John Brown The Terrorist

 by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Recently on my other blog spot I did an article in which I mentioned the name of one of the first terrorists in America, John Brown of Kansas and Harpers Ferry, Virginia "fame." I was taken to task for daring to call "Preacher Brown" a terrorist, and this by a "useful idiot" that seemed to think Brown was some sort of hero because he butchered people that were either slave owners or those he thought might be slaveowners.

Now I never heard anywhere that Brown was ever a preacher, ordained or otherwise. Two of those that supported Brown's terrorist activities were preachers--Unitarian preachers--which is a whole different animal than a Christian preacher.

The best book I ever read about Brown's terrorism was written by historian Otto Scott several years ago now and was called The Secret Six: The Fool As Martyr. and was published by the Foundation for American Education. I don't know if these folks are even still in business or not but you might check out Amazon to see if you can still find the book. Scott gave much valuable information about Brown and those that financially supported his terrorism--a group called The Secret Six. I did articles on each one of the six for my old hard copy newsletter The Copperhead Chronicle, which I am no longer able to publish.

Brown, at least in  his Kansas depredations, had the support of two socialist Forty-eighters, a fact that Donnie Kennedy and I noted in our book Lincoln's Marxists. 

With socialist and Unitarian support it would seem that John Brown was a tool of the left in his day. It would also seem that he still is. I recently read an article by Ken Braun on https://capitalresearch.org which stated: "John Brown! Live like him' was the rallying cry of John 'J.J. Jacobs, author of the Weatherman Manifesto, a 1969 political treatise that argued for the formation of a revolutionary communist terror sect  soon to be known to history as the Weather Underground. John Brown was a hero for Jacobs and other founders of the Weathermen. In 1975, long after Jacobs had left the terrorist bombing organization, the Weather Underground published Osawatomie, a radical left magazine named for one of the military engagements in which Brown led his rebel force of radical abolitionists. So much for the good intentions of "Preacher Brown"!

James Bovard on https://jimbovard.com had an interesting article on Brown up on his site for December 2, 2009.

He said: "He (Brown) was held in high esteem by many great men of his day. Ralph Waldo Emerson compared him to Jesus, declaring that Brown would 'make the gallows as glorious as the cross.' Henry David Thoreau placed Brown above the freedom fighters of the American Revolution. the fact that Emerson and Thoreau turned  into cheerleaders for John Brown  was among the worst failings for each of them. Both Emerson and Thoreau started out denouncing politics as a snare and a fraud. And both of them fell for Brown and his vision of progress via slaughtering innocent people."

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a Unitarian preacher, so his support for Brown's terrorism is understandable and Thoreau was also a Unitarian. Unitarians have supported leftist causes for generations now.

It just may be time for some of today's well-intentioned "useful idiots" to learn how to do a little homework on their own and check out some of those leftist characters they support. That would be nice, but I ain't holding my breath until it  happens.