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

z's but in an annex and says and if he had been black it would've been easier to understand we did and asked why they think he was one of them and i think it's very interesting that many people at the end of the twentieth century assumed that john brown's black and you know if he had been black i think it would be easier for us over a hundred years later to understand what he did and why he did that nobody would think he was crazy if you was a black man committed to the downfall of slavery and willing to take up arms against i think part of the reason that john brown is so difficult for some of us at the end of the twentieth century to understand is because he was white man and in some ways i think he is seen as a traitor to his race as a white man who was willing to take up arms against other white

men to free black man that may be no one one of the most difficult aspects of what john brown did for those of us who are more than a hundred years later try to understand what john brown did where is it in some ways i think it is easier for us to see john boy john brown started in some ways i think it is easier for us to see john brown as a black man because after all we would not see a black man who takes up arms against slavery the free black people as necessarily in st john brown wasn't a black man he was a white man and

part of our reaction to john brown has a duty to do with the fact that he was a white man taking up warm against other white men a free black man in some ways john brown to devices the trader to his race but in other ways of course john brown penalizes the freedom fighter dedicated to the principles of the country and which he lived another society which had formed the principle of freedom which he took really really seriously as seriously as the black men and women who support him thank you sue

white seasons last summer shows the rationales aren't well ok i'm at one of the more interesting parts of the memory of john brown is the way blacks and whites have traditionally seen what people have seen him as a dangerous radical fanatic crazy black people have seen him as a hero the difference is i think are significant because for black people the thing that made him unique and uniquely to roll it was his willingness to give his own life for people that he did not know

for people that in his society of the nineteenth century were soon to be people that he should not care about it it is that from the standpoint of black america john brown's symbolizes that faith in liberty that black americans celebrate as part of america's history john brown symbolizes that thing that black people want to take out of the american revolution and their generation and i think that that the difference between the way that john brown is viewed in the black community is symbolic of the way in which black people focus on the principles of american society and tried to push so the reality of the society measures up principal

to play the piano playing and you know this is someone else says lionel in twenty fourteen to people in north yuri says rowling was a jeb stuart whose yeah gems didn't know yet no store jackson's jackson who says that he was really impressed with the manliness of john brown is that what you mean

and we're looking to a standpoint of northerners who see him get in that and that is well that these viruses is only that you know i think we can imagine what john brown must have meant to especially people in the north that the time here is a man who has pushed the issue he has turned his personal crusade and even his personal defeat into a triumph the trial of john brown the executioner john browne brought the inhumanity the evil that embodied this thing call slavery center stage it cannot be ignored john brown had in the truest sense made himself a mortar to freedom and from the standpoint

especially of black people it forced america to look again at its most blatant contradictions it would not allow slavery to be swept aside as arguments of the day went on it would not allow america to look away from this evil institution john brown was part of the argument that kept pricking americans conscience it kept forcing america to face its failure and in doing that john brown and his raid had succeeded john brown wanted to free the slaves while he didn't do it directly but indirectly in the truest sense john brown helped to free the slaves

i think he would have been proud of that part of his legacy he's so serena says says it has a high think i think went by the time john browne is standing on the gallows he has come to a place where he is at peace with his effort it is almost as if he is saying i have done what i can do i have forced the issue to the extent that is within my power as i as i think back on him and his time i can't help but

think that there were lots of slaves who heard about he's hanging and it would've agreed with him that he had not failed in that he had done all of that was in his power to do that he had forced america to face up to its inhumane institution and it had forced he had forced america to really consider its itself in being an accomplice to the inhumane acts perpetrated daily on human beings i think john brown would have found

that one of the most satisfying outcomes of his effort forcing america to understand how it tolerated evil and was willing the sand its military forces in defense of that i think that's one of the things that john brown would've been satisfied that his biggest project that his death would facilitate liane is down the edges of the beginning of this four the idea that st john brown the idea that the spirit that spirit is was set into you know yeah it's really interesting because you know the war did not start with john browne spirit the war started as just a war to reuniting and holding together was not until sixty three that with the emancipation proclamation and a

variety of pacs passed by congress that the war really did become a war against slavery official it was at that point that john brown spirit officially becomes a part of the us effort to engulf the end this fighting and to and to bring about a victory i think lincoln tried for for a long time to keep it simple keep it straight on point say the union keep the union together but a fact of life that became true that that morally did not have the power to win the war it was the moral attack on slavery which helped to bring the war to a successful conclusion it was the moral attack on slavery that brought the kind of

support in and i'm not even talking about the north not even the united states in the world did they are on the fighting against the confederacy john brown and his raid on harpers ferry becomes an important symbol in that moral force and bring that moral force to bear that's what john brown was about bringing moral force to bear in the fight against this national people you know it's interesting i was going to say as our relations last week that moral or

fianna fil i think what happens is that lincoln starts out very much separated from the moral stance of john brown but that by sixty four by the closing months of the war i think lincoln is moving in a more and more rapid steps towards the moral position of john brown that is the position that says slavery is an evil that the federal government must take action against lincoln started this war spy wondering out loud whether the federal government had the constitutional right to strike at slavery within the states where it existed by the end of the war i think lincoln had moved to the point where he was sure that it had the moral right to strike against slavery and to that extent he is move towards that position of gunfire

twenty years to serve wellpoint one lesson and that really concerns though the free black community for black people at the time of the civil war life was incredibly complex you're living in a nation that had embarked upon an effort which if pressed would've ended slavery but at the beginning of that war the official reason for the us going to war against a confederacy was not slavery was simply holding together through a lot of black people who aren't so excited about holding the union together you know when the confederacy

threatened to leave the union and south carolina and georgia mississippi threaten to pull out of the union there were some blacks who were overjoyed that let me quote one who said do not stand on ceremony go at once what they meant was that if the south separated itself from the united states it's separated itself from the protection of the federal government and the protection of federal troops it made slavery more vulnerable by the time we get to the middle to the end of the eighteen fifties free blacks were interested in doing almost anything that would've made slavery more vulnerable it's no accident that in the milliken fifties towards the end and for the rest of those years in the fifties black military units were before for blacks were rating themselves to strike against the institution of slavery and they really believed that without the federal government they're without federal troops to protect that institution their

chances of success would have been greatly improved so as we move into the eighteen sixties and that the war is underway and lincoln turns down black offers to join the military to fight in the cause of freedom it is uncertain as to what is really going to happen is what could end slavery but the question was will it end slavery and wouldn't it hadn't been an almost unimaginable pity if the war had been fought and the us had won and slavery had been maintained and i'll look at the summit end of the twentieth century they didn't know what we know they had no idea how that war was going to come out and was always the possibility that the us would when slavery would

remain life and i think that that is that would have been unthinkable just a lot i think that john brown's raid on harper's ferry help to ensure the fact that when the war came it would eventually be about abolishing slavery and when the war was successfully won by the united states it would bring about the abolition of slavery i think that's one of the most important influences of that raid on the next five or ten years i don't want to see is in these cases and here is how much you guys

ok yes dr john brownstein about the radicalization of the whole movement what these pillars he says i was yours as soon as the old dustin runnels sure sure what one of the most important things that happened during the eighteen fifties is it with this federal assault on african american writes with this series of events dred scott decision back to the fugitive slave law and a mini attempted rescues some failed and some successful rescues of fugitive slaves with all of this how it radicalize is a broad range of

the population in the north obviously read a lot to radicalize is free blacks but also radicalized says i don't care it is also a concern one of the things it isn't that is important about the eighteen fifties is with the series of feral assaults on black writes there is a radicalized an effect on the population in the north the black population as well as the white population the fugitive slave law is tremendously important because as a result of that law there are many fugitives who are present in free northern society taken out of that society white people witness the capture and the return of fugitive these aren't stereotypes is a real people but they in many cases have come to know people like thomas thomas wentworth

higginson who but dissipated and the attempted rescue anthony burns and fifty four in boston this is a person who is radicalized to the point that he is by fifty four leading abolitionists mobs against the courthouse to rescue a fugitive and illegal act by the time of the civil war he is leading a black regiment of south carolina in the us army against the confederacy the fact is it eighteen fifties changes the opinions of lots of people in the north it changes the lives of lots of people in the north and also anti slavery never becomes a majority sentiment and the north certainly the events of the eighteen fifties reinforces the notion that theres a slave power conspiracy and that slave power conspiracy is dangerous not only to

blacks but the white writes as well and you get the growing militancy in the abolitionist movement which parallels the growing militancy in the free black society so the aching fifties become really critical and crucial decade preparing americans especially north of the mason dixon line for the possibility of a tony award