The Trial of John Brown

Gradual Emancipation

• Age of 18 children of slaves are freed 

• After revolution Mass & NH end slavery 

• All other states move to gradual emancipation in 1776-1804

Brown Hated the Constitution

• Believed the document was tainted by slavery 

• Though it was revered by many, Brown believed that human institutions must follow the bible to be valid

Constitutional Convention (1787)

“..real difference lay not between the large and small states but between the northern and southern states”

Toussaint Louverture & The Haitian Revolution 

• French colony of Saint-Domingue becomes the Republic of Haiti 

• 87% enslaved population 

• 5% free people of African descent 

• 200 thousand former slaves and free persons of color die; 24,000 white people, at least 50,000 French troops

Gabriel Prosser's Plot (1800)

• Organized slaves to march on Richmond VA

• Tropical storm delayed it, by the time it was finished he had been snitched on 

• 26 slaves arrested and executed 

• John Brown Admired him deeply 

Denmark Vesey (1822)

• Born in Africa, enslaved in Saint-Domingue, then charleston, skilled carpenter 

• Purchased his own freedom with lottery wins 

• Invokes declaration of independence/missouri compromise debates 

• Plans rebellion for July 14 1822 (Bastille Day)

• Torch charleston and sail to Haiti

Henry Clay & American Colonization Society 

• End slavery then send the freed slaves out of the country 

• Will pay freed slaves to expatriate to newly found Liberia in Africa

David Walker's Appeal 

• March 1830 authorities find copies in possession by free African Americans 

• Bounty on Walkers Head 

• Panic as rumors of slave revolts in NC and Louisiana 

• Death penalty for free black people who disseminated antislavery materials 

• Walker died August 1830, age 35, believed to have been poisoned

Nat Turner 

• Southampton county Virginia 

• Enslaved preacher known as “the prophet”

• Believed he had received signs from God to lead slaves and rise up 

• Leads a rebellion spurred to action by a solar eclipse 

• Him and 70 followers kill over 60 people 

• Goal was to spread terror and challenge slavery

The Liberator & Willia Lloyd Garrison (1831)

• Argued for doctrine of immediatism; immediate abolition and equal rights 

• White southerners were convinced this newspaper influenced Nat Turner's slave rebellion

American Anti Slavery Society (1833)

First national anti-slavery organization 

John Brown Admired Nat Turner 

• Said he would prefer less bloodshed but violent resistance was justified 

• Admired Turners calm defense and his trial as he descended into the Gallows 

John C Calhoun 

• Gag rules 

• Censorship of mail 

• Viewed slavery as a ‘positive good; that christianized slaves who received lifelong security

• Created a leadership class of white men, while eliminating class divisions 

• Criticized wage slaves/strikes in the North

Elijah P Lovejoy Killed (1837)

• Brown learns of his death; outraged

• “Here before God in the presence of the witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery”

David Wilmot & Wilmot Proviso

• Congressman from PA 

• Introduced in 1846 

• Proviso was a revolution to prohibit slavery from going into the Mexican cession (new territory from Mexico

• Debated repeatedly 1846-48, passes House, stalled in the Senate

Compromise of 1850

• Slavery banned in D.C.

• California admitted as a free state 

• New Mexico & Utah territories are created 

• New, aggressive fugitive slave law created

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 

• Accused could be seized without warrant 

• Burden of proof placed on alleged runaways 

• Slave catchers/marshalls could deputize bystanders ($1000 fine) 

• New federal commissioner in every county 

• Jury trials & habeas corpus prohibited 

• Alleged fugitive can't testify on their behalf 

• No statute of limitations 

• In the first months of operation, 84 seized african americans ruled

Fredrick Douglass

Wanted the kidnappers to be gone to end the fugitive slave law

John Brown and the United States League of Gileadites

• Organization founded by Brown, but compromised by most african americans

• Members committed to obstructing the fugitive slave act with force

Christiana Riot Sept 1851

• Lancaster Pa

• Maryland posse and us marshals raid farm owned by free black man William Porter

• Search for 4 runaways

• But met by armed black and white abolitionists

• Maryland planter edward gorsuch confronts samuel thompson, who then clubs him and shot him multiple times

• Marshalls return with 3 detachments of us marines

• 38 abolitionists arrested and charged with treason

• Cong. Thaddeus Stevens serves as defense lawyer for first tried Quaker William Hanway

• Jury acquits after 15 minutes deliberation, prosecutors drop charges against the rest

• Jury nullification of unpopular fugitive slave law

Stephen A Douglass

• Popular sovereignty

• Proposes to build a railroad from michigan to california

• Repeal the missouri compromise line and let the settlers vote if they want slavery

Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska act

• The people with extreme beliefs on both sides 

• John brown hears about this and wants to go

John Brown

• He and his five son head to kansas

• Establish settlement called browns station near Osawakon, KS

• Bring revolvers, rifles, broadswords and ammunition

Bleeding Kansas

The anti-slavery people referred to themselves JayHawkers

Kansas Anti Slavery Militia

Called the Liberty Guards

Border Ruffians 

• March 1855

• Can elect territorial government with population 5000

• Apply statehood at 60000

• Population in 1855 8500

• 3000 pro slavery men from missouri rode into kansas

• And stuffed the ballot boxes on voting day to go pro-slavery

• “Elected territorial legislature has 36 pro-slavery delegates nad 3 free soil delegates

Lecompton Constitution

• Speaking against slavery is a criminal defense

• Five years of hard labor for publishing or possessing

Competing legislature in kansas

• One: pro-slavery

• Two: free soil 

• The sacking of Lawrence: proslavery men burn and loot homes and businesses, Assault residents, carry southern rights flag

Sen. Charles Sumner: gives famous speech “ The Crime against Kansas”

• names fellow senators “ lay down with the whore of slavery”

• “my soul is wrung with outrage and i shall pour it out”

The caning of Sumner:  Preston Brooks assaults him with a cane (metal top)

Brooks bragged that he hit him 35 times and he bellowed like a cow

Whig party collapses

The republican party was born out of this collapse

John Brown and Pottawatomie Creek

• John Brown and his sons kill 5 proslavery settlers with broadswords

• May 24 1856

• “Fighting satan's legion”

300 missourians attack Osawatomie

• Most free soilers flee

• But brown stands and fights with 38 men

• Kill 30 missourians, losses one of his sons

Dred Scott Decision 1857

• Could not sue because he was not consider a citizen, not included in the constitution

• Tauney Court

• Violates the 5th amendment

• Claims slaves are property, congress cannot ban slavery from territories

Brown surprisingly brazen despite reward for his arrest

• March 1858

• Speak in cleveland and advertises  for sale mules and horses he and his men stole from pro slavery settlers

Browns Missouri Raid

• Raids 2 missouri slaveholding farms

• Liberates 12 slaves

• One slaveholder killed

• 82 day flight north to canada

• Reward for his capture offered by missouri’s governor and president James Buchanan

• Brown is now 59 years old and grow a long biblical beard, begins plotting for harpers ferry, over 100,000 guns

Browns plan

• Inspired by “maroon colonies” in mountains and swamps of US, jamaica, Haiti

• And by guerilla wars fought to native americans in everglades and elsewhere

The Secret Six

Raise money to fund John Brown's plan

Brown’s “provisional constitution”

Also carrying elaborate maps of seven southern states with crosses drawn on countries where slaves overwhelmingly outnumber whites

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Has dinner with brown and hears about his plan

Brown meets with Fredrick Douglass

• Brown worried slaves would be sus of white men asking them to rise

• Wanted Douglass to get the slaves rallied

• Douglass “ you walking into a perfect steel trap and you will never come out alive”

• Also tried to recruit Harriet Tubman

Brown back up plan

Exploit the sectional controversy and start a war

Dangerfield Newby 

• Once enslaved in VA, gained freedom and moves to Ohio 

• Wife Harriet was still enslaved in VA 

• Saves $ to buy her freedom, her master says no and raises her price

• Wife writes that she is about to be sold to a Jousiana slave broker 

• Brown promises Newby that if he joins them he will free his wife

Colonel Lewis Washington 

Browns men break into his house, take him and 2 of his neighbors hostage, frees three of his slaves and brings them along to fight

VA Governor Henry Wise 

• Insists on state court trial, feared federal courts might not execute Brown 

• Charges against Brown were treason against the state of Virginia, premeditated first degree murder and conspiring to incite a slave insurrection

Article 4, Section 2

• guarantees that citizens of each state have the same rights as citizens of other states

• covers the extradition of fugitives from justice and the return of enslaved people

Virginia’s Treason Statute

• Levying war against the state 

• Giving aid and comfort to the state's enemies 

• Establishing a separate government without legislative authority 

• Holding or executing a government in a usurped government 

• Resisting the execution of the laws under color of the government's authority

Judge Richard Parker

judge for John Browns trial; sentenced him to death

Samuel Chilton

John Browns defense attorney for the last 2 days of his trial due to the trial starting before Browns preferred counsel arrived

Barclay Cappoc

appart of Browns raid on Harpers Ferry; fled to Iowa and the governor refused to extradite him to Virginia to stand trial

Election of 1860

The national outcome of the 1860 election gave Lincoln a victory in both the popular vote and the electoral vote, with just under 40 percent of the popular vote, which totaled 1,866,452, and 180 electoral votes.

South Carolina Ordinance of Secession

marked the conclusion of a movement to declare Southern independence from a national government increasingly controlled by Northerners. It was the beginning of a series of events that would lead to a bloody Civil War.