John Brown and the Necessity of Violence

            I thought Dominick’s suggestion in class today that John Brown was confronting his enemy (slavery) on its own terms was interesting.  I mentioned that I had read W. E. B. Du Bois’ biography of Brown, and I remember him suggesting essentially the same thing.  He argued that Brown recognized that the “language” of slavery was the language of violence.  And that this was the only language that slavery would understand.  Brown did not believe that slavery could be abolished through reasonable and convincing argument, and he was utterly convinced that bloodshed was not only inevitable, but necessary.   

Du Bois was a great writer, and I recommend the book to anyone who is interested, as it offers a unique and unusually sympathetic look into John Brown’s life.  But there is no doubt that Du Bois was writing with a certain amount of bias, hoping to counteract what he saw as a smear campaign against Brown’s sanity and character.  I’m by no means wholeheartedly agreeing with either Brown or Du Bois, but I do think that the comparison between Brown and Lincoln raises some very interesting issues.

            For instance, in the end it did prove necessary that the bloodiest war in history, up until that point, be fought in order to bring about an end to slavery in this country.  And, by the end of the war, Lincoln seems to have accepted that the violence of the war must continue until the ending of slavery was guaranteed.  In fact, Lincoln’s passage in his Second Inaugural Address sounds very much like the type of language that John Brown might have used:

            “Yet, if God wills that [the war] continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”     

Preach Not!

Today in class we noted an aspect of Lincoln’s character that I find particularly interesting and admirable.  The fact that he completely refrained from drinking alcohol, and yet did not engage in moralistic condemnations of those who did, is highly significant in coming to better understand his moral character.  It is curious that someone can be capable of such strong moral convictions in regards to their own actions, and at the same time be highly understanding of the shortcomings of others.  By that I don’t mean that it does not make sense.  I only mean that it is remarkable.  What is particularly interesting to me is that Lincoln also seemed to have an ability to, in a sense, prioritize his tolerances.  Whereas he did not seem particularly interested in criticizing other people’s drinking habits, he took a slightly different approach to more important issues such as slavery.  Although he clearly made an effort to refrain from being overly moralistic, he nonetheless did make strong arguments in public in defense of his moral reasoning.  He seemed to not only have genuine respect for views and circumstances of others, but also had a keen awareness that “preaching” was not an effective way of convincing people to change.