The Madness of John Brown

You hear the news through a hysterical neighbor. Through bursts of "God help us!!" and "Let us pray for our neighbors," you finally comprehend what the whole town is so upset over. Your neighboring town-only 10 miles away-has been attacked by the well-known abolitionist, John Brown and his band of men. Word has it 10 innocent people were murdered. The cause of the attack is rumored to be a proslavery rally the town hosted last week. All of your town's citizens are outraged and afraid for their lives that John Brown and his gang will strike at your town next. You wait in fear in your room and listen to the sounds of hysteria outside.

This chapter looks at how abolition actions by one man were a big part in causing the Civil War. Historians try to determine what caused John Brown to act in such a violent manner. Was it mental instability? His passion for the abolishment of slavery? Or was it the impact of his father's strict discipline actions throughout Brown's childhood? As the historians unravel their conflicting views and theories, you decide what caused the madness of John Brown.

For his first abolitionist attack, John Brown chose a sleepy town sixty miles from Washington, D.C., known as Harper's Ferry. His hopes were that after he and his band of men attacked the town's armory, area slaves would join them in a rebellion that would result in all slaves being freed and the end of slavery altogether. Much to his dismay, the attack was a complete failure. Thirty-six hours after the attack, Robert E. Lee's troops had captured Brown and his men. Even worse, not a single slave had risen to join Brown's army. The raid on Harper's Ferry was to the Civil War what the Boston Massacre had been to the American Revolution-an inflammatory event.

As many confused citizens tried to determine Brown's motives, the controversial man changed his story many times puzzling them even more. The goal he expressed to his men was to invoke a slave rebellion and to divide the nation so that a sectional crisis would lead to the destruction of slavery. From his jail cell and at his trial, he denied any intention to commit violence or instigate a slave rebellion. The issue was not decided upon even at Brown's execution. Nation-wide the popular question was still asked. Was John Brown a heroic martyr or an emotionally unbalanced individual?

During the mid-1990s, the belief in Brown's insanity was especially popular. John Garraty, a popular college surveyor, described Brown as "deranged" (p. 126). Allen Nevins argued that in all issues other than slavery, Brown could think and act rationally. The most recent biographer of John Brown, Stephen Oates, rejected that insanity could be either proven or used in any way to explain Brown's actions. Oates demanded that all historians take into account the context in which Brown's attacks were committed. Brown's trial attorney, George Hoyt, attempted to prove in nineteen affidavits that Brown was mentally unstable because of insanity on his mother's side of the family and because of his unsuccessful experiences in Kansas. These affidavits are attacked by Oates and many other historians as obviously unreliable. Only once came from a doctor, and he had no experience in psychological observation. The argument that Brown was insane, though, had meaningful impacts on the South and North. If Brown's mentality was questioned, both sides could no longer see the attack on Harper's Ferry as divisive. The argument was however too faulty to be believed by many. To prove Brown insane, Hoyt would have had to prove that he had no understanding of the consequences of his actions at Harper's Ferry. But Brown repeatedly demonstrated that he knew if he was caught, he would be put into jail, and he believed himself to be right in his actions.

Using the principles of psychohistory, some explore the territory of the unconscious much as a historian seeks to make sense out of the jumble of documentary evidence. Special attention is called to instinctual sexual drives and the formative experiences of infancy and childhood. One also considers the oedipal conflict in young boys. Although many historians have not taken Freud's views to heart, everyone must find it useful to look at recurring images, fears and preoccupations.

Historians examining the mystery that is John Brown have looked at his childhood. In a letter to a thirteen-year-old boy named Harry Stearns, Brown talked about his childhood in third person. This letter showed that at the age of twelve, Brown was already roused to oppose slavery. The letter also shows the way Brown viewed his relationship with his parents. He goes from his love for his mother directly to the erotic temptations young women had for him, linking the two "...as he was both naturally fond of females; and withal extremely diffident; & deprived him of a suitable connecting link between the different sexes; the want of which might under some circumstances have proved his ruin." (p. 139). The concept of property and titles was the main conflict between John and Owen Brown. "Only when Brown internalized and accepted the authority of his father[s] could he then act the part of a stern, loving parent himself." (p.141).

Even sins were a concept of property to John Brown. Discipline taken against John Jr. was precise in how many whiplashes each sin deserved. The way Brown punished his son and then asked for the treatment to be returned, shows his personal conflicts vividly. Psychoanalytic insight has provided a clear image of John Brown's personal conflicts: his ambivalence toward his father's strict discipline, the paradox of his struggle to internalize and accept his father's authority in order to become independent himself; and his excessive concern with property and "pets" as a means of defining his independence.

All of these concepts and ideas attempt to explain John Brown's motives. But perhaps, one must only know this: "Helping slaves was ultimately a means of helping himself without consciously recognizing the source of his emotions and convictions." (p.144). The result of Brown's actions caused much discussion, but it was discussion over the wrong subject matter. Because of as C. Vann Woodward concluded, "The importance lay not so much in the man or event, but in the use made of them by northern and southern partisans." (p.145).