Harpers Ferry, the Cradle of Liberty
By: Jim Prentice
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| John Brown Portrait Painting (Library of Congress) |
As a young boy roaming Lower Town Harpers Ferry, a question perplexed me: What is this big deal with John Brown? So he tried to start a slave insurrection; he failed, was captured and hanged. What is the big deal?
Every book I’d ever read about John Brown, even the slide show in the John Brown Museum at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, stops with the hanging of Brown. They end with something like “the War came” or “John Brown started the Civil War.” The first shots of the Civil War came at Ft. Sumter, one and a half years after Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. So how did John Brown “start the War?”
When I grew up I read my first book on the presidential election of 1860—arguably the most important election in our nation’s history. As I read the book the repeated mention of John Brown jumped off the pages like it was written for my soul. Here was the answer to my question, what was John Brown’s contribution to American history?
John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859. Less than 30 days later the presidential election year of 1860 began. From the day of Brown’s raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry to the day of his hanging, John Brown’s name was on the front page of every newspaper in the country. It was all anyone talked about. At the beginning of 1860, the idea that any Republican could be elected was nonsense. The Republicans had risen out of the ashes of the Whig party and had only nominated one candidate for the presidency, John C. Fremont in 1856. The Democratic Party had a solid 60% hold on the majority of voters in America. All Southerners (30% of the voters) and half of the Northerners (another 30%) were Democrats. Whomever the Democrats nominated was sure to be the 16th President of the United States.
The Democratic Convention convened in Charleston, South Carolina in late April 1860, where Stephen Douglas, the senator from Illinois, was the clear favorite of the Northern delegates. But the deeply divided party could not reach a consensus on their platform for slavery. Southern delegates walked out and a two-thirds majority could not be met.
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| Dividing the National Map" parodies all four candidates in the 1860 presidential election. Lincoln (far left) and Douglas tear at the western part of the country, as Breckinridge (center) attacks the South. The fourth candidate, John Bell (right), stands on a stool trying to repair the northeastern section with a jar of "Spaldings," a widely marketed glue of the period. (Library of Congress) |
The cries went out:
“The South must control her own destiny or perish.”
“We MUST have a Southerner in the White House.”
The Democrats met again in Baltimore in June but still could not reach a consensus. The Southern Democrats broke away and nominated John C. Breckenridge, the sitting Vice-President, a slaveholder from Kentucky. The Northerners nominated Douglas.
The Republican Party Convention began in Chicago with the intent to nominate either Sen. Salmon P. Chase from Ohio or Sen. William H. Seward from New York. But the Republicans could not agree on Chase or Seward.
The compromise candidate was one Abraham Lincoln.
South Carolina warned that the election of Lincoln would mean secession. In the election on November 6, 1860—roughly 11 months after the hanging of John Brown—and with less than 40% of the popular vote, Lincoln won an Electoral College landslide and the presidency. Before the year ended, South Carolina made good on its promise. Within a few months, the lower slave states seceded from the Union, and the Civil War began.
The trail and hanging of John Brown forced the issue of slavery into the 1860 election. It triggered the split of the Democratic Party and introduced a fourth candidate on the ballot, which led to the rise and election of Abraham Lincoln. Six weeks after Lincoln’s inauguration, the Civil War began. That is John Brown’s contribution to American history.
A footnote: Last January, I gave a Harpers Ferry tour to a reverend from Atlanta who was giving a talk in Charles Town on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. During the tour of the Curtis Freewill Baptist Church, he asked what John Brown’s lasting effect on American history was.
I told him that we all are taught in school that Philadelphia is the cradle of liberty in America, with the Declaration of Independence’s ringing verses. John Brown himself held that there are two great documents in human history: the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia is the cradle of liberty for the majority of Americans, but the cradle of liberty for all Americans, black and white, is at Harpers Ferry, where John Brown struck the spark that ignited the Civil War and freedom for the slaves. It was also at Harpers Ferry after the War (by then West Virginia) that one of the first colleges in the former slave-holding states was established to give those newly freed men and women what they needed to be truly free: an education.
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Author Bio: A true child of the National Park Service, Jim Prentice was born in Perry’s Victory National Monument, Put-in-Bay, Ohio. He grew up in National Parks at Hopewell Furnace, PA, Harpers Ferry, WV, and Washington, DC. At Hopewell Furnace he gave his first living history presentation as a 7-year-old blacksmith’s helper. In 1961, his father, J.R. Prentice was named Superintendent of Harpers Ferry National Monument, allowing Jim to grow up in the historic Lower Town. His passion for Harpers Ferry history never waned. Today he is a Certified Harpers Ferry Tour Guide.
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