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

oh oh oh you know so it's best way to slavery after the end of that really care is interested somehow prices for me well if it's true and i think you find often that means is that i think that often you will find that people who become very much involved in these kinds of movements the abolition movement the underground world of song come out of a background which from the time they were very young very learned to look at the evils that they are attacking and very specific ways and those ways are often guided by the parents is this so the parents form a kind

of context for there viewing of the world john brown is an example of that person and that kind of person whose father does provide for him a context for looking at the evil institution slavery father and of course one of the things that john brown's father does which puts him squarely in the midst of the movement to not only work against slavery directly but to work in facilitating a freedom for those who come out of slavery is that he's said the trustee of overland how or when causes of course a first college a nation which it makes women and blacks on an equal basis with white males and the fact of brown's father is so much involved with old one and it's more than a college it's a kind of a knicks spurs is great experiment it is the experiment which is to show that provided

with proper opportunities like education blacks who had been in slavery could be calm productive and responsible free citizens or berlin was the laboratory which allowed for that kind of education that would help blacks to make that transition from slavery to freedom and maybe the blacks who went to mobile and were in fact this is really interesting the sons and daughters of slave holders they were slave holders in the south who freed their children and then arrange for those children to receive education somewhat to the gilmore school in cincinnati which is a kind of secondary school and then some of those people went on to overland college so the overland really does become this experimental laboratory in terms of interracial living but also in terms of educational opportunities for black people sergio was buried

if you lived in ohio and especially southern ohio it was almost impossible for you not to have some feel for the efforts on the part of blacks to escape from slavery after all southern ohio right across the river the ohio river from slavery and there were lots of fugitives that made that journey across the river jordan across the ohio river and if you were a slave standing on the banks of the our river in kentucky looking across to freedom you can see how much more attractive and possible obama stressed the possible freedom would have been as a close to being someplace in the southern interior and not being able to see or even to know which direction freedom might be located so that the dia southern ohio really became kind of a welcoming point for lots

of blacks escaping from slavery by the same token of course it was also a hotbed of activity for slave catchers because they realize that lots of black should be making this crossing and they were very pop operating regularly in cincinnati in ripley ohio and lots of those towns along the ohio river making sure that they could at least keep track of the blacks who had run away and often kidnapping and taken aback in a sleeper cell the world of john brown then grew up in was a world that was aware of and divided by this notion of the responsibility of a free citizen to land assistance to a person seeking freedom is a very human kind of question and john brown was affected in a very human way by this question

this is morning edition yes and i think that the story of john brown witnessing the beating of a slave being administered by a person that ground felt some personal connection to i think that was a very important point in his life at this point he comes to grips with a complexity of slavery to come to grips with the fact that slave holders are sometimes nice people but nice people could do inhumane things and i think at that point john brown decided that it wasn't enough to bring the nice people but she really ahead to remove the structures the structure of the institution allowed eva nice people do inhumane things to their fellow human beings that's great

the power is in the system when you think about this this is this is the if i could just make as one point often people at the end of the twentieth century will asked historians about good masters it's hard to think in terms of a good master obviously there were some masses it work better and worse than other masters but as frederick douglass said a good master frees a slave and ceases to be a master to hold human beings in bondage to deprive them all of their natural rights as human beings to do that is to limit to some to a severe extent the fact of

goodness how can a person who sees him or herself as a good person to do these kinds of things at a difficult issue to deal with slavery it would or only allow a master to be so humane slavery in polls the kind of inhumanity on even the most humane masters historian joe davis around the city or they can say yeah i think in order for you to appreciate john brown and abolition movement and the underground railroad apparatus you have to understand the power of a single slate for this was not a marginal institution here for civil slavery starts out being an institution that is a dominant institution in the north and the south by the time the early nineteenth century it has become almost

totally isolated or becoming isolated in the south but still slavery was a tremendously influential institution economically for example slavery was the a labor system which produced cotton and cotton was a terribly terribly economically important crop product for the entire nation by eighteen fifteen cotton was worth more than anything else that the nation export and by eighteen forty it was worth more than everything else this country exported combine this was not a marginal product this was the center of america's economy and to that extent slavery becomes bound up with this very powerful economically powerful crop and slavery becomes powerful economically and politically because the politicians who ran the south and ultimately had tremendous influence in the national government were connected to cotton and through cotton

to this institution of slavery oh yes i think brown really saw that slavery at the end of the eighteen fifties was becoming at all sensitive institution i mean we had just been through a major ruling by the supreme court and the dred scott decision and fifty seven which made it possible at least theoretically for slavery to expand beyond the south into the territories and even some argued into the north this made slavery not only a kind of institution that you dreaded but was far away but it made in slavery an institution that was expanding and that could expand even into the northern states where generations

before it had been abolished that i think for brown was a terrifying thought and so i think in part we have to understand his raid as part of an effort to insure that slavery did not expand beyond its borders become overly powerful in the american government and even start to encroach into the free states just the power of a cell that they will leave the job that president obama ordered this was a country that was wrong with him john brown was aware of john brown was aware as most abolitionists were aware that the south had tremendous power at the federal level i mean after all count the

president's most of those presidents had been from the south many of them if not most of them had been slaveholding slavery had a real presence in the white house it also have a presence in both houses of congress slave owners had substantial power in both the house and the senate on the major committees they they were some of the most powerful people in those bodies slavery was not a marginal institution you can think of this kind of incidental to the running of the federal government it was physically isolated in the south but in terms of its power had reached out from the south and it could grab hold of power where ever that power exists in the nation and it did that for example when the supreme court ruled in a very straightforward way directly in favor of these dishes later and said that institutionally rick was not limited to the south that it could move beyond it was in the south that the federal government could not restrict the expansion

of the astuteness slavery that's a frightening frightening thought and john brown was very much aware that said there were those in the south who work at that moment pressing for slavery is expansion expansion into the caribbean expansion into the western territory it would not have been inconceivable for those people think about the expansion of slavery into the northern states at this anti slavery we'll think of slavery as a seller at their coronation thirties forties slavery is a national well the fact is dead by the time we get to about eighteen thirty slavery is being phased out of almost every state in the nation although it is certainly true that when the united states was formed slavery was a national institution not just a regional stage that new york had just abolish slavery in the mid eighteen

points that new jersey had this gradual emancipation part program going on by which slavery was being removed but there were still slaves in new jersey there were still slaves in lots of places in the end the north where at the end of the twentieth century where surprise of slavery ever existed cause slavery was very much a national institution at the nation's birthday and head although it was becoming a regional escalation had still evidence in various northern states even as late as the aging parents well it was visible support of slavery yet in terms of support of slavery in the north the one thing you have to understand is that the north was becoming industrializing many places in massachusetts i may places in other places in new england caught textile factories weren't were springing up cotton textile factories use the raw materials produced by

slate and so steve that slave labor was ever call to the nationalization of the north so that there was a real split an important degree of support among northern industrialists for slaves and four slave production in the south in a place like new york for example where there are so many bankers who made a good portion of their money financing plantations financing the production of cotton they were tied to this institution of slavery too so that to go up against slavery was not only to go up against is this its tuition that is rooted in the cells but also an institution which had very strong political and economic support even in europe to northern cities there is to say

but at thirty years we're seeing that offensive slavery change now when jefferson was defending slavery during his generation there was this notion of the necessary evil and evil institution but really necessary for a variety of reasons economic as well as social reasons by the time we get to the aching thirties that argument has started to disappear and we had the much more aggressive argument which says there's nothing negative about slavery sliver is positive it is positive four slave holders but it is also positive for slave there is this growing stereotypical characterization of slaves as the symbol that is the loyal happy slave the slave that enjoys his or her a position in the society the slave is protected by the benevolent slave holder i mean this is the picture of slavery for example that nat turner's rebellion allied to it is that picture of slavery that john brown could never accept and of course the reason he couldn't accept that picture because you know lots of

people would then slips you know blacks if you know all those people going there more of a stereotypical images they are real flesh human beings but they're real stories and you know how ridiculous that kind of characterization is that's where john brown stood and so when john brown strikes out against this institution of slavery he's stretching out against the institution of slavery that cannot make its points felt by this kind of positive good defense is john brown knows that this defense is just natural for a year there is alice isn't is growing as a pacifist that was an ad up right now making thirties abolition really moves to a point of

a interesting complexity and this is the this is the complex you get william lloyd garrison that white abolitionists in boston the edits to liberate are the most powerful anti slavery newspaper in america at the time and he's a pacifist he believes in a kind of what he calls moral suasion that if you have to speak morality to slave holdings you have to attack slavery with a moral argument and that was effective way ins in some places of dealing with the institution of slavery but it was far less effective for example slaves and if you read that frederick douglass one of the things it becomes clear is that it was willing to step over the line of nonviolence he was willing to be nonviolent he was willing to be violence if that's what it took to break the bonds of slavery or even to assert his dignity within the institution of slavery tells the story of his encounter with colby the slave preacher at one point cory

is just intent upon breaking his will and douglas is just is intent upon not letting that be done and he and gauges in violent defense of himself violent defense of his dignity and he beats coal free physically and after that frederick douglass says at that point i became a man so from the standpoint of slaves many of whom had heard when lloyd terraces message saw wayne lloyd garrison as this white abolitionists who was willing to go to unbelievable extends and some cases to plead their case but there were always a little different because nonviolence for the slave is not always a practical solution sometimes it's the only solution but often it's not the most practical solution and slaves were willing and in the case of the slave who was trying to break for freedom in the case of slaves who were trying to defend their families slaves are willing to be violent

when necessary and slaves who had already escaped or fugitives were willing to use violence to fend off slave fletcher's and to maintain their freedom and increasingly many white abolitionists were willing to use violence to defend she displaces well some of the non violent pacifist approach of garrison although it was very useful and garrison was a very very important anti slavery movement was not always excepted fully by blacks or even by some other white abolitionists they're taking me sure i think the garrison's song nonviolence as a tactic or garrison much like martin is a chaotic years later sought to speak directly to americans conscience and i think under certain conditions that

perfectly feasible but i think that often fugitive slaves or slaves on a plantation were not always in the position to you stated that speaking to the conscience of the overseer or the conscience of the master was a practical thing in terms of defending themselves in the families john john brown i had a difficult time with pacifism odd because he is his take on this was it's awfully hard to make a person without a conscience on this issue to make that person feel the inhumanity of his action by appealing to his conscience without a conscience that appeal falls flat falls on deaf ears and so john

brown was actually seeking another way of making that appeal an appeal that he thought was much more straightforward and ultimately would be much more effective his appeal was using violence was use overall power well i suppose you can say that his appeal was the appeal of george washington who at some point decided it wasn't enough to continue to go up peel to the king of england for writes that at some point you have to defend your rights an imagineer rights to violence john brown i think saw himself as defending humanity as defending the rights guaranteed to people by not all the documents of the federal government but by god and nature he saw himself defending those rights when he attacked harpers ferry for example