John Brown – Hero or Terrorist?

John Brown’s ConvictionHe was tried and convicted for murder, conspiracy to incite a slave uprising, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. He was hanged at Charles Town, the county seat near Harpers Ferry, on December 2. Among those watching the execution, "with unlimited, undeniable contempt" for Brown, was the future assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth.Brown had denied any plan "to excite or incite the slaves to rebellion or to make insurrection." He never intended to commit murder or treason or to destroy property, he claimed—though earlier that year he had purchased several hundred pikes and some firearms."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 and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I say let it be done," he said.The "unjust enactments" included the Constitution, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott decision of 1857.

John Brown’s Body song

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSSn3NddwFQ

• Song lyrics on next page

John Brown by William W. Patton

Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,His soul is marching on.

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,His soul is marching on.

He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,But his soul is marching on.

John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,For his soul is marching on.

The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,For his soul is marching on.

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,And his soul is marching on.

BROWN OF OSAWATOMIE BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

John Brown of Osawatomie spake on his dying day:"I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.

But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free,With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!"

John Brown of Osawatomie, they led him out to die;And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh.Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old, harsh face

          grew mild.As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's

          child!

The shadow of his stormy life that moment fell apart;And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart.

And they who blessed the guilty means redeemed the good intent,And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent!

Various Pictures