Brown Quotes Part One Narrator: For years, John Brown had been trying to divine God's purpose, to make sense of his afflictions. He had once been a successful merchant and tanner, a good provider to his family. But then, suddenly, his life collapsed: a series of business disasters plunged him deep into debt. R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Historian: Brown is drifting just further and further into a very deep and dark relationship with God. He's always trying to discern what God wants for him. That's really what Calvinism is all about. You re eternally in sin. You're just constantly trying to get out of it like a drowning man. Narrator: In November of 1837, news came that an anti-slavery printer had been murdered by a mob in Illinois. Elijah Lovejoy's death struck at something deep within John Brown, conjuring up a memory that had haunted him for years. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith, audio): When I was a child, I stayed for a short time with a very gentlemanly landlord who held a slave boy near my own age. The master made a great pet of me, while the Negro boy was badly clothed, poorly fed, and beaten before my eyes with iron shovels or any other thing that came first to hand. Narrator: For Brown, Lovejoy's death was a sign from God: He must never again stand helpless in the face of evil. As he dressed for a prayer meeting a few days after the killing, John Brown knew what God meant for him. He sat silently at the back of the room as one speaker after another fired up the congregation with accounts of Lovejoy's death. Finally, John Brown stood up and raised his right hand. "Here before God," he announced, "in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery." The Abolitionists Part Two. Far from Garrison's Boston headquarters, Douglass was free to explore the political, and even militant, anti-slavery strategies that were circulating in Rochester. As he did so, he made the acquaintance of a man whose name he had heard in whispers, failed tanner and fervent abolitionist John Brown. Mary Brown (Denise Ellington): May I get you anything else, Mr. Douglass? Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): Thank you, no, Mrs. Brown. A meal like this is a rare pleasure these days. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): The pleasure is ours, Mr. Douglass. I'd hoped to meet you long before this. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): I am flattered, sir. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): Your speeches have been an inspiration to us. I do wonder, though, whether speeches will ever be enough. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): What do you mean, sir? John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): You've been at this for years. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): Freedom is a long road, Mr. Brown. I don't know any shortcuts. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): I do, Douglass. I do. Sir -- God has placed these mountains here for a reason. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): You know God's thinking?
John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): I know these mountains. From here, we can strike a blow against the slave masters. The mountains are full of natural fords. One good man could hold off a hundred soldiers. My plan is to take handpicked men and post them in squads of fives on a line here. They come down off the mountains, raid the plantations, bring off the slaves, offer them a chance to fight. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): Sir, you have no idea -- the entire state of Virginia will rise up against you. They will fight you tooth and claw. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): The colored people must fight back. They will never respect themselves otherwise, nor will they be respected. I read your book, sir. You said yourself, you became a man when you fought Mr. Covey. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): I did. But I was young and this is very different. We must follow in our Savior's footsteps. We must convert the sinner. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): This is the sin, right here! We sit here, all of us, debating this point of law, whether the Constitution says this or that, and in the meantime, day after day, year after year, the slaveholders are free to do their worst. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): But if we stoop to bloodshed, we are no better than they are. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): You can preach for all eternity and nothing will change. Mr. Douglass, how many slaveholders have you converted? How many slaves have you freed? David W. Blight, Historian: John Brown had a very beguiling personality. He was a stunning man. His sense of moral commitment was vivid and overwhelming. He was the real thing, and to a Frederick Douglass, he was also the real thing in terms of actually believing, about as deeply as anybody Douglass had ever met, in racial equality. Narrator: Soon after their meeting, Douglass described Brown in The North Star as someone who, "though a white gentleman, is as deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks, audio): Slaveholders have forfeited even the right to live. And if the slave should put every one of them to the sword tomorrow, who would say that they deserve anything less than death? Narrator: As Douglass was meeting with John Brown, a chain of events was being set in motion that would transform the future of slavery, and of America. In the spring of 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico, hoping to gain vast territories in the Southwest. Abolitionists bitterly opposed the war as an attempt to expand slave territory, but they were swept away by a national tide of patriotic enthusiasm. The Abolitionists-Part Three Tony Horwitz, Author: In the summer of 1855, Kansas has really become the front line in the conflict over slavery. Pro-slavery forces really have the upper hand. They're bullying and intimidating and sometimes killing Northern settlers. Narrator: Many abolitionists wondered if their pacifist ideals were misguided, whether the conflict had entered a new and violent phase. One of them had no doubt. John Brown had never put much stock in Garrison's talk of peace and persuasion -- "milk and water" abolitionism, he called it. And now, at last, John Brown was on his way to war, in Kansas. Over the years, Brown had attracted a network of abolitionist supporters. As he headed west from his home in upstate New York, he collected money and weapons for the fight. Among those who contributed was the most famous black man in America, the ex-slave Frederick Douglass. "While I will continue to write and speak against slavery," Douglass wrote, "I have become less hopeful of its peaceful abolition. I welcome any new mode of attack upon the slave system."
Tony Horwitz, Author: Brown is almost a battering ram of a human being. He has a moral strength and clarity that cuts through the cant about slavery. And I think this is very appealing to anti-slavery Northerners who are really giving up almost on the political system and on nonviolent resistance. Narrator: By the time Brown left Ohio for the last leg of the journey to eastern Kansas, he had gathered a formidable arsenal of rifles, pistols, and broadswords. "We believe the great victory will follow before long," he wrote home to his wife. But John Brown's long and bloody struggle was just beginning. On the 21st of May, 1856, a posse of 800 Southerners surrounded the free soil capital of Lawrence, Kansas. They flew a blood-red flag on which was inscribed "Southern Rights." Over the course of the day they sacked the town, while the inhabitants fled. News of the guerilla war flaring in Kansas became the talk of the nation. Northerners began sending clothing and food to the embattled freesoil settlers. In Washington, anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner decried the spread of slavery to Kansas and accused Southerners of "raping and plundering the virgin territory." South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks took offense. On the floor of the United States Senate, Brooks beat Sumner with the gold head of his heavy cane as Sumner struggled to free himself from his desk. Finally, blinded by his own blood, Sumner collapsed into the aisle, and lost consciousness. Brooks continued beating him until his cane broke. Sumner would never fully recover. Newspapers across the South celebrated the assault, but when news of the incident reached John Brown's encampment in Kansas, he and his followers were enraged. When someone urged caution, Brown replied, "Caution, caution... It is nothing but the word of cowardice." On the night of May 24th, 1856, Brown and four of his sons dragged five pro-slavery men from their cabins, and hacked them to pieces with broadswords. Tony Horwitz, Author: Brown is not simply evening the score in Kansas. He's really also trying to strike terror into the hearts of proslavery settlers. R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Historian: This is God's punishment. This is not the punishment of man. They're not gonna be hung. They're going to be murdered. They're going to be butchered, because that's Old Testament retribution. Tony Horwitz, Author: Pottawatomie scares, but also enrages, pro-slavery forces who don't need much incitement to violence. They've already been committing it, and now it's let loose the dogs of war. It's at this point that Kansas becomes known as "Bleeding Kansas." Narrator: After the massacre, Brown and his followers hid out in the wilderness, resurfacing occasionally to battle pro-slavery forces. At the beginning of October 1856, he left Kansas for the East to gather more money and weapons. It was on a covert swing through Boston that John Brown finally met William Lloyd Garrison for the first time. The pacifist printer chastised Brown for his role in the Pottawatomie killings, and insisted that nonviolence was still the only path to victory. Garrison would have been even more wary had he known the full extent of Brown's plans. "I will carry the war into Africa," Brown had told his son. "Africa" was their code word for the slaveholding South. Narrator: It was with a sense of foreboding and hopelessness that Frederick Douglass responded to an urgent summons in August of 1859 from his old friend John Brown. Together with Shields Green, a fugitive he had befriended in Rochester, Douglass quietly made his way to a stone quarry at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): Mr. Douglass! Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): Captain Brown -- I would never have known you, sir! John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): Our time has come... Narrator: Brown was secretly encamped at a nearby farmhouse with 22 recruits.
John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): I had hoped for more men, of course. But I believe we have enough to achieve our ends -- with your help. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): What end is that? John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): Well, sir: In one stroke we shall rouse this nation. We will deal the Slave Power such a blow, it shall never recover. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): All with 22 men? John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): It takes one spark to light a fire. We are the spark that will set this country ablaze. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): But how? John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): The armory at Harpers Ferry. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): Good Lord, man. You can't be serious. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): A hundred thousand rifles. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): What will 22 men do with 100,000 rifles? John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): As I said, the spark -- we are but the spark. There are four million men in bondage who will fly to our banner. Not immediately, of course, but even a few thousand slaves in this vicinity will fly to our aid. Tony Horwitz, Author: Douglass expected Brown to unveil a mission to free slaves and funnel them north along the mountains to freedom. But when he gets to the stone quarry, Brown presents a very different plan. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): I know. My friend, I have been over this a thousand times. I can assure you... Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): And I can assure you that you'll be walking into a perfect steel trap... R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Historian: He's talking about invading the South and occupying the South and taking over the South, sort of building this republic out, one mile at a time, and that republic is going to be a new country. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): It will kill you. And it will serve no purpose. There will be a bloodbath... John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin, Douglass. John Stauffer, Historian: Douglass spends two days trying to convince John Brown not to raid Harpers Ferry. Brown spends the same amount of time trying to convince Douglass to go to Harpers Ferry with him to be his right-hand man. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): My friend, the world will remember what we do here. How do you want the world to remember you? How do you want your children to remember you? Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks): I don't want them to remember me as throwing my life away for nothing. Captain, it pains me more than you will know, to leave you. Mr. Green, you've heard Mr. Brown. What will you do? Shields Green (Thomas Coleman): I believe I'll go with the old man. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith): Come with me Douglass. I will defend you with my life. I want you for a special purpose. When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them. Narrator: Frederick Douglass returned home alone. The decision to leave Brown would haunt him for the rest of his life. On the night of October 16th, 1859, John Brown and his men seized the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, taking several hostages. But over the course of the following day they were overwhelmed, as every able-bodied man in the area grabbed a gun and raced into
town. Within 24 hours, half of Brown's men were dead or dying. He and four of the survivors, including Shields Green, were trapped in an engine house at the armory. By this time, a company of U.S. Marines had arrived, under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Fragmentary reports of the uprising spread across the country. In Boston, William Lloyd Garrison wondered whether Brown was involved. In Philadelphia, Frederick Douglass knew all too well. Frederick Douglass (Richard Brooks, audio): It so happened that I was speaking to a large audience in National Hall. The announcement came upon us with the startling effect of an earthquake. It was something to make the boldest hold his breath. David W. Blight, Historian: The sensation Douglass felt at that moment is, "Oh, God, what comes now? Oh, God, they'll be after all of us. What sort of bloodbath may flow from this?" His own life was at risk now. Narrator: At dawn the Marines stormed the engine house, capturing Brown and his surviving men. Investigators seeking a link to the abolitionists found what they needed in Brown's papers: an innocuous note signed by Frederick Douglass two years earlier, inviting Brown to dinner. It was all they needed. John Stauffer, Historian: Douglass suddenly becomes the most wanted man in the United States. He hides out at a friend's place in Philadelphia, and in fact he finds out from the telegraph operator in Philadelphia that the president of the United States on down has put out the equivalent of an all-points bulletin. All the feds are now scouring the country for Frederick Douglass. Narrator: Douglass hurriedly made his way north, his panic mounting as he realized that his fellow passengers were reading newspaper reports calling for his arrest. He telegraphed ahead with instructions to destroy the contents of his desk. Miraculously, Douglass made it to Rochester, where he boarded a boat to Canada. The next day, Douglass heard that federal marshals had arrived at his home, hot on his trail. But he was out of their reach. John Stauffer, Historian: Douglass was wanted more than any of the other conspirators in John Brown's raid because Douglass was a black man. Narrator: John Brown was almost killed when the Marines stormed the engine house. He had to be carried from his jail cell to a cot that was set up in the courtroom. Nevertheless, Brown dominated the proceedings. Tony Horwitz, Author: He stands up without notes and gives one of the greatest speeches in American history. Brown, in simple, direct, powerful language, basically put his accusers on trial. John Brown (T. Ryder Smith, audio): Had I interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, I submit. Narrator: Shields Green and the other captives had already been sentenced to hang. There could be little doubt that Brown would follow them. From his jail cell, Brown kept up a stream of correspondence and interviews, which were breathlessly reported throughout the North. R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Historian: This guy's just led a raid to destroy slavery. They've killed people, and not the first people he's killed. And he's suddenly become famously depicted in art, wearing these sort of evening slippers with this long, peaceful old patriarch beard, and he's the abolitionist grandfather you wish you had. James Brewer Stewart, Historian: Brown was absolutely a genius at working the press, at giving interviews, at talking to people and turning himself into as fully committed a Christian sacrificial lamb on the alter of slavery as he could possibly be. R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Historian: You have the Northern establishment, every newspaper, saying, "This guy's a hero. He's a saint." How can Southerners look at that and say, "Oh these guys are good negotiating partners. We're gonna be able to sort this slavery problem out"?
Tony Horwitz, Author: What Brown has done, ultimately, is just to expose the depth of the divide between North and South. And after that point, that divide can never be bridged. Narrator: On the morning of December 2nd, 1859, John Brown was driven from the jail, seated on his own coffin, to the gallows nearby. The evening of Brown's execution, 4,000 people crowded into Boston's Tremont Temple. Most of them had come to hear William Lloyd Garrison. Lois Brown, Historian: Garrison has to resolve this tension between clearly unapologetic armed resistance and strategy and maneuver, with pacifism and moral suasion. And you can see, or we can hear in that speech that he gives, he just is truly like a boat in rough sea -- he's just rocking back and forth. William Lloyd Garrison (Neal Huff, audio): I have labored unremittingly to effect the peaceful abolition of slavery by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slaveholder. Yet, as a peace man -- an "ultra" peace man -- I am prepared to say, "Success to every slave insurrection at the South." W. Caleb McDaniel, Historian: When he started his abolitionist campaign as a printer, one could still hope in the early 1830s that maybe arranging types in a case, stringing words together into sentences, publishing articles against slavery, might persuade the nation to rid itself of slavery. But as time goes by, Garrison begins to be swept along by the changing events around him. Julie Roy Jeffrey, Historian: I think he recognized that this was a turning point. Garrison was confronting some things that suggested that the future was gonna take a very different path than the past.