Do You Support John Brown's Revolutionary Violence

[Martinus]

Boo. Hiss.

[Neil]

'Natural laws'?  Puh-leeze. 

[The Minsky Moment]

But seriously, the concept of natural law (ius gentium) is an old one and only recently has been used to attack gays. It also does not mean "law of nature".

Yes and yes.

[derspiess]

What Yi said (before he pussed out-- or didn't?).  Anyway, I've posted Hawthorne's take on John Brown a million times here, but it bears repeating:

"Nobody was ever more justly hanged."

[Valmy]

What Yi said (before he pussed out-- or didn't?).  Anyway, I've posted Hawthorne's take on John Brown a million times here, but it bears repeating:

"Nobody was ever more justly hanged."

Wow that is one ridiculous sentence.  I appreciate you pointing out what a lazy thinker Hawthorne was but why else does that bear repeating?

[Malthus]

The problem with John Brown is not that, in the abstract, violence isn't ever an appropriate response to the evils of slavery.

The problem with John Brown is that the particular forms his violence took (the Potawottamie massacre, the raid on Harper's Ferry) were totally non-productive of a solution to the problem of slavery - except insofar as they raised communal tensions leading to the Civil War.

It is sort of like as if, in the run-up to WW2, I heard about the Nazi persecution of Jews, and being enraged, I hacked some German-American Bund members to death in a frenzy, and then attempted to arm Berlin shopkeeps with pikes to use against the Gestapo. Sure, violence may be an appropriate response to Nazis, but ... 

[derspiess]

Wow that is one ridiculous sentence.  I appreciate you pointing out what a lazy thinker Hawthorne was but why else does that bear repeating?

Because he was right.  Brown was a murderer & a traitor.  Yeah, he was an abolitionist, but so what?  An abolitionist psychopath is still a psychopath.

Anyway, John Brown's hanging was the best thing that could happen to him as far as his legacy was concerned-- Hawthorne pointed that out, as well.

[Ideologue]

The problem with John Brown is not that, in the abstract, violence isn't ever an appropriate response to the evils of slavery.

The problem with John Brown is that the particular forms his violence took (the Potawottamie massacre, the raid on Harper's Ferry) were totally non-productive of a solution to the problem of slavery - except insofar as they raised communal tensions leading to the Civil War.

It is sort of like as if, in the run-up to WW2, I heard about the Nazi persecution of Jews, and being enraged, I hacked some German-American Bund members to death in a frenzy, and then attempted to arm Berlin shopkeeps with pikes to use against the Gestapo. Sure, violence may be an appropriate response to Nazis, but ...

He didn't hack people up in a foreign country, he hacked people (partians) up in Kansas, a United States territory.

I don't think the analogy works; it would be like murdering low-level SA goons.  Which I think we can all agree would be great.

[The Brain]

Parthians in bleeding Kansas? Get real, Queeg.

[The Minsky Moment]

I would consider 1859 America a Democracy. A modern Democracy? No. But it wasn't the modern era, it was 1859. By any normal standard of categorizing governments "democratic Republic" is the most mainstream term that would fit with 1859 America. Politicians were very susceptible to the vagaries of public opinion, elections in which many persons participated genuinely elected leaders and etc.

An oligarchy is a lot different, so to say that an oligarchy and a Democracy with a restrictive franchise are the same thing isn't really true.

That being said it matters not the type of government, slaves have an absolute right to rebellion, period. No slave does wrong when they kill in order to end their enslavement, further, no man does wrong when he kills a slave owner or a protector of slave owners. Those who take and keep slaves are "enemies of mankind" (Hostis humani generis) and in the absence of government that addresses this the ancient and natural laws take over and individuals have a right to use violence and homicide to stop evil actions.\

That is a pretty strong natural law position to take.

The problem that John Brown faces it seems to me is that he is a citizen of a republic whose basic law recognizes the right to enslave human beings, so that he cannot with any consistency claim the rights and protections of citizenship while at the same time rejecting the legitimacy of some of its basic laws.  Moreover, I don't think the problem can be solved by placing the slaveholders alone in the position of "hostis humani generis" while characterizing the government as a purely passive actor.  This was the age of the Fugitive Slave Act and Dred Scott - the general government is an active enforcer of slavery, and thus the entire political community is complicit.  So as I see it, Brown has one of two choices -- either (1) accept the basic legitimacy of the political community in which he lives and limit himself to those avenues of the protest that the community permits, or (2) reject the legitimacy of the polity and become literally an "outlaw".  In choosing the latter, he justifiably could seek recourse to violence to counter violence, but at the same time could not be heard to complain if the political community then exacted the penalty for outlawry.  Put simply, Brown had justification to foment an armed slave rebellion and the state had justification to hang him for it.

[Martinus]

The analysis is purely positivist (and as such not very helpful) and misses the point of morality.

From the position of "right", the church had a right to burn Giordano Bruno, the Spanish government had a right to torture false Jewish converts, etc. This is not a very useful position to take.

[The Minsky Moment]

The analysis is purely positivist (and as such not very helpful) and misses the point of morality.

Clearly it is not.  A purely positivist analysis would deny Brown the right to violent revolt, and I explicitly state he had such a right.
Try again.

the Spanish government had a right to torture false Jewish converts, etc.

The conversos were not free members of a political community; John Brown was. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't think anyone would contest the State had a right to hang John Brown, including John Brown himself. Hell, he essentially said that during his trial.

[Razgovory]

Wow that is one ridiculous sentence.  I appreciate you pointing out what a lazy thinker Hawthorne was but why else does that bear repeating?

Because he was right.  Brown was a murderer & a traitor.  Yeah, he was an abolitionist, but so what?  An abolitionist psychopath is still a psychopath.

Anyway, John Brown's hanging was the best thing that could happen to him as far as his legacy was concerned-- Hawthorne pointed that out, as well.

I was under the impression he was hung as a traitor to Virginia.  I don't think he was from Virginia, claimed residence there, or swore allegiance to the State.

[Ideologue]

I'd contest that.  If we can excuse, for the moment, the collateral deaths (such as the baggage handler), which are thornier issues, then I would think ordinary defense of others would apply, albeit in an extraordinary situation.  Slaveowning was an ongoing "crime."  At Potawottamie, the parisans of slaveowners were pulled from their beds to be killed; the notion that the violence those partisans took part in ceased because they were asleep is incorrectly characterizing the extraordinary situation of an armed militia as an ordinary one.  You can not treat an organized militia, or an entire sick society, as individual dangerous men.  No military leader would or could treat an enemy army in such fashion.

Virginia may have had the right to punish Brown for those collateral deaths.  Although morally excusable (versus morally justified), the state of Virginia could be argued to be legitimate insofar as it enforced legitimate law.  I'd have to think more to come up with an answer to excuse revolutionaries from negligent (or reckless) noncombatant deaths, other than the justness of their cause, which I don't think will fly with you guys.  Edit: actually, I think the idea that Virginia was a legitimate sovereign at all is the problem.  Once a state crosses a line like slavery, it's the end of its legitimacy in all matters.  None of its laws can be said to have moral force (norms such as "don't kill indiscriminately" and "don't rape" would, but obligations like "pay taxes" or prohibitions such as "no private ownership of surface-to-air-missiles" do not).

But as for the main issue, I don't see the logic nor the practical guidance in affirming John Brown's right to violently resist, while at the same time affirming the right of the state he resisted to kill him.