Blog Post #3: McPherson
The book The Revolution of 1860 by James McPherson gave me a more knowledgeable perspective on what it meant to go from being a slave to a free person. He writes about Frederick Douglass who initially believed: “The only well grounded hope of the slave for emancipation is the operation of moral force,” proving that he wouldn’t want the freedom of slaves if it meant “the shedding of one single drop of blood.” However, this was before 1850. A month after the fugitive slave law was enacted, he changed his view on how emancipation would be achieved. After this had occurred, Douglass claims: “who would be free must himself strike the blow” which is a direct implication on how abolitionists realized that in order for them to actually make strides in becoming free then they needed to act in the same way that the slave owners did.
This book also gave me a different view on how the emancipation of slavery came to be because it helped characterize the importance of white people in this cause. John Brown was a mysterious white man who spent a lot of time, effort, and money to help free the slaves. He was fascinated by small groups of people being able to fend off huge forces. In fact, he studied guerilla warfare and slave revolts vigorously to the point where he felt ready to take action. After already traveling east to raise money for these causes, he finally went to convene with a community of free slaves. The thing that surprised me was that out of the 34 black people and 11 white people that were part of this secret group, John Brown was elected as commander in chief. Why would they elect someone who wasn’t impacted by the cause nearly as much as the rest of them? Why did he choose to put his life in danger for something that might not directly benefit him? In fact, it was interesting to learn that unlike many other abolitionists, Brown believed: “Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,” claiming that violence is necessary for the emancipation of slavery.
In conclusion the book The Revolution of 1860 by James McPherson taught me about the ideals and backgrounds of the different types of abolitionists by comparing and contrasting white and black people who believed in the emancipation of slavery.
A thoughtful post. I think you’re right that the Fugitive Act really caused many abolitionists (not just Douglass or Brown) to question their previous commitments to what they called “non-resistance,” or non-violence. But I’m not sure they thought this meant “they needed to act the same way that the slave owners did.” Not only would that idea have been unacceptable to most abolitionists, who saw slaveholding as deeply sinful, but, of those who renounced strict non-violence, most, like Douglass, only embraced violence as a defensive measure—for example, when resisting arrest by slave-catchers. Even when it came to supporting slave uprisings, as Brown hoped to accomplish, abolitionists remained very divided on whether or not this was a legitimate approach.
The more important set of questions may have to do with the impact of John Brown’s raid, in both North and South. Although it ended in failure, how does McPherson suggest it helped to hasten the coming of the Civil War?