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John Brown (abolitionist) Quotes

John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed in and advocated armed insurrection as the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. He first gained attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856. He was dissatisfied with the pacifism of the organized abolitionist movement: "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!" In May 1856, Brown and his supporters killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre, which responded to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces. Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie .

In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia to start a liberation movement among the slaves there. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. He intended to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but the attack failed. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had fled or been killed or captured by local farmers, militiamen, and US Marines led by Robert E. Lee. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men , and inciting a slave insurrection, was found guilty on all counts, and was hanged.

Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid escalated tensions that led to the South's secession a year later and the American Civil War. Brown's raid captured the nation's attention; Southerners feared that it was just the first of many Northern plots to cause a slave rebellion that might endanger their lives, while Republicans dismissed the notion and claimed that they would not interfere with slavery in the South. "John Brown's Body" was a popular Union marching song that portrayed him as a martyr.

Brown's actions as an abolitionist and the tactics he used still make him a controversial figure today. He is both memorialized as a heroic martyr and visionary, and vilified as a madman and a terrorist. Historian James Loewen surveyed American history textbooks and noted that historians considered Brown perfectly sane until about 1890, but generally portrayed him as insane from about 1890 until 1970 when new interpretations began to gain ground.

✵ 9. May 1800 – 2. December 1859
John Brown (abolitionist) photo
John Brown (abolitionist): 14 quotes0 likes

Famous John Brown (abolitionist) Quotes

“Whereas slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than the most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens against another portion, the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude, or absolute extermination, in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence. Therefore, we, citizens of the United States, and the oppressed people who, by a recent decision of the Supreme' Court, are declared to have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, together with all other people degraded by the laws thereof, do, for the time being, ordain and establish for ourselves the following Provisional Constitution and Ordinances, the better to protect our persons, property, lives, and liberties, and to govern our actions.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Preamble.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)

“I am gaining in health slowly, and am quite cheerful in view of my approaching end, — being fully persuaded that I am worth inconceivably more to hang than any other purpose.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Letter to his brother Jeremiah https://archive.org/stream/lifeandlettersof00sanbrich/lifeandlettersof00sanbrich_djvu.txt (12 November 1859).

“I bring you one of the best and bravest persons on this continent — General Tubman as we call her.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Introducing Harriet Tubman to Wendell Phillips, as quoted in The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898) by Wilbur Henry Siebert, p. 185 also in "The Underground Railway" (27 May 1902) by W. H. Withrow, as published in Proceedings

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

This was written on a note that he had at his execution (2 December 1859), most sources say it was handed to the guard, but some dispute that and claim it was handed to a reporter accompaning him; as quoted in John Brown and his Men https://books.google.com/books?id=uiaYWp66b-cC&pg=PR1&dq=John+Brown+and+his+Men+%281894%29+by+Richard+Josiah+Hinton&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Uub_VN3CN5HbggTdxIK4Cw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=John%20Brown%20and%20his%20Men%20(1894)%20by%20Richard%20Josiah%20Hinton&f=false (1894) by Richard Josiah Hinton, p. 398.

“In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted, the design on my part to free the slaves.… I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858), Speech to the Court (1859)

“This is a beautiful country.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Last words (2 December 1859), as quoted in John Brown and his Men https://books.google.com/books?id=uiaYWp66b-cC&pg=PR1&dq=John+Brown+and+his+Men+%281894%29+by+Richard+Josiah+Hinton&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Uub_VN3CN5HbggTdxIK4Cw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=John%20Brown%20and%20his%20Men%20(1894)%20by%20Richard%20Josiah%20Hinton&f=false (1894) by Richard Josiah Hinton, p. 397.

John Brown (abolitionist) Quotes about personality

“Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. 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 submit; so let it be done!”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858), Speech to the Court (1859)

“All persons known to be of good character and of sound mind and suitable age, who are connected with this organization, whether male or female, shall be encouraged to carry arms openly.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Article XLIII.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)

“Persons convicted of the forcible violation of any female prisoner shall be put to death.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Article XLI.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)

John Brown (abolitionist) Quotes

“The marriage relation shall be at all times respected”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Article XLII.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)
Context: The marriage relation shall be at all times respected, and families kept together, as far as possible; and broken families encouraged to reunite, and intelligence offices established for that purpose. Schools and churches established, as soon as may be, for the purpose of reli­gious and other instructions; for the first day of the week, regarded as a day of rest, and appropriated to moral and religious instruction and improvement, relief of the suffering, instruction of the young and ignorant, and the encouragement of personal cleanliness; nor shall any persons be required on that day to perform ordinary manual labor, unless in extremely urgent cases.

“These men are all talk; What is needed is action”

John Brown (abolitionist)

action!
Remarks at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention (May 1859), quoted in William Lloyd Garrison by Wendell and Francis Garrison.

“I acknowledge no master in human form.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

As quoted in The life and letters of John Brown, liberator of Kansas, and martyr of Virginia https://archive.org/stream/lifeandlettersof00sanbrich/lifeandlettersof00sanbrich_djvu.txt (1885), by Franklin B. Sanborn, p. 563. <br class="br">Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858), Prison interview (1859)

“You had better — all you people at the South — prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You may dispose of me very easily, — I am nearly disposed by now; but this question is still to be settled, — this nigger question I mean; the end of that is not yet.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858), Prison interview (1859)

“Whereas slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than the most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens against another portion, the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude, or absolute extermination, in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence.”

John Brown (abolitionist)

Therefore, we, citizens of the United States, and the oppressed people who, by a recent decision of the Supreme' Court, are declared to have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, together with all other people degraded by the laws thereof, do, for the time being, ordain and establish for ourselves the following Provisional Constitution and Ordinances, the better to protect our persons, property, lives, and liberties, and to govern our actions.
Preamble.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)

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