Analysis: Speech to the Court that Sentenced Him to Death

Date: November 2, 1859

Author: Brown, John

Genre: address; legal defense; political sermon

Summary Overview

On 2 November 1859, John Brown stood before a Virginia courtroom. The standing was itself dramatic. All the while Brown had been on trial—since October 25—he had been lying on a cot, injured and unable to sit. Brown, a man of fifty-nine years, was in this condition because in the previous weeks he had led a band of men to assault the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, believing that it would inspire a slave uprising in the heart of the slave-holding South. Brown’s plan failed; he was caught and put on trial. After a quick trial, he was sentenced to death. When asked if he had a response, Brown stood and delivered a direct speech that denied the charges against him and justified his active opposition to slavery. Brown’s speech, coupled with his actions, would send shockwaves through both the North and the South and push both sections down the road to Civil War.

Document Analysis

In John Brown’s “Speech to the Court ,” he attempted to accomplish two purposes: denial and assertion. A large segment of the speech involved denying the charges leveled against him and testimony made during the trial. The second part of the speech consisted of religious assertions about slavery. Brown performed a political sermonette before the court. With these words, and Brown’s final message on the way to the gallows, students in the present can see what Brown believed he was doing and hear the words which he hoped would galvanize resistance to slavery.

Brown’s first large purpose was to deny the legal charges brought against him. In his first paragraph he bluntly stated, “I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.” Whereas the court had charged him with these crimes and sentenced him to death for them, Brown attempted to distance himself from the guilt the court had found. Instead, Brown claimed that he had all along admitted of only one thing: “a design on my part to free slaves.” Brown claimed that his had been a type of Underground Railroad mission “on a larger scale.” In this he compared it to the rescue mission he had been a part of the year before, in Missouri. In that case, he boasted that he had rescued slaves “without the snapping of a gun on either side.” Brown thus decried violence for its own sake and expressed his belief that he could facilitate slave rescues without either violence or upsetting the social and political order.

Near the end of his address, Brown returned to the point of denying claims against him. He first repeated the denials he had made at first. Since he did not consider those charges against him accurate, he felt “no consciousness of guilt.” He then denied testimony made against him, specifically that he had recruited his compatriots. Under oath, some of them had stated “that I [Brown] have induced them to join me.” Brown denied any encouragement to his co-conspirators. He stated each came to him “of his own accord, and the greater part at their own expense.” Further, he claimed that he had had minimal contact with many of them before their meeting for the operation; some he “never had a word of conversation with” before their meeting.

Taking a step back, however, Brown’s denials ring hollow on at least three fronts. Most importantly his claim that his slave rescue had nothing to do with treason, slave insurrection, or violence would make no sense to Southerners—or even to most unbiased observers. Brown had led the way to assault the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. In so doing, he had challenged an installation of the federal government, without authorization. By attacking federal property, he had set himself against federal authority, directly challenged the government, and committed treason. Such actions for whatever purpose could not be tolerated. To Southerners, Brown threatened an even greater violence. Any attack—especially a planned, coordinated attack—on the practice of slavery would be perceived as an attack on the institution as a whole. If the racial order broke down violently, Southerners truly feared a racial war. Further, in arming escaped slaves, Brown was aiding a type of slave insurrection. Second, Brown claimed that his earlier expedition into Missouri had succeeded without violence. This could be true only on the narrowest of grounds. Brown’s party escaped without violence, but the larger effort had included the killing of the slaveholder Cruise. Thus every slave rescue had the potential for violence. Finally, Brown’s compatriots may have come of their own free will, but Brown could be incredibly convincing. Those who knew him knew he had tremendous charisma, coupled with a firm sense of rightness. Relatedly, even those Brown did not meet until the last minute were recruited from somewhere. Moreover, it was Brown who had organized the party, making him responsible for its ultimate composition. As a result of all of these factors, Brown’s denials may have stood up in his own mind, but they faltered in the face of other evidence.

A Political Sermonette

Brown, however, was interested in more than denying charges; he came to the court prepared to make positive claims about what he had done and why. He thus launched into a political sermonette, which combined American political ideals with Biblical language for a potent portrayal of the extreme anti-slavery position.

Brown began this section with a basic claim about political justice. “[I]t is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty,” he claimed. He then explained why he believed this to be so. Justice was related to fairness and equality of treatment, which the presence of slavery flatly denied. His attempt at a slave rescue should be hailed as heroic, rather than treasonous. For, according to Brown, “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,” his actions would have been fully approved. When those same deeds were spent on behalf of slaves and then condemned by society, the inequality and injustice of a slave society was laid bare.

Appeals to justice and equal treatment had a long pedigree in American society. Calls for equal treatment had their roots in Jeffersonian Republicanism and by the 1850s were accepted throughout American political culture. That they did not extend to slaves was to Brown a marker of extreme political hypocrisy. Further, this inequality of treatment pointed to injustice, and an unjust law could be broken. Abolitionists had reached this position in the face of their frustrated attempts to fight slavery. In so doing, they combined with other thinkers, such as Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau had so objected to the Mexican War that he had refused to pay a poll tax. His resulting reflections in On Civil Disobedience leant one more justification for abolitionists to question the legal regime—and on its outer edge to support Brown’s insurrection.

Brown’s claim was not only political, however; it reached to Scriptural injunctions. Brown, in looking around the courtroom, observing “a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament.” From this he drew the lesson that the court acknowledged “the validity of the law of God.” If this was so, then Brown felt confident in stringing together biblical passages that supported his position. He began with the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:14) and suggested that slaves were every bit as entitled to the fair and self-regarding treatment as others. The principle of doing unto others as you would be done by, acknowledged universally, Brown believed inescapably pointed to opposition to slavery. Next, he quoted Hebrews 13:3, a command to “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.” Brown believed he was fully following “that instruction”—just as he suggested that his persecutors were not. Finally, he denied that God “is any respecter of persons,” which he drew from Acts 10:34. If God saw no difference between black and white, how could Americans? Put together, these biblical passages argued for an ending to slavery. If an unjust society would not do it, Brown felt compelled to take the lead in helping better the lot of God’s “despised poor.” In so doing, by forfeiting his life and mingling his blood with the slaves, Brown would be suffering as a Christ-like figure, dying for others’ rescue. These were weighty words, and they resonated across the North, far beyond the courtroom audience.

The Prophecy

Finally, we should note Brown’s last message, a prophecy of doom. As he was being led to the scaffold on December 2, he handed to his captors this final message: “I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will 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.” The theme of blood , which had played a role in his “Speech to the Court,” now returned with pithy vengeance. Blood being shed to purge a land of guilt had strong Old Testament origins, with its record of animal sacrifices. For American Christians, those ideas of blood found even greater weight in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Now Brown, about to be executed, could call upon the weight of bloodshed. Undoubtedly he believed his blood would contribute to that effect. Further, he now testified to his belief that even more bloodshed would be necessary, perhaps a great deal more. Although he could not articulate how, perhaps he believed that his sacrifice would start the flow of blood which would cleanse the nation of its slavery-induced guilt. In no small way, he succeeded in that goal.

Bibliography

McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Print.

Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Print.

Reynolds, David S. John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print.

Villard, Oswald Garrison. John Brown, 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After. 1910, reprint, Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1965. Print.