1853
A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN
by Henry David Thoreau
I TRUST that you will pardon me for being here. I do not wish to
force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know
of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and
the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally,
respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be
just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of,
him and his companions, and that is what I now propose to do.
First, as to his history. I will endeavor to omit, as much as
possible, what you have already read. I need not describe his person
to you, for probably most of you have seen and will not soon forget
him. I am told that his grandfather, John Brown, was an officer in the
Revolution; that he himself was born in Connecticut about the
beginning of this century, but early went with his father to Ohio. I
heard him say that his father was a contractor who furnished beef to
the army there, in the War of 1812; that he accompanied him to the
camp, and assisted him in that employment, seeing a good deal of
military life- more, perhaps, than if he had been a soldier; for he
was often present at the councils of the officers. Especially, he
learned by experience how armies are supplied and maintained in the
field- a work which, he observed, requires at least as much experience
and skill as to lead them in battle. He said that few persons had
any conception of the cost, even the pecuniary cost, of firing a
single bullet in war. He saw enough, at any rate, to disgust him
with a military life; indeed, to excite in him a great abhorrence of
it; so much so, that though he was tempted by the offer of some
petty office in the army, when he was about eighteen, he not only
declined that, but he also refused to train when warned, and was fined
for it. He then resolved that he would never have anything to do
with any war, unless it were a war for liberty.
When the troubles in Kansas began, he sent several of his sons
thither to strengthen the party of the Free State men, fitting them
out with such weapons as he had; telling them that if the troubles
should increase, and there should be need of him, he would follow,
to assist them with his hand and counsel. This, as you all know, he
soon after did; and it was through his agency, far more than any
other's, that Kansas was made free.
For a part of his life he was a surveyor, and at one time he was
engaged in wool-growing, and he went to Europe as an agent about
that business. There, as everywhere, he had his eyes about him, and
made many original observations. He said, for instance, that he saw
why the soil of England was so rich, and that of Germany (I think it
was) so poor, and he thought of writing to some of the crowned heads
about it. It was because in England the peasantry live on the soil
which they cultivate, but in Germany they are gathered into villages
at night. It is a pity that he did not make a book of his
observations.
I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in his respect for the
Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union. Slavery
he deemed to be wholly opposed to these, and he was its determined
foe.
He was by descent and birth a New England farmer, a man of great
common sense, deliberate and practical as that class is, and tenfold
more so. He was like the best of those who stood at Concord Bridge
once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker Hill, only he was firmer
and higher-principled than any that I have chanced to hear of as
there. It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. Ethan Allen
and Stark, with whom he may in some respects be compared, were rangers
in a lower and less important field. They could bravely face their
country's foes, but he had the courage to face his country herself
when she was in the wrong. A Western writer says, to account for his
escape from so many perils, that he was concealed under a "rural
exterior"; as if, in that prairie land, a hero should, by good rights,
wear a citizen's dress only.
He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater
as she is. He was not fed on the pap that is there furnished. As he
phrased it, "I know no more of grammar than one of your calves." But
he went to the great university of the West, where he sedulously
pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had early betrayed a
fondness, and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the
public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. Such were
his humanities, and not any study of grammar. He would have left a
Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up a falling man.
He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for
the most part, see nothing at all- the Puritans. It would be in vain
to kill him. He died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared
here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are said to have
come over and settled in New England. They were a class that did
something else than celebrate their forefathers' day, and eat
parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither
Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward,
prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not
making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates.
"In his camp," as one has recently written, and as I have myself
heard him state, "he permitted no profanity; no man of loose morals
was suffered to remain there, unless, indeed, as a prisoner of war. would rather,said he, 'have the small-pox, yellow fever, and
cholera, all together in my camp, than a man without principle....
It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that
bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to
oppose these Southerners. Give me men of good principlesGod-fearing men- men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of
them I will oppose any hundred such men as these Buford ruffians.He
said that if one offered himself to be a soldier under him, who was
forward to tell what he could or would do if he could only get sight
of the enemy, he had but little confidence in him.
He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits whom
he would accept, and only about a dozen, among them his sons, in
whom he had perfect faith. When he was here, some years ago, he showed
to a few a little manuscript book- his "orderly book" I think he
called it- containing the names of his company in Kansas, and the
rules by which they bound themselves; and he stated that several of
them had already sealed the contract with their blood. When some one
remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a
perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to
add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could
fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the
United States Army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp
morning and evening, nevertheless.
He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about
his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat
sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting
himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.
A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a
transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles- that was
what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse,
but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that he did not
overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remember, particularly,
how, in his speech here, he referred to what his family had suffered
in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to his pent-up fire.
It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue. Also referring to
the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said, rapidly paring away his
speech, like an experienced soldier, keeping a reserve of force and
meaning, "They had a perfect right to be hung." ...
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