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30 October 1859, Sunday
Concord, Massachusetts; Vestry, First Parish Meetinghouse
"The Character and Actions of Capt. John Brown"
[Back to Calendar of Lectures]
NARRATIVE OF EVENT: In 1854, Congress passed
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and allowed the
new territories to decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery or not. Passage of
the Act also set the stage for what would soon become Bleeding Kansas. Settlers from the
North, particularly New England, and from the South streamed into Kansas Territory. Each
faction, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, busied itself with taking a census of voters and,
after conducting elections, established its own territorial government. Before long,
however, political contention between the competing factions escalated into violence, with
marauding bands of pro-slavery Border Ruffians and anti-slavery Free-Soilers fighting one
another. During the summer of 1856, the fighting became especially intense, and the news
of each conflict was trumpeted in newspapers throughout the country. One of the more
prominently reported incidents was the Battle of Black Jack, in which ten Free-Soilers
under the command of Captain John Brown captured more than twenty Border Ruffians led by
Henry Clay Pate.
The fighting in Kansas relented during the
winter of 1856-57, and Captain John Brown took advantage of the hiatus to travel to the
Northeast in search of the funds he would need to carry on his campaigns the following
spring and summer. One of Brown’s principal supporters was Franklin Benjamin Sanborn,
Thoreau’s friend and fellow Concordian, who met Brown earlier in the year while on a
leave of absence from the Concord Academy and working as a secretary in the Boston office
of the New England Emigrant Aid Society.1 Sanborn
arranged for Brown to speak to the Massachusetts legislature in February of 1857, and he
afterward brought Brown to Concord, in part so that Brown could deliver a lecture there
and ask for contributions. Sanborn at that time was taking his noon meals at the Thoreau
family’s table. Accordingly, as Walter Harding reports:
[Sanborn] brought Brown with him for lunch and left him there for the afternoon while
he tended school. Thoreau and Brown talked at length, Brown telling Thoreau the details of
the battle of Black Jack in Kansas. . . .
That evening Brown spoke at the Concord
Town Hall, dramatically displaying a bowie knife he had taken from a Border Ruffian and a
chain with which his son had been bound prisoner by the slavery forces. When Brown pleaded
for funds, Sanborn gave one hundred dollars, Emerson fifty, and Thoreau’s father ten.
Thoreau himself contributed "a trifle" because he was irritated that Brown was
not willing to take his supporters more into his confidence and explain what he wished to
do with the funds. (Days, pp. 415-16)
Almost two years later, in January
1859, Thoreau spent an afternoon skating on Walden Pond with Emerson and the wealthy
abolitionist and Brown supporter George Luther Stearns, who "devoted a good part of
his time extolling Brown’s virtues to Thoreau, apparently convincing Thoreau of
Brown’s heroism" (Days, p. 416). Four months later still, Brown again
visited Concord to see Sanborn and raise money by speaking at the Town Hall. Thoreau heard
Brown speak there on the evening of 8 May and, according to Sanborn, was more impressed
with Brown than he had been two years earlier.2
Alcott had also attended Brown’s lecture and wrote the following entry in his diary,
portions of which demonstrate remarkable acuity and prescience:
This evening hear Captain Brown speak
at the Town Hall on Kansas affairs and the part taken by him in the late troubles there.
He tells his story with surpassing simplicity and sense, impressing us all deeply by his
courage and religious earnestness. Our best people listen to his words—Emerson,
Thoreau, Judge Hoar, my wife—and some of them contribute something in aid of his
plans without asking particulars, such confidence does he inspire with his integrity and
abilities.
I have a few words with him after his
speech, and find him superior to legal traditions and a disciple of the right, an idealist
in thought and affairs of state. He is Sanborn’s guest, and stays for a day only. A
young man named Anderson accompanies him. They go armed, I am told, and will defend
themselves if necessary. I believe they are now on their way to Connecticut and farther
south, but the Captain leaves much in the dark concerning his destination and designs for
the coming months. Yet he does not conceal his hatred for slavery nor his readiness to
strike a blow for freedom at the proper moment. I infer it is his intention to run off as
many slaves as he can, and so render that property insecure to the master. I think him
equal to anything he dares, the man to do the deed if it must be done, and with the
martyr’s temper and purpose.
Nature obviously was deeply intent in the
making of him. He is of imposing appearance, personably tall, with square shoulders and
standing, eyes of deep gray, and couchant as if ready to spring at the least rustling;
dauntless yet kindly; his hair shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose
trenchant and Romanesque; set lips; his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep
reserves; decided mouth; the countenance and frame charged with power throughout. Since
here last he has added a flowing beard, which gives the soldierly air, and port of an
apostle. Though sixty years of age, he is agile and alert, resolute, and ready for any
audacity in any crisis. I think him about the manliest man I have ever seen, the type and
synonym of the Just.3
On 19 October 1859, just over four
months after hearing Brown speak at the Concord Town Hall, Thoreau was with Alcott
visiting Emerson at the latter’s house when news first arrived of Brown’s raid
on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (Days, p. 416). The first
newspaper accounts of the raid were sketchy at best and falsely indicated that Brown had
been killed during the raid. But Thoreau’s journal entry for that day—containing
2,672 words, all but 382 of them about the incident at Harper’s Ferry—is
anything but sketchy. His praise for Brown and his scorn for Brown’s many detractors
is obvious:
When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours (especially
to-day) to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, what a merely brute, or
worse than brute, force it is seen to be! A demoniacal force! It is more manifest than
ever that tyranny rules. I see this government to he effectually allied with France and
Austria in oppressing mankind.
One comment I heard of by the postmaster
of this village on the news of Brown’s death: "He died as the fool dieth."
I should have answered this man, "He did not live as the fool liveth, and he died as
he lived."
Treason! where does treason take its rise?
I cannot help thinking of you as you deserve, ye governments. Can you dry up the fountains
of thought? High treason which is resistance to tyranny here below has its origin in, and
is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man. When you have
caught and hung all of these human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but your own
guilt, for you have not struck at the fountainhead. You presume to contend with a foe
against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon point not. Can all the arts of the
cannon-founder tempt matter to turn against its Maker? Is the form in which he casts it
more essential than the constitution of it and of himself? . . .
It galls me to listen to the remarks of
craven-hearted neighbors who speak disparagingly of Brown because he resorted to violence,
resisted the government, threw his life away!—what way have they thrown their lives,
pray?—neighbors who would praise a man for attacking singly an ordinary band of
thieves or murderers. Such minds are not equal to the occasion. They preserve the
so-called peace of their community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the
policeman’s billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the
chaplain of the regiment! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this
provisional army. So they defend themselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery.
There sits a tyrant holding fettered four
millions of slaves. Here comes their heroic liberator; if he falls, will he not still
live? (J, 12:400-402)
Thoreau’s initial reaction to Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was swift,
decisive, unequivocal. And as more news came to him through the Boston newspapers,
particularly the reports of what Brown said to his captors as he lay wounded on the
armory’s engine-house floor, Thoreau’s indignation mounted, as did his respect
for Brown’s character. As he was later to confess in his journal, he became so
absorbed in Brown’s fate during the last ten days of October that he was surprised
whenever he "detected the old routine running still,—met persons going about
their affairs indifferent" (J, 12:447). In his journal entry of 19 October, he
wrote 2,276 words about the Brown affair; in his entry of 21 October, he wrote 1,792
words; and, astonishingly, he wrote 5,948 words in his entry of 22 October—for a
three-day total of 10,016 words. These three long, scathing entries provided him with
almost everything he said in his "Lecture on the character & of actions of Capt.
John Brown."4 In fact, the lecture itself
appears to have contained about 9,200 words on sixty pages—about 800 words less than
the journal of those three days.5
Judging from the journal entries, Thoreau
seems to have decided while writing his entry on 21 October that he would speak to his
townspeople about Brown. The indignation that he spilled into his entry for 19 October is
general, not directed to an audience, but his entries of 21-22 October are filled with
references to an imaginary audience. In his entry for 21 October, for instance, he wrote,
"Who is here so base, that would be a bondsman? Who is here so vile, that will not
love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply" (J,
12:417).
Thoreau wrote his lecture on John Brown
between 22 and 30 October. During that time he derived some background information about
Brown from Boston newspapers and, perhaps, from interviews with Sanborn and other
acquaintances of the man. According to Walter Harding, Thoreau announced to the members of
his family one morning that he would lecture in public on John Brown, and while two of his
family members supported his decision, one opposed (Days, p. 417). After speaking
with his family, Thoreau sent a boy around town to announce that he would lecture in
defense of John Brown in the vestry of the First Parish Meetinghouse, but members of the
Republican Town Committee and some local abolitionists sent word back to Thoreau that they
thought a public lecture would be inadvisable.6
Sanborn, in particular, thought a public speech in defense of Brown at that time would be
"dangerous" and that "it would be better to wait until there was a better
feeling among the people."7 Although
Sanborn’s remark about Thoreau’s decision to speak publicly may seem extreme
from today’s vantage point, it should be borne in mind that no one had spoken
publicly in defense of Brown, and an overwhelming majority of Americans at the time
believed Brown to be a monomaniacal traitor, insurrectionist, and murderer. "A
considerable part of Concord," Dr. Josiah Bartlett pointed out later, were
"afraid of their own shadows" during the period that the Harper’s Ferry
incident was in the headlines.8 Thus, Thoreau’s
decision to lecture on 30 October 1859—and thereby become the first person in the
country to speak out publicly on behalf of Brown9—should
be regarded as fairly momentous, a decision that could indeed have proven
"dangerous" to him and to members of his family.
When Thoreau heard from Sanborn and the
others who advised him not to speak, Emerson reported that he said, "I did not send
to you for advice but to announce that I am to speak."10
Emerson’s son reported that Thoreau responded, "There is a mistake: I did not
ask advice, I said I should speak in the Vestry this evening on John Brown if anyone is
there to hear."11 According to an anonymous
admirer of Thoreau’s, Thoreau told the boy he had sent out earlier, "Tell Mr.
Sanborn that he has misunderstood the announcement, that there is to be a meeting in the
vestry, and that Mr. Thoreau will speak."12
Tradition has it that Thoreau applied to
the Concord town clerk to speak in the Town Hall and that, when denied permission to have
the Town Hall’s bell rung to summon his townspeople to the lecture, Thoreau rang the
bell himself.13 We regard this tradition as
spurious and as arising from the confusion of this lecture with the events of 2 December
1859, the day of Brown’s hanging, when Thoreau and other sympathizers gathered for a
service at Concord Town Hall and wanted but were denied permission to have the bell rung
(see lecture 68 below). Also, all accounts we have found indicate that Thoreau delivered
his lecture on Brown in the First Parish vestry, not at Town Hall, and there is evidence
to suggest that Concord’s Town Hall at that time did not even have a bell.14
The vestry was full on the occasion of
Thoreau’s talk. Some of those who attended had come, according to Emerson, to scoff
at what Thoreau had to say in defense of Brown.15
Others, those who were inclined to support Brown’s character, if not his actions,
reportedly slinked into the vestry as if they were afraid to be there.16 "Many persons came to hear," according to Edward
Emerson, "but doubtful what to think."17
Edward also remarked that although Thoreau read his paper with "no oratory," he
read it "as if it burned him."18
Edward’s father noted that the lecture "was heard by all respectfully, by many
with a sympathy that surprised themselves."19
Thoreau’s neighbor Minot Pratt attended the lecture and, on his return home, began a
letter to his wife, Maria:
I have just returned, (most 10 o’clock,) from hearing a sort of lecture from Henry
Thoreau, on the subject of the affair at Harper’s Ferry, or rather on the character
of Capt. Brown. Henry spoke of him in terms of the most unqualified eulogy. I never heard
him before speak so much in praise of any man, and did not know that his sympathies were
so strong in favor of the poor slave. He thinks Capt. Brown has displayed heroic qualities
that will cause him to be remembered wherever and whenever true heroism is admired. The
lecture was full of Henry’s quaint and strong expressions: hitting the politicians in
the hardest manner, and showing but little of that veneration which is due to our beloved
President and all the government officials, who are laboring so hard and so
disinterestedly for the welfare of the dear people. The church also, as a body, came in
for a share of whipping, and it was laid on right earnestly. In the course of his remarks
on Capt. Brown’s heroic character, and actions in the service of freedom and the
probability of his being killed therefor, he said he had been very strongly impressed with
the possibility of a man’s dying—very few men can
die—they never lived, how then can they die! The life they lived was not
life—that constant endeavor after self-gratification, with no high aspirations and
effort for the race, was too mean an existence to be called life. Brown was a man of ideas
and action; whatever he saw to be right, that he endeavored to do with energy,
without counting the cost to himself. Such a real, live man could die.
The lecture was full of noble, manly
ideas, though, perhaps, a little extravagant in its eulogy of Capt. Brown.20
Edward Emerson, noted that "many of those who had come to scoff remained to
pray."21
ADVERTISEMENTS, REVIEWS, AND
RESPONSES: On the day of Thoreau’s lecture, Bronson Alcott noted in his diary:
Thoreau reads a paper of his on John
Brown, his virtues, spirit, and deeds, at the Vestry this evening, and to the delight of
his company I am told—the best that could be gathered on short notice, and among them
Emerson. I am not informed in season, and have my meeting at the same time. I doubt not of
its excellence and eloquence, and wish he may have opportunities of reading it elsewhere.22
Alcott also wrote to Daniel Ricketson on 7 November and said that Thoreau’s
lecture "was received here by our Concord folks with great favor. . . ."23
DESCRIPTION OF TOPIC: The text
Thoreau read in the vestry of the First Parish Meetinghouse in Concord was apparently very
similar to text of the essay "A Plea for Capt. John Brown." Thoreau later added
a sentence to the text (see lecture 67 below) and added a footnote explaining that the
sentence was added "Nov 3d" (see note 5 in lecture 67 below), but probably
because the sentence was topical, Thoreau deleted it. The longer and more detailed
newspaper summaries of the lecture as Thoreau delivered it in Boston two days later
indicate that Thoreau dropped a few other topical passages out of his lecture text before
sending it to James Redpath, who published it the following year in Echoes of
Harper’s Ferry (Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860).
Notes
1. Milton Meltzer and
Walter Harding, A Thoreau Profile (Concord, Mass.: The Thoreau Foundation, Inc.,
1962), p. 252. [Back to Text]
2. F. B. Sanborn, Recollections
of Seventy Years, 2 vols. (Boston: Badger, 1909), 1:163-64. [Back to Text]
3. Alcott, Journals,
pp. 315-16. [Back to Text]
4. Quoted from the title
page of the lecture, paged "1," HM 13203, CSmH. [Back to Text]
5. The final page of the
lecture, paged "60," is at CSmH, HM13203. [Back to Text]
6. Days, p. 417;
and Henry Seidel Canby, Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939), p. 391. [Back to Text]
7. Quoted in George W.
Cooke, "The Two Thoreaus," Independent, 48 (10 December 1896): 1672. [Back to Text]
8. Quoted in Canby, Thoreau,
p. 391. [Back to Text]
9. James Redpath several
times made a point of remarking that Thoreau deserved the distinction of having been the
first person to speak out on Brown’s behalf (see, for instance, lecture 71 below),
and our search of the public record—primarily Boston and New York newspapers of the
period—supports Redpath’s assertions. The first person after Thoreau to speak
publicly in support of Brown was the well-known anti-slavery orator Wendell Phillips, who
delivered a very widely reported speech titled "The Lesson of the Hour" at Henry
Ward Beecher’s Pilgrim Church in Brooklyn, New York, on the evening of 31 October
1859—just twenty-four hours after Thoreau delivered his lecture in Concord. [Back to Text]
10. Joel Myerson,
"Emerson’s ‘Thoreau’: A New Edition from Manuscript," Studies
in the American Renaissance 1979, ed. Joel Myerson (Charlottesville: University Press
of Virginia, 1979), p. 41. [Back to
Text]
11. Edward Emerson, Notes
on Thoreau, MCo. [Back to Text]
12. Quoted in Cooke,
"The Two Thoreaus," 1672. [Back
to Text]
13. Canby, Thoreau,
p. 391. [Back to Text]
14. In his journal entry
for 30 November 1859, Thoreau mentions that he had applied to the selectmen for permission
to toll the bell of the First Parish Meetinghouse on the occasion of Brown’s
execution, even though the meeting commemorating the execution was held at Concord’s
Town Hall, which suggests the latter building had no bell to toll. [Back to Text]
15. Myerson,
"Emerson’s ‘Thoreau,’" p. 41. [Back to Text]
16. Cooke, "The Two
Thoreaus," 1672. [Back to Text]
17. Edward Emerson, Notes
on Thoreau, MCo. [Back to Text]
18. Edward Emerson, Notes
on Thoreau, MCo. [Back to Text]
19. Quoted in Canby, Thoreau,
p. 395. [Back to Text]
20. "When Thoreau
Lectured on John Brown," Concord Journal, 8 December 1932. [Back to Text]
21. Edward Emerson, Notes
on Thoreau, MCo. [Back to Text]
22. Alcott, Journals,
p. 320. [Back to Text]
23. Daniel Ricketson:
Autobiographic and Miscellaneous, ed. Anna and Walton Ricketson (New Bedford: Anthony,
1910), p. 130. [Back to Text] |