JOHN BROWN NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
1.What is the name of the newspaper?
2.What is the date?
3.What is the title of the article?
4.Which political party is represented?
5.How objective is the article? In other words, how much of the information given is factual, as opposed to opinionated?
6.If blame is assessed for the Harpers Ferry incident, upon whom or what is it placed? Why do you suppose this is? (Consider geographical area, political party, etc.)
7.Does the article indicate an eagerness to enter into war to dissolve
the Union?
The Trouble at Harpers Ferry
Albany, New York, Evening Journal
[Republican]
(19 October 1859)
At last we have more definite information as to the origin of the outbreak at Harpers Ferry. It seems that 15 or 20 misguided and desperate men engaged in a plot to bring about a revolt of the Slaves. Nor did they stop at the crime of seeking to plunge a peaceful community into the horrors of a servile insurrection. Seizing Government arms and turning them against Government officers, they intended, if they did not accomplish, Treason of the gravest sort. But as might be expected, the attempt failed to gain supporters; the entire community was thrown into a panic, and an overwhelming force of Troops, of the State and the United States, a hundred to one, crushed the riot, and either shot down the rioters or took them prisoners.
Such is the version which comes over the telegraphic wires. While panic has evidently exaggerated the affair in many details, yet if the conspirators were guilty of but half of what is attributed to them, the authorities did no more than their duty in dealing with them as sternly and summarily as they have done.
The leader of the conspiracy is stated to be Captain BROWN, of Kansas notoriety. This fact affords an explanation of some points in it otherwise inexplicable. BROWN was one of the victims of the Border Ruffian Invasion from Missouri. He was robbed of his property, maltreated, his house was burned, and three of his sons were murdered in cold blood. It is not strange that these wrongs kindled in him a thirst for revenge amounting to monomania. Brooding over them, he has conceived the wildest plans for repaying them, not only upon the guilty authors of his own misery, but upon all Slaveholders. The whole transaction at Harpers Ferry evinces this. None but a madman could seriously expect that twenty men could make head against the whole Union, and none but those whose sense of justice was blunted by a deep passion could fail to see that they were committing a crime against innocent men, women and children, which would inevitably meet, and justly deserve, universal condemnation.
THE HARPERS FERRY RIOT
Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville Whig
[Whig]
(24 October 1859)
We are at length able to lay before our readers a connected and apparently truthful narrative of the late revolutionary movement in and around Harpers Ferry. It can no longer be doubted that the object of the conspirators was the liberation of the slaves in Virginia and Maryland. It is gratifying to record that the energy of President Buchanan and Governor Wise, the activity of the soldiery and the zeal of the citizens have crushed out the conspiracy before it could attain the huge dimensions of a revolution. But though the movement resulted so disastrously to the insurgents and met with so little sympathy from the negro population, for whose benefit it was designed, it will nevertheless prove a valuable lesson to the people of the South, if they give it that calm reflection and careful consideration that it deserves.
This attempt to excite an insurrection among the slaves is one of the natural results of the agitation of the slavery question, originated and so persistently kept up by designing politicians, both of the North and the South, for partisan purposes. It can be traced to no other cause, and unless the people of both sections rise in the majesty of their strength and put an end at once to this mischievous agitation, the page that records the bloody events of the last two days will be but a preface to the history of a civil war in which the same scenes will be reenacted on a larger scale and end in the dissolution of our glorious Union.
In the language of the New York Herald, "we have before us some of the ripening fruit of that mischievous reopening of the slavery agitation in 1854, commenced by Douglas and Pierce as Presidential candidates for the decisive vote of the South in the Cincinnati Convention. There would have been no invitation to them to fight out the slavery issue, face to face, on the soil of Kansas. And this man Brown was only a discharged guerilla free State soldier from the border ruffian scenes of that bloody Territory. Flushed with the success of the war for freedom there, and rendered daring, reckless, and an abolition monomaniac, by the scenes of violence and blood through which he had passed, he believed the time at hand for carrying the war for freedom into the hearts of the Southern States."
The folly of the Southern people in the incessant demand for more slavery legislation is exhibited in a strong light by this view of the subject, and should convince them of the impolicy of further agitation. By ceasing the agitation in the South, an end will be put to the discussion of this subject in the North. As long as we agitate, the North will do the same, and though only seventeen men of the entire North were engaged in the conspiracy, there is no telling how many may engage in the next plot unless the subject of slavery ceases to be a matter of discussion among demagogues. The people have the means in their hands of putting an end to this evil by resolutely refusing to elevate men to political office who seek to ride into power by incendiary appeals to sectional prejudices.
IMPORTANT NEWS. INSURRECTION IN VIRGINIA.
Yorkville, South Carolina, Enquirer
[Democratic]
(20 October, 1859)
Baltimore, October 17.
Rumors reached this city, this morning, of a serious insurrection at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The trains of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad have been stopped, the telegraph wires out, and the town, with all the public works, are in possession of the insurgents. At first it was thought that the report was an exaggeration of an affray among the Government employees at the armory. Later dispatches from Monocacy, the nearest station to Harpers Ferry, confirm the first statement as to trains being stopped, and adds that several railroad employees have been killed. The negroes have been seized on the plantations upon the Maryland side of the river, and carried over and made to join the insurgents.
All statements concur that the town is in the complete possession of the insurgents, together with the armory, the arsenal, the pay office and the bridge. The insurgents are composed of whites and blacks, supposed to be led by Abolitionists. Some suppose that plunder of the arms and ammunition and Government money is their object.
Over one hundred United States marines from the Washington Barracks, with two 12 pounders, went up this afternoon and will reach there about 8 o'clock. Their orders are to clear the bridge at all hazards. Three companies of artillery from Old Point are also on their way thither. Six or seven companies of volunteers from Baltimore and Frederick have been accepted by the President and go up on extra trains.
The insurgents are said to number 600 to 800, under the leadership of a man named Anderson, recently arrived at the Ferry. A report from a merchant at Harpers Ferry states that most of the citizens have been imprisoned and many killed. All the avenues to the town are barricaded and guarded.
The general belief here is that it is a move of the Abolitionists. Secretary Floyd, some weeks ago, received an anonymous letter, informing him that there would be a rising, and an attempt made to capture the armory, but it was too indefinite and improbable to be believed.
These reports may be greatly exaggerated, but there is, undoubtedly, a serious disturbance going on.
There is a suspicion here that the disturbance is caused by the failure of the contractors on the Government dam to pay employees, who number several hundred, and have pressed the negroes into their service.
Two companies from Richmond, Virginia have been ordered into service and will probably leave on a special train tonight.
Governor Wise in en route for Washington.
THE HARPERS FERRY INVASION AS PARTY CAPITAL.
Richmond, Virginia, Enquirer
[Democratic]
(25 October 1859)
The tone of the conservative press in the North evinces a determination to make the moral of the Harpers Ferry invasion an effective weapon to rally all men not fanatics against that party whose leaders have been implicated directly with this midnight murder of Virginia citizens and the destruction of Government property. This is certainly legitimate - and we do most sincerely hope that the horror with which the whole country is justly filled, may be the means of opening the eyes of all men to the certain result of the triumph of an "irrepressible conflict" leader, or of any man, by an alliance with the Black Republican Ossawatomites of the North. This great wrong and outrage has been perpetrated by men from the North. It is but just and proper that a disclaimer should be made by the Northern press; but the voice of the press is not enough, the voice of the people of the North, through the polls, is necessary to restore confidence and to dispel the belief that the Northern people have aided and abetted this treasonable invasion of a Southern State.
If the success of a party is of more importance than the restoration of good feeling and attachment to the Union, let that fact go forth from the polls of New York at her approaching election. Upon her soil, the treason, if not planned, was perfected; the money of her citizens gave vitality to the plot; the voice of her people should speak words of encouragement to the outraged sovereignty of a sister State. The vile clamor of party, the struggle of Republicanism for power, has given an impetus to the abolition zeal of old Brown and his comrades that impelled them forward in their mad career of treason and bloodshed. The leader of the Republican forces gave utterance to the treasonable declaration of an "irrepressible conflict," and if the people of New York really repudiate the dogma that has vitalized pillage, robbery and murder, and raised up a body of men to initiate the "irrepressible conflict," let them send from the polls greetings of overthrow that shall, if possible, restore confidence and cement the broken fragments of attachment for the Union. The triumph of the Black Republicans in the State of New York will be encouragement to future Ossawatomites, to again attempt to plunder and invasion of Virginia; the defeat of this "irrepressible conflict" party will speak thunder tones of encouragement and hope to the people of the Southern States; such a defeat will tend to allay that excitement which now slumbers under inexpressible indignation, and which a spark may light into a conflagration destructive to the Union.
The voice of the Southern people has not been heard, and may never be heard. The shallow waters murmer, but the deep are dumb; and such is the state of public feeling at this moment from the Potomac to the Gulf. Let not the people of the North mistake this silence for indifference. There exists a horror and indignation which neither press nor public meetings can express, a feeling that has weakened the foundations of the Union, and which at any moment may raise the superstructure. Will not the people of the North, from the polls, speak some word of encouragement and, if possible, reinstate the Union sentiments disturbed by their own people?
The Harpers Ferry invasion has advanced the cause of Disunion more than any other event that has happened since the formation of the Government; it has rallied to the standard men who formerly looked upon it with horror; it has revived with tenfold strength desire for a Southern Confederacy. The heretofore most determined friends of the Union may now be heard saying, "if under the form of a Confederacy, our peace is disturbed, our State invaded, its peaceful citizens cruelly murdered, and all the horrors of servile war forced upon us by those who should be our warmest friends; if the form of a Confederacy is observed, but its spirit violated, and the people of the North sustain the outrage, then let disunion come."
WHERE THE RESPONSIBILITY BELONGS.
Chicago, Illinois, Press and Tribune
[Republican]
(20 October 1859)
The attempt of the Chicago Times to place the responsibility of the Harpers Ferry affair upon the Republican party is a resort to the rogue's trick of crying "stop thief, stop thief," for the purpose of diverting attention from the really guilty party. Holding to the doctrines of the Revolutionary fathers and the earlier statesmen of this country on the subject of slavery - that it is a moral, social and political evil; that it is a creature of local law, to be controlled exclusively by the States in which it exists, and that its area ought not to be extended, for its accompanying evils be fastened upon our new frontier communities - the Republican party depreciates, no less than these worthies would have done, everything looking towards violent measures for the enfranchisement of the slaves of the South. The opposition to slavery is based upon moral and economic considerations, and the only action it proposes or that it would countenance, with respect to the institution, is to confine it to its present limits, leaving the problem of "what will they do with it?" to the solution of the people of the slaveholding states.
The Democratic party, however, proposes to increase the chances for insurrection, bloodshed and all the horrors of servile war, by extending the area of slavery indefinitely and by reopening the African slave trade. It would have the bloody scenes of Harpers Ferry reenacted in new States to be carved out of our territories, and it would transmit to generations yet unborn the unspeakable dread arising from constant exposure to midnight carnage and the accompanying nameless horrors of insurrection.
As respects the attempt of an insane old man and his handful of confederates to excite a negro insurrection in Virginia and Maryland, it is easy to determine where the responsibility really belongs. That act is but a part of the legitimate fruit of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In another part of this paper, in a sketch of the life of the leader of the attempted insurrection, will be found a statement of some of the wrongs heaped upon old Brown by the minions of that power at whose command and for whose benefit the compromise was broken down - wrongs which entered his soul and made him what he is - a monomaniac who believes himself to be a God-appointed agent to set the enslaved free. Upon the heads of those who repealed that compromise and who sanctioned the lawless violence and bloodshed which grew out of it on the plains of Kansas, rests the blood of those who fell at Harpers Ferry. Through a chain of events, the one inseparably connected with the other, the last-named tragedy goes back to the first-named violation of plighted faith as to its cause, including among its intermediate steps a series of outrages and wrongs, which taken together, make up the blackest page of our National history. No one has a clearer appreciation of this fact than the Chicago Times;no one understands more clearly that the popular verdict will accord with the historical statement. Hence, in its zeal to save itself, its master, and its party from the consequences of their own acts, it falsely lays the blame upon those whose policy it is to diminish the chances of the recurrence of such tragedies, who deplore the crime whenever it is committed as a sore calamity, and who have no sympathy for the criminal by whom it is instigated. The public intelligence will not be imposed upon by the effort of the Times to shirk a responsibility which belongs to itself and its political associates.
THE HARPERS FERRY AFFAIR.
Concord, New Hampshire, New Hampshire Patriot
[Democratic]
(26 October 1859)
The public mind throughout the country, this past week, has been much agitated by the deplorable events at Harpers Ferry, Va., an account of which we give in another part of this paper. The circumstances were of a nature to strongly attract public attention. A quiet community, in the night time, was startled by an insurrection in its very midst. The suddenness of the alarm, with the uncertainty of the nature and extent of the danger, at first paralyzed the people for any resistance, and the insurgents, being fully armed, gained possession of the place. But after a bloody conflict, resulting in the loss of twenty-one lives in all, the insurrection was quelled and order returned.