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Summary: Two evenings prior to penning this letter, Brown revealed his plan to raid a federal arsenal to spark a massive
slave uprising. His meeting with Gerritt Smith and Frank Sanborn lasted through the night. Smith signed on, but
Sanborn did not commit. In this, one of Brown’s most stirring and pivotal letters, he works to convince Sanborn of his cause.
John Brown (1800-1859), Autograph Letter Signed, February 24, 1858, to Transcendentalist author Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1831-1917), a member of Brown’s ‘Committee of Six’ (or ‘Secret Six’) and a major financial supporter of Brown’s activities, Peterboro, New York. 2 pp. Inventory# 20738 $44,000
Complete transcript: Peterboro, NY. 24th. Feby, 1858.
F B Sanborn Esqr
My Dear Friend Mr. Morton has taken the liberty of saying to me that you felt 1/2 inclined to make a common cause with me. I greatly rejoice at this; for I believe when you come to look at the ample field I labour in; & the rich harvest which (not only this entire country, but) the whole world during the present & future generation may reap from its successful cultivation; you will feel that you are out of your element until you find you are in it; an entire Unit. What an inconceivable amount of good you might so effect; by your example, your encouragement, your natural & acquired ability; for active service. And then how very little we can possibly loose? Certainly the cause is enough to live for; if not to [here, Brown leaves a blank space] for. I have only had this one opportunity in a life of nearly Sixty years & could I be continued ten times as long again I might not again have another equal opportunity. God has honored but comparatively a very small part of mankind with any possible chance for such mighty & soul satisfying rewards. But my dear friend if you should make up your mind to do so I trust it will be wholly from the prompting of your own spirit; after having thoroughly counted the cost. I would flatter no man into such a measure if I could do it ever so easily. I expect nothing but to ‘endure hardness’: but I expect to effect a mighty conquest even though it be like the last victory of Samson. I felt for a number of years in earlier life; a steady strong desire to die: but since I saw any prospect of becoming a ‘reaper’ in the great harvest I have not only felt quite willing to live: but have enjoyed life much; I am now rather anxious to live for a few years more.
Your sincere Friend
John Brown Historical Background:
John Brown (1800-1859) settled with his family in a black community in North Elba, N.Y., on land donated by the New York antislavery philanthropist Gerrit Smith. Long a foe of slavery, Brown became obsessed with the idea of taking overt action to help win justice for enslaved black people. In 1855 he followed five of his sons to the Kansas Territory to assist antislavery forces struggling for control there. With a wagon laden with guns and ammunition, Brown settled in Osawatomie and soon became the leader of antislavery guerrillas in the area. On May 24, 1856, Brown led a nighttime retaliatory raid (three days before the town of Lawerence was sacked by a mob of slavery sympathizers) on a pro-slavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek, in which five men were dragged out of their cabins and hacked to death. In the spring of 1858, Brown convened a meeting of blacks and whites in Chatham, Ont., at which he announced his intention of establishing in the Maryland and Virginia mountains a stronghold for escaping slaves. In the summer of 1859, with an armed band of 16 whites and 5 blacks, Brown set up a headquarters in a rented farmhouse in Maryland, across the Potomac from a federal armory, Harper’s Ferry. On the night of October 16, he quickly took the armory and rounded up some 60 leading men of the area as hostages. After holding out for a day and a half, he surrendered to a small force of U.S. Marines. He was tried for murder, slave insurrection, and treason against the state and was convicted and hanged. The 1859 raid made him a martyr to the antislavery cause and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War.
The ‘Secret Six’ was a group of wealthy New England abolitionists – Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Howe, Theodore Parker, Gerrit Smith, and George Luther Stearns – who financially supported Brown’s militant anti-slavery activities. The committee provided Brown with the funds and arms that he used in his attempt to raid the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry to supply arms for a general slave insurrection. His plot failed and he was captured by U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried and hanged for treason and fomenting a slave rebellion. John Brown remains one of the most defining figures in American history – credited/blamed for being one of the dominoes that tumbled to start the War. Having known of Brown’s plans, Sanborn was asked to testify before a Senate committee during the Brown trial. Refusing to comply, U.S. Marshal’s deputies attempted to arrest him, but were stymied when Concord, Massachusetts Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar issued a writ of habeas corpus. With great fervor, the townspeople chased the officials out of Concord and beyond Lexington, and the next day a local court session released Sanborn. An entertaining account of this incident, which included the actions of such local savants as Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau, and Whitman, can be found at http://www.concordma.com/magazine/july98/sanborn2.html (“The ‘Kidnapping’ of Frank Sanborn”).
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