markus meecham
Banned
Constantinople×Palaiologoi OTP
Damn, I guess this now is a LincolnxRadicals Fanfiction. (Rated M. South abused).
Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
- Start date
Chapter 8: His soul is marching on
Chapter 8: His soul is marching on
Reactions to John Brown’s last raid on Harpers Ferry differed on the North and the South. In both sections the people went through two different faces: terror and then indignation and fury in the South; "baffled reproach" and then the elevation of Brown to martyrdom in the North.
Indeed, the raid struck a raw nerve in the South. For decades, Southerners had argued that Black slaves were happy in bondage, for it provided security and cradle-to-grave welfare. If slaves fled, or revolted, it was because Yankee fanatics like Brown had come South to implant dangerous notions and ideas in their heads. But at the same time, Southerners lived in constant fear of slave revolts. Images of bloody revolution and nightmares of the fate of Haiti’s white elite plagued them. This was an evident paradox – if slaves were so happy, then why would they revolt? One can turn to the influential Uncle Tom’s Cabin and its Southern response to see how slaveholders attempted to justify and defend this paradox. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was met with raw fury and harsh rebukes in the form of Southern novels such as Uncle Robin in his cabin in Virginia and Tom without one in Boston. Their authors paraded the thesis of happiness in bondage.
But that thesis seemed shattered in the wake of Brown’s actions. Slaves had joined Brown. They had been timid, quick to desert and their numbers were small, but many slaves did escape their plantations to join that Yankee agitator. This struck fear and paranoia throughout the entire South. Brown had been a madman, a low Yankee ruffian who acted with barely any support or men (notwithstanding the loud cries of Northern conspiracies). But what if the Black Republicans lend more support next time? Those brigands were now in Control of the House, and their Senate presence was almost as big as the Democrat’s. The fact that the balance was held by National Union men was cause of more distrust – after all, their leader Douglas was a traitor, painted as black as the blackest of Republicans. The 1858 midterms had seen the complete collapse of the Northern Democratic Party and the failure of the National Union to take its place. A Solid North may well carry a Black Republican into the White House come 1860.
Fear and anger only increased in the face of the almost universal canonization of Brown by the North. Even those abolitionists who had converted to the gospel of emancipation by violent overthrow characterized his raid as a terrible, stupid mistake. The Worcester Spy, an anti-slavery paper, called it "one of the rashest and maddest enterprises ever." William Lloyd Garrison said that "though disinterested and well-intended", the raid had been “misguided, wild, and apparently insane." A Northern diarist who had once advocated for "firm, decisive action" in Kansas was now condemning "the murderer and traitor who defiles our cause with his actions."
But soon enough John Brown became a martyr for freedom. Brown himself recognized that he could transcend his existence as a treasonous rebel and become a symbol for a great cause. "I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose", he said. Thus, Brown started to cultivate an image as a martyr, as the hero of a noble but doomed ideal. He was not afraid of lying or twisting information to achieve this goal. For example, he insisted that he was arming slaves in self-defense, and that he didn’t plan to revolt. His dramatic persecution through the Appalachians was actually an attempt to led the Black slaves who were with him to freedom. Then he planned to turn himself in. The loss of civilian lives had been a grave mistake, for he would never harm innocents.
John Brown's last moments.
All these statements were disingenuous, and they did nothing to placate Southern anger. Instead, they increased it for Northern men seemed to believe them blindly, even in the face of evidence such as Brown’s route and maps, or his previous massacres. Brown’s last speech before he was sentenced to hang was far more eloquent, its words resounding throughout history:
I deny everything but what I have all along admitted: of a design on my part to free slaves... Had I interfered in the manner which I admit... in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great... every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This Court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction... Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done
Theodore Parker felt such a great emotional connection with Brown and his ideals that he declared the Emancipationist to be “not only a martyr, but a saint”, while Ralph Waldo Emmerson said that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross”. Northern newspapers lionized him, saying that the blood Brown had shed and would shed in the future would lay the basis "upon which a better nation will be built." Indeed, Brown seemed to cultivate an image of a Christ-like figure, who sacrificed himself for the salvation of others. Like a Yankee poet would say years into the future, “as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
Here’s historian James M. McPherson’s relate of the execution, and the astounding events that took place in that day.
Church bells tolled; minute guns fired solemn salutes; ministers preached sermons of commemoration; thousands bowed in silent reverence for the martyr to liberty. "I have seen nothing like it," wrote Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard. More than a thousand miles away in Lawrence, Kansas, the editor of the Republican wrote that "the death of no man in America has ever produced so profound a sensation. A feeling of deep and sorrowful indignation seems to possess the masses." A clergyman in Roxbury, Massachusetts, declared that Brown had made the word Treason "holy in the American language"; young William Dean Howells said that "Brown has become an idea, a thousand times purer and better and loftier than the Republican idea"; Henry David Thoreau pronounced Brown "a crucified hero".
The main reason behind Northern admiration for Brown was the fact that Brown had dared to strike the Slave Power at its very heartland. For years, even decades, the Slavocracy had held complete control of the government. In the view of many disillusioned Northerners, the grip of the Slave-owners was unbreakable – the president was a puppet, the Supreme Court was under their control, and Congress was powerless. This enraged many and led to the massive Republican victory in 1858. But that wasn’t enough. Brown had done more, Brown had actually stood up to the South and made it tremble. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow considered Brown’s hanging the start of a Second American Revolution, while William Lloyd Garrison wished "‘success to every slave insurrection at the South and in every slave country."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The South was outraged. “The North has sanctioned murder, treason, and rebellion”, cried DeBow’s review. “The South can no longer afford to co-exist with a section that applauds such horrible acts”, said a Baltimore newspaper. From Richmond it was reported that the raid "wrought almost a complete revolution in the sentiments... of the oldest and steadiest conservatives… Thousands of men… who, a month ago, scoffed at the idea of a dissolution of the Union… now hold the opinion that its days are numbered”. An old and staunch unionist from Missouri wrote that the “Northern crowning of Brown as a martyr and Christian hero” had shaken his beliefs to their core. Another Unionist, this time from North Carolina, wrote that “the endorsement of the Harper's Ferry outrage… has shaken my fidelity and… I am willing to take the chances of every possible evil that may arise from disunion, sooner than submit any longer to Northern insolence.” They were joined by another Unionist, this time a Virginian who believed that John Brown's raid had done more “to bring about the catastrophe of disunion, than all the other events of our past history put together.”
Northern conservatives tried to reassure the South, but the National Union still carried the baggage of Lecompton. As a result, their apologies to their compatriots and their condemnation of Brown was seen as being not enough at best or straight falsehood at worst. The conservative Northern reaction ended up being feeble, and it barely made a ripple. Never mind their attempts to shift the blame to Seward and other Republicans, the South wouldn’t listen.
Republican leaders also tried to minimize the damage by disavowing Brown and approving of his execution. But even moderates such as Senator Lincoln still stressed that Brown’s actions were different due to his motives. Lincoln, for example, said that Brown "agreed with us in thinking slavery is wrong”, and one of the reasons he had for condemning the raid was that it was a useless attempt against a “great evil”. He praised Brown’s courage and unselfishness, and also warned secessionists that Brown had been executed for treason against the nation. If the secessionists rebelled, they would have to deal with them like “they dealt with Brown.” Likewise, Governor Samuel Kirkwood of Iowa compared Brown’s raid with the filibuster invasions of Central America and Cuba, and said that he was relieved of some guilt because he had struck a blow for freedom, not for slavery. Seward and Chase both condemned Brown's raid as "criminal" and "inhumane", yet they reaffirmed their commitment to ultimate abolition.
This simply wasn’t enough for the South. "We regard every man, " declared an Atlanta newspaper, "who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing" as "an enemy to the institutions of the South." Many newspapers brushed off Northern conservative support, considering it meaningless and instead condemning the dominance of the Republican Party in the North. Southern Senators vowed to never allow the Black Republicans to take control of the government. Robert Toombs issued a call for action: “The enemy is at your door, wait not to meet him at your hearthstone, meet him at the doorsill, and drive him from the temple of liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin." Jefferson Davis warned of "a conspiracy against a portion of the United States, a rebellion against the constitutional government of the nation" that was being carried off by the Republicans. Yancey in Alabama talked of a “bloody and vengeful revolution” that would destroy the South if she didn’t defend herself. "It will the wildest and most radical event ever seen since Paris in 1789", he concluded.
Robert Toombs
Fear and hostility were palpable in the air. The situation, James McPherson says, was similar to the Great Fear that gripped the French countryside before the Revolution – many yeoman farmers believed that the Black Republican brigades were coming. States raised militia companies, and thousands of young men rushed to join them. Yankees in the South were lynched. The lucky ones were tarred and feathered and then exiled. Committees of Public Safety were formed and held kangaroo trials against people even suspected of being Yankees. Mobs in Kentucky drove away the members of an anti-slavery Church. In Missouri, abolitionist German protestants were beaten and murdered. The streets of Baltimore grew more and more dangerous with each passing day due to the increase in violence.
The elections of 1860 approached, and John Brown’s figure still loomed over the South. Southerners were submerged in fear, uncertainty and panic as the Democratic National Convention opened in Charleston. There Douglas and his men were ready to make their final attempt to heal the branch and prevent the election of a Republican. If they failed, the choices for the South were clear: submission or secession.
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Yeah... Sorry, it's just that a new college semester has started and I've been focusing on that instead. I'll try to get an update out every week.
Admiral Halsey
Banned
I mean Kentucky is almost a certainty at this point and depending on how things go Maryland might as well. The bonus for the north is that they won't be fighting with "one hand tied behind their back" so once the ball does get rolling for them well...
Each Dixie boy will learn to mind his Uncle Sam!
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Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
Certainly looks Like Maryland will give it a try, might delay the Northern response a few months to secure D.C.
I think we'll see Maryland and Kentucky do so, though I think Delaware and Missouri will stay loyal
Today, John Brown's raid. Tomorrow, SHERMAN'S MARCH!
I wonder, if something like Sherman's March to the Sea happens, perhaps in the reconstruction the state it happened in can be renamed after either Lincoln or the general responsible?
But man, things are BLOODY. With the south actively lynching everything they can though ALREADY. they won't be getting much sympathy.
I'm looking forwards to the war breaking out.
I wonder, if something like Sherman's March to the Sea happens, perhaps in the reconstruction the state it happened in can be renamed after either Lincoln or the general responsible?
But man, things are BLOODY. With the south actively lynching everything they can though ALREADY. they won't be getting much sympathy.
I'm looking forwards to the war breaking out.
Admiral Halsey
Banned
Something that could possibly happen is the Army not getting demobilized until Reconstruction is over. Obviously the draft would end though.
SuperZtar64
Banned
Hey Vsauce! Lincoln here.
Did the Southern states really deserve to be readmitted to the Union?
Did the Southern states really deserve to be readmitted to the Union?
Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
They didn't but the goal had been to heal the nation, TTL however I think there will be very little moderate sympathies in the North and I can see a lot of West Virginias in the Appalachians and the African-American majority areas of the deep south. Possibly even have the Carolina's merged as a punishment to SC since they are the most ardent supporters of the Southern Cause. If Maryland rebels we might also see Delaware and D.C. expanded.
Delaware given the whole of the east shore, plus East Tennessee created as well as West Virginia. They may as well cleave off west Texas and settle it with abolitionist northerners
East Tennessee and West North Carolina could be made into a new state.
I think Kentucky would stay with the Union. If anything, it may be alienate from the rest of the South. It is economically tied to the Union and OTL it had little enthusiasm for 'King Cotton' nationalism. (But it still be even profoundly divided that I will say.) Missouri and Maryland seem likely to go as you said.
In either case....
