JOHN BROWN'S RAID
Events like those surrounding the Amistad mutiny caused Americans to question the continuing existence of slavery. John Brown, a strict abolitionist, felt passionately and violently that he must personally fight to end slavery. He settled in Kansas in 1855 to help win the territory's admission to the Union as a free state, and believed that slavery would end only through the use of violence. In the late 1850s, Brown hatched a radical plan to abolish slavery by gathering arms and invading the southern United States, freeing slaves along the way. Brown hoped to create a stronghold in the Blue Ridge Mountains that would function as a sanctuary for freed slaves. The first step in Browns plan was to launch his army by seizing arms from the federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia.
Brown began his raid in the middle of the night of October 16, 1859, but by dawn, people from the surrounding area had joined the battle. After a day and night of intense fighting, Brown peered from the engine house where he had barricaded himself and his men to see a detachment of U.S. Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee. The Marines stormed Brown's fortress and overwhelmed the men inside, seriously wounding Brown in the process. John Brown's raid lasted only thirty-six hours, but it claimed seventeen lives.
Brown and his men were tried within a week of capture on charges of conspiracy to cause insurrection, murder, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. Eighty armed men were needed to guard the prisoners as they were escorted to trial. Brown protested the trial in the first place, arguing that not only did his wounds make a trial impossible for him, he also believed that the entire proceedings were a sham, evidenced by the fact that his appointed defense counsel were two proslavery lawyers from Virginia. But the trial went forward. A jury of twelve slave owners was selected, with no objections from Brown's lawyers.
The plea was not guilty to all charges, and Brown's lawyers argued that Brown should be tried in a federal court, since the planning for the raid occurred in other states and the armory was under federal jurisdiction. The prosecution did not answer these points, but instead focused on re-telling the events of the raid, relying on the dramatic testimony of witnesses. No defense witnesses appeared, even after being subpoenaed, yet the judge refused to grant Brown's plea for a delay.
The jury deliberated less than an hour before finding Brown guilty on all charges. Before sentencing, Brown proclaimed that had a clean conscience, and that he considered himself "chosen by God to free men." Sentenced to hang on December 2, 1859, Brown wrote on the day of his execution, "[T]he crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." These final words would prove to be prophetic, as the United States was plunged into and torn apart by the Civil War only sixteen months later.
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