John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A Critique

by Hill Peebles Wilson

At a meeting held in the evening, John Brown was elected commander-in-chief and John H. Kagi. secretary of war. The balloting for offices was continued on Monday, May 10th, and Richard Realf was elected secretary of state, George B. Gill, secretary of the treasury, Owen Brown, treasurer, and Osborn P. Anderson and Alfred M. Ellsworth, colored, were elected members of Congress.

Article I, of the constitution, provides for qualification of membership, and includes "all persons of mature age whether proscribed, oppressed, and enslaved citizens, or of proscribed and oppressed races of the United States, who shall agree to sustain and enforce the Provisional Constitution and ordinances of organization, together with all minor children of such persons, shall be held to be fully entitled to protection under the same." Articles II, III, IV, and V relate to the branches of government: Legislative, executive and judicial. A number of articles relate to the trial of officers, impeachment, or recall of judges, army appointments, etc., etc. Article XXVIII treats of "Property." It recites that "All captured or confiscated property, and all property the product of the labor of those belonging to this organization and of their families, shall be held as the property of the whole, equally, without distinction and may be used for the common benefit, or disposed of for the same object." Article XXXVI is especially instructive. It reads as follows:

"The entire personal and real property of all persons known to be acting, either directly or indirectly, with or for the enemy, or found in arms with them, or found willfully holding slaves, shall be confiscated and taken whenever and wherever it may be found, in either Free or Slave States."

Mr. Sanborn says this constitution will be found "well suited to its purpose—the government of a territory in revolt, of which the chief occupants should be escaped slaves," an opinion which assumes that the white population had, in some manner, been eliminated from the "territory in revolt."

The plan of government was written by Brown, and was adopted in a solemn manner by sane men, who signed it; and copies of this Constitution and Ordinances, Brown took with him to Harper's Ferry; and on the 18th of October, 1859, personally referred to it as an exhibit of his purposes for being there; and stated that it had been his intention to have a large number of copies of it printed, and distributed "at large," so that all might know the character of his invasion. And yet, after the lapse of fifty years, comes an oracular disquisitor, who, with an assurance de luxe, asserts that Brown and his followers did not intend to establish a Provisional Government in the South, or to do any of the things provided for in this infallible utterance; that his invasion of Virginia was not an invasion, but a "raid" to carry off some slaves, which, if successful, would be followed by further guerrilla warfare in the mountains of Virginia.

Referring, with undisguised impatience, to the irrelation of the "Constitution and Ordinances" to his conception of what Brown's purposes were, or to what he desires the historian to declare Brown's purposes to have been, he says, that "it actually contemplates not merely the government of forces in armed insurrection against sovereign States," but that it "actually goes so far as to establish courts, a regular judiciary and a Congress." And, "as if that were not enough it provides for" such heresies in guerrilla warfare as "schools for that same training of the freed slaves in manual labor which is today so widely hailed as the readiest solution of the negro problem. Churches too were to be 'established as soon as may be'—as if anything could be more inconsistent with his fundamental plan"; which Mr. Villard then magisterially states was to "break his forces up into small bands hidden in mountain fastnesses, subsisting as well as possible off the land, and probably unable to communicate with each other. At this and at other points," he says, "the whole scheme forbids discussion as a practical plan of government for such an uprising as was to be carried out by a handful of whites and droves of utterly illiterate and ignorant blacks, and may stand as a chief indictment of Brown's saneness of judgment and of his reasoning powers"; admitting however, that "as a chart for the course of a State about to secede from the Union and to maintain itself during a regular revolution, the document was also not without its admirable features."

Commenting upon the condition of Brown's mind at the time he wrote this paper, Mr. Villard says that it was "fanatical, concentrated on one idea to the danger point, but still it remained a mind capable of expressing itself with rare clearness and force, focussing itself with intense vigor on the business in hand and going straight to the end in view."[299]

The preceding clause is in itself a refutation of the author's criticism. If it be true that when Brown drew up this paper "his mind was capable of expressing itself with clearness, focussing itself with vigor on the business in hand and of going straight to the end in view," then it must be admitted that the document which he penned was not intended to serve a purpose so trifling as a raid, but that it was what it purported to be—a form of government or charter for a state during a period of revolution.

It will be observed that it is not the practicability of a revolution, such as the provisions of this document would be consistent with, that constitutes the indictment of Brown's saneness and reasoning powers; but the fact that the provisions of the constitution are inconsistent with this author's invention of what Brown's plans were: "A plan of government for small forces of whites and runaway slaves acting separately as guerilla bands in mountain fastnesses." It is strictly true that the provisions of the constitution are so inconsistent with this fiction as to forbid discussion; but that fact should not constitute an indictment of Brown's sanity. It merely emphasizes the fact that there is disagreement between John Brown and his biographer of fifty years after, concerning the purpose for which Brown wrote the provisional constitution and ordinances, and suggests, as a bare possibility of the case, that the assumptions of the biographer as to what that purpose was may be inconsistent with the tenor of the constitution. If this biographer had been less eager to confirm in history the theory that it was a foray or a raid that Brown sought to execute at Harper's Ferry, he would have discovered that Brown intended to organize a thorough-going army there,[300] instead of sporadic guerrilla bands; and that he intended to extend the jurisdiction of this Provisional Government over the State of Virginia and the South.

It was Brown's intention to begin his campaign at once, May 15th being the date named; and something, probably, would have happened if he had received the one thousand dollars promptly, that had been pledged in his support. Realf, on his arrival at Chatham, wrote that they would remain there until they had perfected their plans, "which will be in about ten days or two weeks," after which they would "start for China."[301] Cook also had something to say. He wrote to some young ladies at Springdale: