hard enough. We didn't try to discern God's purpose for us in an earnest enough way, okay, that experiment is going to fail if we don't do this. I mean, that's really, you know, the reaction to secession, once that poll ball starts

rolling is all about the American experiment. They don't, they don't even care. I mean, they're not talking about the economy, they're not talking about slavery, they're not talking about American politics, they're talking about this experiment failing. What would that mean? It's challenging their faith in God because they view this, I mean, you know, obviously Winthrop City on a hill, but this is even more, it's like visceral, visceral understanding of their investment in the American democratic experiment. I mean, it's radical stuff, I mean, that they really live this in a religious way and that they view the stakes of it as being greater than life and death. It's not life and death because their death is essentially meaningless, but if this experiment is allowed to fail, it's going to mean something very tragic for history, you know, for God's sort of treatment of humans, you know, that's the stakes of, those are the stakes of the American democratic experiment. So Brown is, Brown is captured and tried, can you just tell me about the impact of his closing statement?

I tend to like the closing statement less than some people. I mean, the closing statement is, I mean, it closes, I mean, those sort of final lines are very powerful, which is Brown and his favorite sort of biblical quote, you know, suffer with those bonds as bound with them, that's great stuff. I mean, that's really, he really puts the sharpest point on what he was about, you know, and that I should be willing to mingle my blood. There's this, I mean, this is real, Brown, understanding the symbolism of the moment, acknowledging going to his fate like a New Testament Christ, not an old Testament, right? He's going to, you know, he's going to be peaceful, he's going to be beatific. That's what the significance of the closing statement is. It's not necessarily the most coherent, if we take it as a whole, I mean, he's kind of disavowing certain parts of the raid, he's denying other parts, I mean, it's a very confusing kind of contradictory document, but he ends it, you know, with that sort of real, real nice emphasis on these are the stakes, these are brothers, brothers in Christ,

you know, slaves, white men, or we are all bound up in the same project, that's powerful stuff. And it also, it sort of instantly gives birth, I mean, this is taking place throughout the trial, you know, he's on the cot, he's injured, I mean, this is such great theater, this is theater of abolitionist theater, but that Brown, in this closing statement, he really creates the environment that he is just going to milk, you know, like the finest 20th century or 21st century PR agent, you know, like a PR person, just like hitting it hard for the next month in his jail cell, you know, this sort of beatific peaceful wise old man, you know, the whole notion of Brown as an old man, not as a like Old Testament Avenger, it's, that's a strange evolution to take place in a matter of weeks. These guys just led a raid to destroy slavery, I mean, they've killed people, and not the

first people he's killed, and he suddenly become, you know, famously depicted an art, you know, wearing these sort of evening slippers with this long, you know, peaceful old patriarch beard, and you know, he's the grandfather, the abolitionist grandfather you wish you had, as opposed to the guy who was, you know, I mean, the most famous story, which is accurate about him raising his own children was of, you know, 10 whips for you, and I'm going to give 10 whips to myself, because that's what, you know, that's what I have sinned to by your sinning. That's not the Brown that emerges with the closing statement. This is a Brown of words, not of actions, but of words that now have such greater meaning than any of the abolitionists prattling for the last two, three decades, because they suddenly mean something more, they suddenly have this tremendous and dramatic action behind them. That's a sea change.

I mean, that's the moment when just like the generation sort of shifts, I think, and Brown really takes on this new role, which is going to be very, very powerful. So, what, what, what did the other abolitionists who've been prattling on for almost 30 years make a Brown of this point? Oh, so I mean, the reaction to Brown is very complicated, and I think it's, I think they're in a real dicey situation, you know, this is breaking news, and I mean, it becomes a press event that is unprecedented. I mean, it really is, there is, it is the first, it's the O.J. Simpson trial of the 19th century. I mean, that's the way that I would describe it, because it's, you can't imagine this kind of coverage for anything else, you know, I mean, people think that, you know, the Lincoln Douglas debates were, you were covered in this intense way, I mean, it's nothing compared to this, because you've got just, nor the reporter's swarming, you know, the locals, whether

it's Harper's Ferry or Charlottes Town, wherever, wherever it is to get a handle on this case. And I mean, they're, I mean, if you read the newspapers from this time, they're the most insignificant things. They're writing dispatches that say nothing, because they want, it's just all about everybody wants to know what's going on with this. I mean, that's how important this event is, because of that, people like Garrison, people like Lincoln, anyone who is involved in American public life has to react to this. I mean, that's, that's how enormous it is, it's omnipresent. It is, it is just everywhere, you have to do something about it, you have to say something about it. And I mean, I think particularly for Garrison, that's a real complicated process, because he has to sort of walk this incredibly fine line, he can't endorse it, it's completely contrary to everything he believes in, and as far as method, but it obviously, there's a shared wellspring of commitment to anti-slavery there. And so for Garrison, it's this sort of high-wire act.

I mean, Brown's most intimate supporters react in pretty dramatic and wild ways. I mean, Garrison Smith famously checks himself in this insane asylum, you know? I mean, that's sort of preemptively, I've got insane, I mean, they all knew, I mean, we have accounts from all of his, you know, the secret six in the late 1850s, talking about trying to talk Brown out of this plan, I mean, so the same thing that Douglas is trying to do at Chambersburg, you know, they're all aware of the fact, I mean, Douglas famously describes it as the, you know, the perfect steel trap, but they're all talking to Brown about this. Like, this is doomed, don't do it. But Brown is just so steadfast, they say, okay, we'll give you money for it. And Garrison Smith, when it happens, it's suddenly like, oh, whoa, this could be really bad for me. I'm going to be you to come, you know, I'm going to get in this insane asylum. And then, you know, the only person who remain, I mean, Douglas is also in a tough place. There are tons of letters that are discovered between him and Brown, he's got to get out of the country.

I mean, there's real threat to his safety, not just in terms of his life, but also in terms of what, you know, are they going to try to prosecute other people for this? Douglas goes to Canada and he goes to, you know, there was a plan trip to Europe, but he goes to Canada right away. He's followed there by other members of the Secret Six, and Frank on Sanborn, most notably. I mean, these guys are sort of all get out of town. And you know, with good reason, the only person who sort of stays stalwart in terms of support publicly voicing his supporters is Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who's, I mean, he's a funny guy because he's really the most high-minded. He kind of is my prototype for the abolitionist talk or not doer, right? I mean, he just loves to talk. And he really, you know, he puts his money where his mouth is in 1859, because he just says, yeah, I supported this guy, and I'm not going anywhere. You know, if you want to subpoena me or do whatever, like, bring it on. I think that's pretty powerful. A powerful example for other abolitionists that there is this well-spring of belief.

But there's a real threat there. I mean, Frank on Sanborn is actually, you know, he's cuffed. I mean, he's two men come to Concord, Massachusetts. He comes back in Canada and, you know, capture him and try to take him to Washington to testify. And I mean, imagine the stakes of this, that towns people of Concord rise up and liberate him from these mercenaries, from these basically soldiers of fortune. I mean, that's, and they sort of secret him about the town for the next few months. I mean, that's, this is a pretty tense standoff even in places really far away from Harper's Fair. I mean, those are immediate repercussions among the supporters. Great. What role did Harper's Fair in Brown play in case he's in the Civil War at the moment? I mean, I think it's complicated. We've got a two-year gap here before the war begins.

And so how do we measure Harper's Fair's influence on the national situation, on the political situation? I mean, the thing that people, even in this bitter political environment and contemporary America, people cannot even fathom it. You can't grasp how bitter, how paranoid. And that's really the word that I always remind people of, is paranoia. Northerners become convinced. This is what's motivating the territorial conflict. They become convinced that southerners are hell-bent on moving slavery to every part of the country, even into the north. I mean, they're talking about, you know, there are these newspaper editorials about slavery in Manhattan that they're going to be, you know, they're going to be having slave auctions on Fifth Avenue. That's happening in the late 1850s. The bitterness in paranoia and on the part of southerners is even more enormous at this point, because here we have proof positive, okay, that there is an utter disregard for the compromises that have been made over the previous hundred years.

I mean, between North and South, to found this American Republic, to try to keep this thing running, whether it's the Missouri Compromise or the Compromise of 1850, or Kansas and Nebraska, that this is a, these things are all deadletters, constitution, deadletter in the eyes of the North, because door theners, like brown, are willing to come in here, not just disregard our right of property, but are right to life. You know, these are the secret enlightenment concepts that this country was founded on. The paranoia, I mean, it's just, it grows so exponentially in the wake of this raid. It's really hard to measure, because it convinces southerners that it's over. It's only going to be a matter of time. I mean, you really can see that in 59 and 60, that it's just a matter of time before secession happens, because Lincoln is suddenly going to have to parry. You know, he's going to have to say, well, I'm not, John Brown wasn't a Republican, and, you know, we, I don't believe in this raid. I believe slavery is wrong, we're not going to do anything about it.

That notion, we are not going to do anything about it, which obviously is the sort of mantra of the Republican Party from 1854 on, we want to restrict slavery spread, but we won't do anything where it already is, who's going to believe that? Because you've just got this guy, okay, who's led 21 people, so not a huge force, into the south, to destroy slavery. That shows a pretty utter disregard for, other, utter contempt for these compromises. But then you have the Northern establishment, and I'm not just talking about writers, but every newspaper saying, this guy's a hero, he's a saint, okay? I mean, you've got the most prominent intellectuals in the country, throw, calling them an angel of light. You've got Emerson comparing him to Christ on the cross, okay? How can southerners look at that and say, oh, these guys are good negotiating partners, we're going to be able to sort this out, we're going to be able to sort this slavery problem out. It's not going to happen, because in this moment, I mean, the paranoia that is ripples

out from Harper's Ferry is going to say to Americans of both sides, there's nothing to be done. Other side, they, aren't there for us, they're not going to be, they're not going to be able to make compromises anymore, they are going to violate our sacred rights, whether those are rights to own a slave for the south, or the right to have an equal and sort of parody in government, all right, for the north, that's going to become, it's going to be over in 1859. I think the most notable thing is when you have, when murder day, I mean, the fact that they give it, it becomes a holiday, December 2nd becomes a holiday in the north, and there are reports across other newspapers, 1859, but particularly a year later in 1860 saying, they're celebrating this murderer as a saint. How can we be in a country?

How can we be in a government with these people? They are openly just shredding the constitution, I mean, now they're going to call up garrison, you know, like burning the constitution as a pact of the devil, they're going to use that, it's all going to be of a kind, and they're going to put Lincoln in that same camp. So basically, to some extent, secession becomes inevitable, I mean, that's a dangerous word for historians, but the paranoia that is coming out of this, it's going to be pretty impossible to repair. So shall we do for a while?