ANALYSIS
One of the lasting consequences of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol is a shared sense that violence is now part of our political culture. Multiple polls have found that Americans expect more political violence and many citizens believe it is acceptable under certain circumstances.
To be sure, violence as a means to achieve political ends has always been an important part of the American story. The colonists, once content subjects of King George III, began a war for independence in 1775. Abraham Lincoln prosecuted a war to save the Union after secessionists violently revolted in 1861. But most Americans today view those uses of violence as legitimate and in the service of a just cause.
What about when private citizens, rather than government forces, act as vigilantes and take the law into their own hands as they did on Jan. 6? That is an easy one to answer because their cause was unjust. But are there times when violence might be justified because normal politics have failed?
In this episode of History As It Happens, historian David S. Reynolds discusses the moral dilemma presented by the legacy of John Brown, a righteous, radical abolitionist who committed murder and terrorism in his fight against slavery in the 1850s. Brown’s crusade culminated in his doomed raid on Harpers Ferry, where he seized the federal armory in a bid to instigate a slave rebellion.
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Mr. Reynolds, a preeminent scholar of 19th century American culture and author of “John Brown, Abolitionist,” says Brown has been a controversial figure from the moment he was captured at Harpers Ferry. Many Americans – in the North as well as South – immediately condemned him as a deranged fanatic, but Henry David Thoreau compared him to Jesus Christ. During the civil rights era, the more radical faction of Black activists praised him as the only white American in history worthy of respect.
“He’s still on the scholarly fringes because historians prefer to discuss politics. John Brown was not into politics. He was a reformer, an abolitionist who took action and thought that politics were all talk, talk, talk,” said Mr. Reynolds, who portrayed Brown in a more sympathetic light in his 2005 book than have other scholars.
But in the aftermath of Jan. 6, Mr. Reynolds cautioned against making martyrs out of men like Brown. “I am very much in a mood for a calming down of this tendency toward violence. I think it should have no room in current-day democracy.”
Listen to Mr. Reynolds explain why John Brown became a symbol of righteousness to some, of terrorist fanaticism to others, by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
