Mr. Kipper
History 8 (1)
14 April, 1999

Civil War-- The Cause

When searching for someone to blame for that glaring blemish on our nation’s past that we so glibly call the “Civil War,” history has found so many scapegoats and triggers to tack responsibility on that they are impossible to count. The supposed causes go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson with his states’ rights, even before. Yet there are so many that this horrifying monstrosity cannot be singularly blamed on a sole event or person. However, there were many individuals and incidents that certainly added kindling to the fire. One that stands out in particular is John Brown and his Harpers Ferry revolt. The southern states already thought the Northerners had it in for them, but after John Brown’s actions, they were convinced. Sectional distrust reached an all-time high simply because of one man’s disturbed and ethically perverse ideas as to the correct way of putting and end to slavery. The North’s reaction to his little misadventure was sickening to the South and to me. The fear of another lunatic like John Brown and the horror at their countrymen’s acceptance and admiration for him wore the ties between the North and the South so thin that it didn’t take much more for them to snap completely-- and once that split had been made, it could not be restored by anything short of violent conflict and agony for all involved.

On the 16th of October, 1859, John Brown took eighteen followers (thirteen whites and five blacks) to Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to start a slave revolt. He thought to use the Harpers Ferry arsenal as a rallying point and supply station for the revolt, expecting masses of slaves to arrive and help him kill white Southerners. When, rather than rallying slaves, the United States Army showed up, Mr. Brown didn’t let that slow him down. He and his misguided disciples fought with the U.S. soldiers for 36 hours. Finally, with only five of the original nineteen still alive, Brown surrendered to Colonel Robert E. Lee. He was tried and convicted for murder and treason, then hanged. The South was terrified. John Brown’s revolt had been unsuccessful, but what of possible future revolts that might not be? What made matters even worse was that the North admired Brown for what he did; they didn’t seem to care that he felt no remorse for the lives he took or that his ideas were treason personified. In fact, all they seemed to care about was that he was against slavery. To them, that made his distorted way of putting his beliefs into effect okay. They admired the fact that he accepted death and called this “sacrificing himself to the antislavery cause.” What they didn’t seem to realise was that his acceptance of death and unashamed admittance of what he had done was also showing a lack of respect for the lives he took and a belief that he had done nothing wrong. Some in the North ventured to say they disagreed with his methods, but applauded his cause. To me, the cause is irrelevant when the means of achieving the cause are as crooked as the crimes John Brown committed against the nation and humanity. To claim your purpose is for the freedom of all mankind when you have no problem slaughtering people who do not agree with you (and, indeed, even believe their deaths will accomplish your goal) is twisted and depraved. John Brown was truly perverted in his views on the value of human life-- all human life, lives of slaves and slaveowners alike.

John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry widened the gap between North and South until very little could have substantially bridged it. The Northerners made Brown into a hero and championed his causes, even if they weakly admitted he might have been a little extreme. While the North was calling him “a martyr and Christian hero,” the South was edging further and further away from the turbulent unity of the country. And with men like John Brown being practically worshipped by every self-respecting abolitionist in the land, who could blame them? Brown should have been institutionalised the moment anyone detected his defective sanity. At the very least he should never, ever have been fabricated into some kind of hero, some kind of saint, when he was nothing better than an obtrusive murderer whose mind had buckled under the strain of inexorable hatred long before his name was ever spoken with deluded respect. Today our country is in one piece; we are together, but this is not thanks to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry revolt. It is in spite of them. May our country never see another man like John Brown, and may it never respect a man like him either. And if we should ever happen to fall into a trap like that again, may we be lucky enough to free ourselves of it as we have once before.