John Brown, The villain

“Old John Brown...agree with us thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right ” -Abraham Lincoln. These are the words of our 16th president, correcting and confirming to our nation, that violence is not the way to go with slavery. John Brown is a villain because of committing treason at Harper’s Ferry and acting in the violence of Bleeding Kansas.

John Brown was a villain because he committed treason at Harper’s Ferry. “To me, such a measure would be fatal to running off slaves (as was the original plan), and fatal to all engaged in doing so. It would be an attack upon the federal government and would array the whole country against us….He did not at all object to rousing the nation; it seemed to him that something startling was just what the nation needed. ” (Douglass pp. 323 25.) Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, in this quote he is saying that John Brown’s plan was fatal and was going to fail. But John Brown still did it. That’s no hero.


For participating in the Pottawatomie creek massacre and killing innocent people, he is a villain. “ On Pottawatomie Creek, on the night of May 24, 1856, Brown and his sons murdered five men who supported slavery, although none actually owned slaves.”
- (www.wvculture.org). According to this quote, Brown is now influencing other people to act against slavery with violence. This is causing more bloodshed than progress. Proving Abraham Lincoln more, John Brown is doing more good than bad.

Now looking at the other side of the story, John Brown’s raid could have ignited the flame that is the Civil War. And some find Brown’s Last Speech very inspiring. Even though he killed people, it was because they did not believe that slavery was horrible. Also, he never killed woman and children. Now this is all true, but faulty values are displayed. “Even though he killed people, it was because they did not believe that slavery was horrible.” In America, we have freedom of Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press. With this right people can believe in whatever they choose, and not get prosecuted.


To conclude this thought, John Brown has committed treason, influenced others to act in violence, killed 5 people +, and in the process killed a free black man. This is not only is this the characteristics of a villain but a terrorist. Ignoring the first amendment, that going against the U.S. Constitution, for that reason, he should have been prosecuted immediately. Even the 16th president recognized him as committing treason, bloodshed, and violence. To America, not the North, not the South, not to the blacks, not to the whites was John Brown ever a hero, nor should he be recognized as one, to American and America, John Brown was a villain.