1. John Brown: Martyr or Madman?
A Homily in Four Parts
Sunday, January 27, 2008
West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
Part I: Meet John Brown
Who was John Brown—really? Like most controversial figures in history, we, the inheritors of
that history, hear different interpretations. Brown was a harsh Calvinist and whipped his sons for
infractions; Brown was a family man who sang songs to his infant daughter and tenderly cared
for his wife when she fell ill. Brown was a zealot/fanatic, who lost all sense of reason; he was a
martyr for a cause that proved to be righteous and just. When Brown was in prison awaiting his
sentence, Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "that new saint, than whom none purer or more
brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and death— the new saint awaiting his
martyrdom." Others have written that the belief in Brown’s madness was actually a disbelief
that a white man could lay down his life for blacks. Malcom X once said about Brown: “John
Brown . . . was a white man who went to war against white people to help free slaves. And any
white man who is ready and willing to shed blood for your freedom—in the sight of other whites,
he’s nuts.”1 So, saint or sinner? Martyr or Madman?
Perhaps the chief reason for the way that history has viewed Brown has been his use of
violence as the means to end slavery. By the 1840s and ’50s a growing number of antislavery
fighters felt that more emphatic means than argument were necessary, and Brown was one of
them. When he met the ex-slave and eloquent abolitionist Frederick Douglass, with whom he
became close friends, the two engaged in a long and searching colloquy on how to overthrow
slavery. Perhaps, offered Douglass, the slaveholder might still be converted by peaceful means.
“No,” Brown almost shouted. “I know their proud hearts. They will never be induced to give up
their slaves until they feel a big stick about their heads.”2 This month we have looked at three
1
http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20060831-john-brown-harpers-ferry-abolitionism-
slavery.shtml
2
Ibid.

2. other ways in which individuals have, throughout history, resisted systems of oppression.
Whether through deep introspection as we experienced in the journals of Etty Hillesum; the
prophetic witness of Sojourner Truth, or the ability to resist oppression through organizing, as
seen in the life of Cesear Chavez, all of these methods have been peaceful and non-violent.
Although violence surrounded these individuals, or was always a threat, violence itself was not
the means to an end—the end, being liberation from oppression. With the story of John Brown,
known best for his failed attempt to incite a slave insurrection, hanged as a traitor, we have to
consider if there are instances in our life—in the life of the world—that requires us to take up
arms and to be prepared to commit violence—murder even. Throughout the course of this
sermon, I want to raise both sides of the issue for our consideration, because these issues with
which Brown and some of our Unitarian forebears struggled—is still our struggle. The
temptation to use violence is still a war both in our hearts, our government and our nation and
raises difficult questions for us today. At what point, when it seems that other means have failed,
do you resist injustice by taking up arms? This month’s sermon series has been exploring the
theme of resistance through the personal lives of women and men—because we feel strongly that
all theology begins with biography. So, is my hope that what you get out of this morning is not
an interesting talk about John Brown, or our Unitarian ancestors who financed his efforts to end
slavery, but will consider a deeper question that still resonates for us today. Is the use of
violence justified? Is it an appropriate means to serve the greater ends—peace or justice or
freedom from oppression? .
We need to know something about the man himself to understand why he thought he
could free the slaves only by the use of violence. John Brown was born on May 9, 1800, in
Torrington, Connecticut into a strict Calvinist family. His father, Owen, did not hide the fact that
he hated slavery and felt that holding humans in bondage against their will was a sin against
God. When he was five years old, the family moved to Hudson, Ohio, their home in Hudson
serving as one of the stations of the Underground Railroad. At twelve years of age, something
2

3. happened to Brown that reinforced his belief that his father was right—that slavery was an
abomination. While delivering a herd of cattle, he stayed with a man who owned a boy slave—
the same age as the young John Brown. The boy was beaten with a shovel by the slave-owner
before Brown’s eyes. That early injustice set him on the path for which he is now famous.
In 1820, he marries his first wife, Dianthe Lusk, who bears him seven children, then dies
on August 10, 1832. Brown tries his hand at a number of businesses, working in a tannery,
served as postmaster, land speculation, in 1844, formed a partnership with Simon Perkins, of
Akron, Ohio, managing flocks of sheep on two of Perkins’ nearby farms. As a businessman,
John Brown was a failure. He was constantly in debt, running from creditors, trying to make a
living and support his still-growing family. In 1833, he took a second wife, Mary Ann Day and
she bore him 13 children. Out of his twenty children, only seven survived. Although Brown’s
business instincts often failed him, his growing sense of urgency and concern over what he
believed to be the further entrenchment of slavery did not.
He had begun to lose interest in business because his mind was roiling with anger at the
fact that slavery not only still existed, but seemed to be expanding. What was this business, he
thought to himself—of tending sheep? What good did that do for the slave, for the oppressed?
There was to be no peaceful way to end slavery. He summoned all his courage and commitment
at hand, and one night gathered his family around him. His wife Mary, pregnant with their fifth
child drew all the Brown children around their father. Standing in front of the fireplace, his
fierce black eyes burning, Brown and his family and told them
“slavery was nothing but the most diabolical and cowardly form of warfare that human beings
had devised.. It was war of the strong on the weak, war on women and children as well as on
men, war to kill the soul before the body. Non-resistants could never bring this unholy war to
an end. Those who wielded words alone could never end it. Only force could end slavery—
force brought by white men as well as black who were willing to take up arms against it, and
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4. if necessary, die in the fight 3 Are you with me? he asked his children and one by one, all of
them said “yes, Father.”
After the last affirmation, Brown nodded and sank abruptly to his knees. The boys
exchanged glances, startled. He had never knelt to pray before. In a moment, Mary had
lowered herself gingerly off her chair. Lifting and cradling her belly with her hands, she
knelt beside Brown. The others followed.” Brown’s fate was sealed. This was a declaration
of war.
II. The Secret Six
John Brown was running out of money. That was not an unusual state of affairs for Brown—he
was often long on wind but short on cash, but this time, it was different. He needed money to
prop up his failing businesses or pay off past debts, or even to feed his wife and still small
children. This time he needed money, he said, to buy two hundred Sharp’s rifles and $30,000
dollars in cash. To find that kind of money, he knew that he had to seek out not only those who
were sympathetic to his cause, but those who had the financial means to help, and for that, he
headed straight for Boston, Massachusetts, where liberal Unitarians and other abolitionists were
appalled at the turn of events in their own country. When we think of the Civil War, we tend to
think of the North vs. the South, and never the twain shall meet. But the stain of slavery
permeated both the north and the south, as runaway slaves made their way to New England, and
as free black slaves attempted to make a living in the philosophically tolerant, but in practice,
racist—North. Tensions were high, not only on the east coast in civilized cities like Boston and
New York, but out west, even past the Western Reserve, into the frontier land of Kansas, which
became the first battleground of a civil war that had not yet been formally declared.
In 1854, the infamous Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the western territories to slavery.
The next year, Brown followed three of his sons to Kansas, hoping to do whatever he could to
prevent the state from falling into the slavery column. Events of the first half of 1856 radicalized
Brown and pointed him toward the incident that changed the terms of the national debate over
3
Carton, Evan. Patriotic Treason: John Brown and The Soul of America. (Free Press: New York, 2006), pg. 86-87
4

5. slavery and remains controversial to this day: the slaughter of proslavery settlers near
Pottawatomie, Kansas on May 24, 1856.
The details of the murders by Brown's band at Pottawatomie are well known. Brown and
six others set out from Ottawa Creek on May 24 with rifles, revolvers, and swords heading
toward proslavery territory. Around ten o'clock the following night Brown's men, announcing
they were from the Northern Army, broke into the homes of proslavery activists and hacked
them to death. He believed that executing these pro-slavery men, who were responsible for
terrorizing the abolitionist communities, would serve two purposes: it would eliminate the source
of intimidation, and would send a message that the abolitionists were not all talk—but meant
business.
After these attacks, Brown and his sons managed to escape and no one could quite pin the
murders on Brown, though there was much speculation. When he arrived in New England, he
reassured the good men of Concord that he had nothing to do with that business in Kansas, but
that he intended to raise a company of well-armed men who would resist any further aggression.
He befriended a young Franklin Sanborn, a Harvard graduate who moved to Concord to open a
preparatory school, and who quickly became the young darling of the Transcendentalist of
Concord.
Sanborn knew that Unitarian minister Theodore Parker was an ardent abolitionist, so,
around this time of year, in 1857, he introduced him to Parker. Parker was sufficiently
impressed with Brown to offer to host a reception for him. It was the kind of soiree that John
Brown hated. Brown was painfully uncomfortable, nervous and out of place, sitting in his cheap
and worn corduroy suit, with dirt under his fingernails and the hairs on his head seeming to shoot
straight up, as if he had absorbed an electrical shock. “His energetic, nervous eyes wandered
quickly from one fancy gentleman to another—all of these finely dressed and manicured dandies
whom he needed to seduce into supporting his revolution.4There, in Theodore Parker’s lush
4
Renehan, Edward J. Junior. The Secret Six, pg 111.
5

6. Victorian dining room sat some of the greatest minds of Concord, and others, hearing about this
dinner, wanted to meet this John Brown. Sanborn introduced John Brown to George Luther
Stearns, an industrialist and merchant, whose financial resources might come to Brown’s aide, as
well as another Unitarian minister, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an activist minister. Samuel
Gridley Howe, whose wife, Julia Ward Howe, famous author of “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic,” was also there. The three of them, Sanborn, Howe and Parker stood apart from the
rest of the dinner party for a time, discussing in earnest the real reason why John Brown had
ventured into this strange territory. All three men shared the view that only civil war, first in
Kansas and then countrywide, could bring an end to slavery. But Brown had not ventured into
the plush parlors of Concord for idle chat. He was a man of action. He planned to hit up these
Bostonian and Concordian Brahmins for as much money as they could give, buy guns, arm 100
men, go back to Kansas and start an armed insurrection—a war if you will, against the pro-
slavery forces. Everything hinged on the success of Kansas.
In February 1857, John Brown came back to Concord and met with Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, discussing once again the evils of slavery. Finally, a
wealthy philanthropist, Gerrit Smith became convinced that John Brown’s methods were sound
and his cause noble and just. Together, these six men, Theodore Parker, Samuel Howe, Charles
Sanborne, Gerrit Smith, George Stearns and Thomas Higginson, called “The Secret Six,” banded
together for clandestine meetings to plot, scheme and, finance, a plan to if not overthrow slavery
—at least push the necessity of its abolition to the forefront, and possibly, even start a Civil War.
Now for some of you this will be either a fascinating slice of history, that includes our
forebears, Unitarian ministers or--this may have been the point at which you found yourself
nodding off, not unlike a well-fed Transcendentalist who indulged in too much after-dinner
sherry. History is important because it repeats itself. The noble, liberal ideals of these men—
who became the Secret Six, could have been, I suspect, any one of us. Tired of talking, and of
having interesting discussions about a real societal evil—here, right in front of us, is someone
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7. who has the smarts and the guts to do what we may not be able to do—to pick up arms, to
commander an army, to force a social change. And, better yet—we don’t have to be the ones
getting dirty or shot at. All we have to do is to give money
Although it may be easy to portray these six men as pacifist parlor generals, we cannot
overlook the power of their intellect and the contributions they did make from their ivory towers,
or their minister’s study. In a sermon delivered shortly after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave
Law, which made it illegal to harbor a runaway slave, Parker gave his first public endorsement to
violent resistance: “The man who attacks me to reduce me to slavery—in that moment of attack
alienates his right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape in no other way, I would
kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face.” 5
Meanwhile, John Brown, emboldened by the Kansas massacre and raid, thought of
another plan, which he may or may not have shared, with the Secret Six. Brown believed that it
was now time for an all-out assault on slavery, and he proposed something that no one had ever
conceived of before. He planned to liberate slaves and recruit them to be part of an army that
would lead an armed insurrection. Brown told Frederic Douglas:. “God will be my guard and
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shield, rendering the most illogical movements into a grand success.”
The raid was not a great success; in fact, it was an abysmal failure. The freed slaves who
were supposed to swarm around Brown like bees to a hive, never materialized. Brown neglected
to tell them anything about the plan—they were supposed to intuitively understand that this long-
bearded, wild-eyed white man was going to free them, and that they would willingly join his
army to fight against other white men. Most of them ran or went into hiding. Although Brown
was successful at overtaking the arms cache at the Armory, he had not counted on the liquored
up mobs of armed citizens and militia men who were itching for a fight. They swarmed the
armory and cried for blood. The battle was gruesome. Brown’s own two sons were killed, and
Brown himself stabbed and beaten senseless. In what was then Virginia—now West Virginia,
5
The Secret Six, pg. 30
6
The Secret Six, pg. 139
7

8. John Brown was put on trial for treason, murder and inciting slaves to insurrection on October
27. On November 2, he was sentenced to die on the gallows on December 2, 1859.
Up north in New England, the news of John Brown’s raid spread throughout the
households of the Secret Six. All of the Secret Six except for Theodore Parker were named.
Gerrit Smith’s mind gave way within two weeks of Harper’s Ferry, he suffered a mental
breakdown and was committed to an asylum for the insane. Our own Unitarian hero, Theodore
Parker, was in Europe trying to recover from what was to become a fatal case of tuberculosis.
From the safe distance of Florence, Italy, Parker wrote: Parker wrote at the time of the Harper's
Ferry attack, "One held against his will as a slave has a natural right to kill everyone who seeks
to prevent his enjoyment of liberty."
Samuel Howe and George Stearns hightailed up to the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls
to avoid a federal subpoena. Eventually Sanborn followed writing to Higginson “there are a
thousand better ways of spending a year in warfare against slavery than by being in a
Washington prison.” Only Higginson openly said that he would not retreat to Canada, and that
if summoned, he would go to Washington and speak the whole truth bravely.7 Four out of the
Secret Six would pay frequent homage to John Brown’s grave—buried in North Elba, New
York. Each man was deeply touched and profoundly changed by their relationship with old
Osawatomie Brown, who took the law into his own hands for what he and they believed was a
righteous and just cause.
Part II. There is a Higher Law—written by Thomas Selby, Worship Associate
Throughout this argument over the abolition of slavery, one constantly encounters
references to a Higher Law, a law affecting not only local laws but also the Constitution itself.
This concept was far from new. Philosophers from Aristotle to St. Augustine to John Locke
have debated what to do if the laws of a government are unjust.
7
The Secret six, pg. 247
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9. Some jurists have appealed to something called “the law of nations,” such as in the
1500’s when Spanish jurists Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez argued that this “law of
nations” prevented the Spanish crown from treating Native Americans as sub-human with no
legal rights. The Spanish king ignored them. It was also under such a concept that the Allied
powers tried the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg, thus countering the German argument that, since
the racial purity laws of the Third Reich were legally enacted, those laws were morally, as well
as legally, correct. However, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, a man known to all as “Mr.
Republican,” pointed out that the US Constitution contained no mention of the “law of nations”
and, since the passage of such laws would be unconstitutional ex post facto laws, Taft questioned
the legality of the Nuremberg Trials vis a vis US law. Needless to say, Taft was soundly
denounced by most of the country. In Profiles In Courage, John F. Kennedy documents some of
the blistering denunciations that were heaped upon Taft for his stand upon supremacy of the US
Constitution and how it helped defeat his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1948.
But in the vast majority of instances, when one appeals to a higher law, one is appealing
to God’s law and the belief that it trumps any law made by those of us here below. Charles
Finney, minister and president of Oberlin College, asserted that obeying Ohio’s Black Laws was
“highly immoral”; and that “no man, by any promise or oath, or resolution, can make it right, or
lawful, for him to do that which is contrary to the law of God.” And the years leading up to the
Civil War are certainly rife with more of such appeals from Unitarian saints. Theodore Parker
wrote President Fillmore regarding the Fugitive Slave Act, “I would rather lie all my life in jail,
and starve there, than refuse to protect one of these parishioners of mine…I must reverence the
laws of God, come of that what will come.”
In T. S. Elliot’s powerful play “Murder in the Cathedral” Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas a Becket tells the knights who are about to slay him,
“It is not I who insult the King,
And there is a higher than I or the King,
It is not I, Becket from Cheapside,
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10. It is not against me, Becket, that you strive.
It is not Becket who pronounces doom,
But the Law of Christ’s Church, the judgment of Rome.”
Pretty heady stuff; and a most effective argument.
Now, I must say that I am not talking about most actions taken against unfair laws. I am
not arguing against the actions of Gandhi or King or countless others who have written,
preached, marched, petitioned, or even demonstrated in opposition to laws which they deemed
unfair. What I am speaking against is the calling upon God’s higher laws to justify actions by
the mobs such as in Boston, Massachusetts and Wellington, Ohio. A jury of a less adoring press
and historians would term the tumult in those cities to be riots or even revolts. Federal marshals
were killed in the performance of their duties. Imagine the response if a few years ago, when
federal authorities returned Adrian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, if the Cuban American
community of Miami with their Anglo supporters, had turned out with knives, torches, clubs and
firearms to violently prevent that reunion.
The problem with an appeal to a higher law is not the appeal itself but, rather, who is
doing the appealing. If we as religious liberals are on the side of the angels and can appeal to a
higher law in defense of that which we consider good and proper and even holy, abolition, peace,
equal rights, equal justice, then is not anyone else entitled to make a similar appeal? Might not
those appeals be anathema to us and our personal visions of a higher law? Just two weeks ago
Governor Huckabee expressed a belief that the US Constitution should be amended to conform
to God’s laws. I seriously doubt that he was referring to mixing meat and milk or whether or not
one may pull his ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath. His appeal to God’s Law would be quite at a
variance to our appeal to the same source.
A person looks at a situation in this country, something that is entirely legal and
constitutional by decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, but that person decides that
the Court and the Congress have gotten it all wrong. How does he know this? He perceives a
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11. higher law: God’s Law. Perhaps this person can convince others, even if only a few, that he and
God are right and it is incumbent on this person and his followers to do what God desires. Obey
God’s Higher Law, whether it is sending guns and money to John Brown or being a suicide
bomber in Iraq or shooting a doctor who performs abortions.
Lastly, let us not forget that it is a very, very short step from “I am on God’s side” to
“God is on my side.” Although history is rife with people who had that conviction, my premier
example would be General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. He was a devout Presbyterian with
complete belief in God’s will. He believed that if he were too happy, God would punish him.
Jackson did not drink whiskey or eat butter with his bread because it tasted good. He was a
loving husband and father. He secretly, and illegally, taught slaves to read so that they could
understand the Bible. He cared deeply for the men under his command and they, in turn, loved
him, knowing that he would not needlessly sacrifice them. And he could look out over the
slaughter at Fredericksburg and calmly remark to his aides, “God has been very good to us
today.”
Part IV. Do the Ends Justify the Means?
In case you had not already guessed, I’ve become deeply moved by the story of John Brown and
my Unitarian colleagues, known as The Secret Six. Too often when an issue that I consider a
societal evil comes to the foreground, there seems to be little I can do. Oh sure, I can preach
about them from this pulpit. I can write letters, call my senator and representative, educate
myself about how to combat it. And I can fully understand and sympathize with the men of the
Secret Six, three of whom were Unitarian ministers, whose deepest convictions were offended by
the persistence of slavery. I can even understand John Brown, who became so fed up with all the
talk and intellectual discussions about the evil or necessity of slavery, who finally just snapped
and decided that violence was the way to force the nation to look at its own ugliness.
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12. Yet, violence has an ugliness all its own as well. The men that Brown murdered at
Pottawattamie Kansas were not innocents. Several of them were pro-slavery imports who
harassed, threatened and intimidated the abolitionist settlers. Some could argue that the
massacres in Kansas ignited the spark that was ultimately to become the Civil War. Thse men
were acting within the guidelines of the law, as slavery was still legal at that time. And yet, these
were men whose wife and children could only stand helplessly by as Brown and his gang
executed them. On the other hand, Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, while not accomplishing
the ends that he had hoped, provided the means in that the country woke up to the slumbering
giant of abolitionist sentiment that was no longer able to be contained to New England parlors.
So the question still remains—did the ends—the abolition of a great evil—slavery—justify the
means—murder and the use of force? When it comes to a legally declared war, actually
sanctioned by an act of Congress, we accept the fact that there will be “casualties,” though I see
nothing casual about the loss of life. But what do we do when we believe the “law” of the land
fails us? What about when we choose to take the law into our own hands—is violence justified
then?
The problem with violence is well known—it begets more violence. There is something
in us that once a violent act is perpetuated—we want more. It can become almost like an
addiction and with each violent act, we build up justifications which become our law. An eye
for an eye—a tooth for a tooth proponents of violent action are known to quote. And yet, the
reason that phrase exists in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy is not a recipe for
revenge or justice. It was created an attempt to mediate violence. Tribal culture would demand
violent retribution for a wrong. The eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth was meant to exact the same
amount of hurt from another that was done to you. So, if someone steals your camel—you steal
their camel. . We have learned, however, that in truth—this practice doesn’t work. It was
Gandhi who quipped that following this practice only makes the world blind and toothless.
Violence not only begets more violence, it creates something uncontained and unpredictable.
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13. Unlike the law, that, while having its own surprises, follows a code of ethics developed over time
by a rational society. Once you take up arms against your fellow human beings and decide to
operate outside the laws, you cannot predict the consequences of your actions, because violence,
by its very nature is unpredictable.
John Brown not only freely embraced violence as a means to an end, he did so without
much counsel from others. In other words, he was not “a team player.” He reveled in his quasi-
celebrity status and his lone ranger methods. No one could dissuade him, because he knew his
cause was just and his methods were sound and the outcome would justify and vindicate him in
the end. The trouble with that kind of thinking is that it leads to zealotry. Zealotry is a toxic
combination of a righteous cause and a certain amount of narcissism. Rational discourse is futile
and for the zealot, failure is not an option. Had Brown worked more closely with the Secret Six,
instead of exploiting their liberal religious sensibilities with his promises of slave liberation, he
might have figured out a better plan than to raid an armory in a town that would think no more of
lynching John Brown than shooting a squirrel. He might have acted more strategically and less
like a terrorist. He might have actually lived to see the freeing of the slaves—and what a real
and sweet victory that would have been.
But that is not what happened. We are left with thousands of letters and materials and
hundreds of books written about John Brown, the radical, the abolitionist, the madman or the
martyr. Thoreau said of him: "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and
effectively for the dignity of human nature." John Brown was, he continued "the most American
of us all."
Yet standing in the front room of the John Brown home in Akron, OH, I wonder if there
is another way of understanding him. I don’t think him mad, for he showed calm, rational,
military strategy in planning all of his attacks. Nor do I find him a martyr, because the definition
of martyr is someone who is put to death rather than to renounce religious principles. His respect
for the dignity of human nature did not, apparently extend to those who disagreed with him. I
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14. simply find him—a man—a human being, terribly driven by a sense of injustice and blind to the
ways of how his gifts, not his guns, could have been used in service of the Great Cause of
Abolitionism. Brown’s lesson then, is for us all—how terribly, powerfully human we are, and
how the potential for great horrors and great healing, lay squarely in our own hands. May it be
so.
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