The\u00a0\u00a0looming shadow of the Civil War was clear in 1859.\u00a0\u00a0It 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.\u00a0\u00a0Their goal:\u00a0\u00a0to take the United States Arsenal at Harper\u2019s Ferry (then Virginia, now West Virginia).\u00a0\u00a0With the Arsenal\u2019s weapons, Brown hoped to lead a rebellion of enslaved people against their owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the ultimate Southern nightmare:\u00a0\u00a0well-armed enslaved people, led by a committed white man, taking vengeance for their servitude.\u00a0\u00a0A whole series of Southern institutions were already in place to protect the slaveowner and their \u201cpeculiar institution\u201d from attack. There were local militias that held monthly drills throughout the South. And organized \u201cPatrollers\u201d rode the countryside, often at night, searching for runaways.\u00a0\u00a0They were early forms of \u201cLaw Enforcement\u201d in America, the dirty\u00a0\u00a0little secret of the beginnings of American policing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, after all of that \u201cpreparation\u201d, no one was ready for John Brown\u2019s 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 \u201crebellion\u201d, and captured a wounded Brown as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Brown stood trial in a Virginia County Court in nearby Charles Town (not Charleston). The charges were treason, murder, and fomenting slave revolt.\u00a0\u00a0America today, used to the \u201cplay-by-play\u201d of \u201chot\u201d criminal trials, would be familiar with the press coverage.\u00a0\u00a0It was the first trial telegraphed nationally.\u00a0\u00a0Every local newspaper had yesterday\u2019s \u201chighlights\u201d, including the kind of Court illustrations we still see today.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For many abolitionists, Brown represented laudable positive action to end slavery.\u00a0\u00a0For many Southerners, Brown represented the kind of Northern meddling that \u201cgot people killed\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Brown\u2019s trial, and his ultimate execution, forced many Americans to take a side.\u00a0\u00a0It was the very definition of polarization.\u00a0There was no middle ground left on the critical issue of the day, slavery.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice was swift in the 1850\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0The attack started October 19th<\/sup>\u00a0and ended two days later.\u00a0\u00a0Brown was dead at the end of a rope on December 2nd<\/sup>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The whole incident was as much a symptom as a cause.\u00a0\u00a0It demonstrated the futility of American efforts to \u201csolve\u201d the issue of slavery.\u00a0\u00a0Within a year and a half, Confederate cannons fired in Charleston, South Carolina, at Union-held Fort Sumter.\u00a0\u00a0The Civil War began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democracy could not solve the problem of slavery.\u00a0\u00a0As Brown said,\u00a0\u201cI\u2026 am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>The problem was a \u201csnake under the table\u201d in American history. It went back before the Declaration of Independence, and through every major governmental act thereafter.\u00a0\u00a0No amount of oratory or compromise would solve the issue.\u00a0\u00a0It had to be \u201cpurged in blood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, there are several issues that it seems American democracy cannot solve.\u00a0\u00a0One example: the issue of mass shootings, what has an almost daily \u201cButcher\u2019s Bill\u201d of victims. It is entrapped in our Constitutional interpretation of the \u201cright to bear arms\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So, while we send our National \u201cthoughts and prayers\u201d, every time; any real action to end the problem is paralyzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problems of the Southern Border are similarly entangled, this time not in the Constitution, but by politics. Both sides politically would \u201clike\u201d to solve the problem; but neither side is willing to let the other have \u201ccredit\u201d for getting the job done. Put simply, Republicans don\u2019t want a Democratic President to \u201cfix\u201d the border, it\u2019s too much of a \u201cfeather in his cap\u201d. 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 \u2013 but are technically illegals (the Dreamers). <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201creplace\u201d the current workforce. But few already in the United States are \u201cfighting\u201d to pick vegetables in the fields of Central California, or fruit in Michigan and Ohio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are solutions to the border \u2013 if only we really wanted to solve the problem. But it\u2019s too \u201cbig a political stick\u201d to put down, to allow compromise to reach an agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there is the inexorable movement of America; becoming a nation where no one racial group has a majority.\u00a0\u00a0That change has part of the Nation cheering, and the other part using every \u201ctrick\u201d in or outside the law to maintain their power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those \u201ctricks\u201d 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 \u201cthink\u201d is determined by the legislature. That sounds like a rhetorical over-reach: but in Florida, state college courses are being cancelled because they are \u201ctoo woke\u201d, or \u201ctoo ideological\u201d. The Florida legislature is now telling colleges what they can teach, and students what they can learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our Nation is polarized, perhaps as much as we were in 1859. And, like it or not, it\u2019s nearly an even split. The Insurrection of January 6, 2021 was a warning, without the \u201cspeed\u201d of the John Brown raid and trial. But does it foreshadow a problem that cannot be \u201cpurged\u201d except with violence, or can Americans overcome the siren song of autocracy to move to a new, multi-cultural and diverse nation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, 2024, will tell the tale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insoluble Problems<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
On the Border<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A Changing Nation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n