Harper’s Ferry
The looming shadow of the Civil War was clear in 1859. It was then, in the soft October fall of the Potomac Valley, that radical abolitionist John Brown led his band of devotees and freedmen to the attack across the bridge from Maryland into Virginia. Their goal: to take the United States Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry (then Virginia, now West Virginia). With the Arsenal’s weapons, Brown hoped to lead a rebellion of enslaved people against their owners.
It was the ultimate Southern nightmare: well-armed enslaved people, led by a committed white man, taking vengeance for their servitude. A whole series of Southern institutions were already in place to protect the slaveowner and their “peculiar institution” from attack. There were local militias that held monthly drills throughout the South. And organized “Patrollers” rode the countryside, often at night, searching for runaways. They were early forms of “Law Enforcement” in America, the dirty little secret of the beginnings of American policing.
But, after all of that “preparation”, no one was ready for John Brown’s attack. So the small standing US military was called forth, Marines led by Army officers Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant JEB Stuart. They made short work of the “rebellion”, and captured a wounded Brown as a result.
But with Blood
John Brown stood trial in a Virginia County Court in nearby Charles Town (not Charleston). The charges were treason, murder, and fomenting slave revolt. America today, used to the “play-by-play” of “hot” criminal trials, would be familiar with the press coverage. It was the first trial telegraphed nationally. Every local newspaper had yesterday’s “highlights”, including the kind of Court illustrations we still see today.
For many abolitionists, Brown represented laudable positive action to end slavery. For many Southerners, Brown represented the kind of Northern meddling that “got people killed”. Brown’s trial, and his ultimate execution, forced many Americans to take a side. It was the very definition of polarization. There was no middle ground left on the critical issue of the day, slavery.
Justice was swift in the 1850’s. The attack started October 19th and ended two days later. Brown was dead at the end of a rope on December 2nd. The whole incident was as much a symptom as a cause. It demonstrated the futility of American efforts to “solve” the issue of slavery. Within a year and a half, Confederate cannons fired in Charleston, South Carolina, at Union-held Fort Sumter. The Civil War began.
Insoluble Problems
Democracy could not solve the problem of slavery. As Brown said, “I… am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” The problem was a “snake under the table” in American history. It went back before the Declaration of Independence, and through every major governmental act thereafter. No amount of oratory or compromise would solve the issue. It had to be “purged in blood.”
Today, there are several issues that it seems American democracy cannot solve. One example: the issue of mass shootings, what has an almost daily “Butcher’s Bill” of victims. It is entrapped in our Constitutional interpretation of the “right to bear arms”. So, while we send our National “thoughts and prayers”, every time; any real action to end the problem is paralyzed.
On the Border
The problems of the Southern Border are similarly entangled, this time not in the Constitution, but by politics. Both sides politically would “like” to solve the problem; but neither side is willing to let the other have “credit” for getting the job done. Put simply, Republicans don’t want a Democratic President to “fix” the border, it’s too much of a “feather in his cap”. Sure the issues are complex: 12 million illegal migrants already living in the United States, many with children who are born American citizens. Hundreds of thousands more who were raised in the United States, the only country they have ever known – but are technically illegals (the Dreamers).
The US worries about a lack of labor, particularly in the most arduous manual labor jobs, ones that migrants are willing and able to do. We need workers, but some are concerned that somehow, they will “replace” the current workforce. But few already in the United States are “fighting” to pick vegetables in the fields of Central California, or fruit in Michigan and Ohio.
There are solutions to the border – if only we really wanted to solve the problem. But it’s too “big a political stick” to put down, to allow compromise to reach an agreement.
A Changing Nation
And there is the inexorable movement of America; becoming a nation where no one racial group has a majority. That change has part of the Nation cheering, and the other part using every “trick” in or outside the law to maintain their power.
One of those “tricks” is that to move away from the principles of democracy. Some are looking to autocratic solutions, where the right to vote is limited, and what we are allowed to learn and “think” is determined by the legislature. That sounds like a rhetorical over-reach: but in Florida, state college courses are being cancelled because they are “too woke”, or “too ideological”. The Florida legislature is now telling colleges what they can teach, and students what they can learn.
Our Nation is polarized, perhaps as much as we were in 1859. And, like it or not, it’s nearly an even split. The Insurrection of January 6, 2021 was a warning, without the “speed” of the John Brown raid and trial. But does it foreshadow a problem that cannot be “purged” except with violence, or can Americans overcome the siren song of autocracy to move to a new, multi-cultural and diverse nation?
This year, 2024, will tell the tale.
