BROWN, John, American abolitionist leader: b. Torrington, Conn., 9 May 1800; d. 2 Dec. 1859. His paternal ancestry was of May flower stock, his grandmother of Welsh, his mother of Dutch. His grandfather was a cap tain in the Revolution. His father, who drew his abhorrence of slavery from Jonathan Edwards, an anti-slavery champion, shared in the forcible rescue of fugitive slaves in 1798. The son found his warrant against slavery in the Bible, where its defenders found their war rant for it. From the age of five he grew up in Ohio. He was an exceedingly active and adventurous boy, who loved play-fights, but not real ones, disapproved of war, and in manhood paid annual fines rather than perform militia duty. His detestation of slavery was confirmed by witnessing the abuse of a slave boy; he swore in his own words, °eternal war against and throughout his career he never lost sight of this life-work. His 12 children who grew to maturity (out of 20 he had by two wives) were ingrained with his spirit, pledged themselves to him in prayer to spend their lives making it operative, and bore great privations to furnish him the means of so do ing. He became a farmer and leather-dresser, surveyor, shepherd and wool dealer; unfixed, unprosperous and esteemed °shiftless.° This was certainly not due to indolence or lack of honor; his immense family and want of money getting faculty were partly responsible, his ab sorption in a fixed idea and lack of interest in money-getting still more. By 1834,- then in Pennsylvania, he had devised an association of abolitionist families to educate colored youth, believing that it would force the South into speedy emancipation. Seeking co-operation in this plan, he removed to Ohio in 1835, and to Massachusetts in 1846; in 1840 he made sur veys of Oberlin College lands in Virginia and projected a negro colony there. In 1846 Gerrit Smith (q.v.) offered 100,000 acres of northern New York lands in small farms to colored families who would clear them; and in 1848, to work among them, Brown bought a farm in North Elba, where his family lived till his death, wdrking with and for him. History can hardly parallel so large a family's unanim ity of self-sacrifice for a social ideal, in whose behalf they stinted themselves ungrudgingly: a testimony to the father's commanding nobility of soul. From thence, by grace of contribu tions from abolitionists who had come to know and respect him, he traveled often on errands of organizing resistance to slavery. In 1850, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, he visited Springfield, Mass., his former residence, and formed a °League of Gileadites,° sworn to stand by each other in the rescue of fugitive slaves.
In 1854 Kansas had become, in the eyes of both South and North, the decisive battle ground of the two systems, and five of Brown's sons living in Ohio set out thither to swell the free-soil ranks; they settled a few miles from Ossawatomie, and Brown joined them in Octo ber 1855, against his intention. The family
were among the most stalwart defenders of the Territory for the next two years against the fraud and terrorism by which the Border Ruf flans plunged it into anarchy and bloodshed. John Brown's career there brought him into national prominence, from the conspicuousness of the stage rather than the magnitude of the actions. Its most dramatic incidents were the retaliatory murder of five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie, 24 May 1856, the capture of Captain Pate at Black Jack, 2 June, and the magnificent defense of Ossawatomie against a crushing force of Missourians in August. It has never been narrated, even by Northerners without sympathy for the slavery cause, except with strong partisan bias pro or con, and from its very nature, it probably never can be. The judgment passed on it depends not merely on the view taken of his cause (of which an impar tial estimate is not impossible), but on the ques tions whether that cause would have succeeded in any event, and whether he helped or harmed it. No proof of either is possible, and favor or disfavor toward fanatical enthusiasts is one of the deepest lines of cleavage among human spirits. As the victory for freedom was won, it is the fashion to assume that it never was in doubt; that active warfare was needless; that the influx of free settlers would soon have caused the pro-slavery invaders to desist in despair; that Brown acted as a lawless ruffian who justified the other party, and that he only discredited and hampered his own side. But it is still quite rational to maintain the older view, of which the premises are certainly cor rect, whatever the deduction may be. The pro slavery party had no such illusions; from the first they openly proclaimed the struggle for Kansas a war for life or death, and carried it on by the machinery of war. They constituted a government by open fraud and maintained it by open violence; sacked towns, burnt houses, assassinated some of their opponents and ille gally imprisoned others; while the United States courts dispersed their foes by legal anathema, and the United States troops acted as their army. If no resistance had been offered, it is not apparent why these methods should have been less employed or less successful in 1858 than in 1856; the prize would not have been less and the incentive would have grown greater. It is certain that such peaceful sub mission of the free-soilers would 'have been hailed by the Pierce and Buchanan parties as proof incontestable that the Republican charges of illegality and outrage were mere libels. It is therefore at least arguable that it was Brown, Montgomery, Lane and the other fighters, by `their stubborn and ((lawless') defiance to sheer foreign conquest, plunging Kansas into open and bloody anarchy, who shamed the govern ment into withdrawing its help to the invaders and convinced the slavery party that force was no longer available. Incidentally, they gave the non-combatants a free community in which to decry their champions.