Thoreau on Slavery and a Pre-Civil War Poem by Thomas J. Lees

Many of us when we think of Thoreau think of Walden, of peaceful reflection, of quiet and contemplation. We recall to mind the influence his ideas on nonviolent resistance had on men like Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But people are seldom so one-dimensional as to be summed up in such a snappy pigeon-hole, and Thoreau is no exception.

While reading this summer I came across a reference to Thoreau's support for the actions of John Brown* and it sent me to inquire further.

For those unfamiliar, John Brown's 1859 raid is usually cited as a critical event leading up to the Civil War. The raid was an attempt by Brown, a radical abolitionist, to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee, whose opinion of the man was that he was insane.

In response to John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, Henry David Thoreau two weeks later delivered a speech in support of John Brown's actions.

Thoreau had delivered his lecture “The Character and Actions of Capt. John Brown” for the first time in the vestry of the First Parish Meetinghouse in Concord... He delivered the speech that evening to a crowd of twenty five hundred at the Tremont Temple, and the lecture was widely reported in the newspapers.**


What struck me about this is how contradictory it seemed to and at odds with what many would believe to be his Pacifism. How could Thoreau endorse John Brown's use of violence to achieve a noble end?

Though we associate Thoreau with the idea of non-violent resistance, here in his Tremont Temple lecture Thoreau gives the strongest support possible to a man who three years earlier lead a group of anti-slavery partisans to assault and kill five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas in the Pottawatomie massacre. Thoreau makes John Brown out to be a hero. It would appear that when it comes to changing society Thoreau's support for Brown seems to put him more in alignment with the Black Panthers and Irish Republican Army (IRA) than the non-violent attitudes of Gandhi and Dr. King.

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Last week I acquired a copy of Stories and Verse of West Virginia, compiled by Ella May Turner (copyright 1923.)  The following poem, titled Slavery, appears on pages 34-35. The poem by Thomas J. Lees, a native of New Jersey, was written while he was living in Wheeling in what was then Virginia before it broke off in 1863. He also wrote poems that addressed women's issues, how little they were paid for their labors and their limited rights as people.

Slavery

On seeing a drove of Africans pass through  certain town in Virginia, Bound in Chains

Hark to the clang! What means that sound?
'Tis slavery shakes its chains--
Man dragging Man in fettes bound,
And this where freedom reigns!

Say, what have these poor wretches done,
That claims their lot should be?
Are they not punished to atone
For some great robbery?

Or deeds of bloody homicide,
Or treason 'gainst the land?
Ah! no--to pamper human pride,
Man chains his fellow man!

God's noblest work, through thirst for gol,
Is thus to market driven
Like herds of cattle, bought and sold,
By Christians! heirs of heaven!

Great God! does such hypocrisy
Not call for vengeance due?
Shall Freemen shout for Liberty,
And act the tyrant too!

Columbia's Sons, why will ye nurse
The serpent on your soil?
Why hug ye that which threats to curse
The fruit of all your toil?

Think ye that heav'n will bless the hand
That deals in huan blood? ----
It cannot be--this impious land
Must feel the wrath of God!

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*http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/thoreau_001.asp
**http://pastispresent.org/2011/good-sources/a-story-you-probably-didnt-know-about-john-browns-body-douglass-emerson-and-thoreau/

When John Brown Went Off To War

"Then conquer we must, for our cause is just..." ~Francis Scott Key

Here in Duluth, John Bushey's Highway 61 Revisited has become a fixture for many radio listeners. The show airs on KUMD each Saturday evening at 5:00 p.m. and has been nicknamed by some as "the Dylan hour." If you're unfortunate enough to miss your favorite program, the good part is that it re-airs on Mondays from five to six, or during drive time for your home commute if you're not working overtime.

Bushey does an admirable job with the program, which frequently has rare clips from concerts or rare clips from interviews. He sometimes plays music by other musicians who have done covers of Dylan's material, and sometimes will play the studio version of a song Dylan recorded when young and follow with the same song performed live later in the artist's life.

Last night we heard older and later versions of A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, one of the great songs of all time. Bushey notes that the song was written during the Cuban missile crisis, and that "every line could become a song in and of itself." I concur. Another song that we heard older and newer versions of was John Brown.

I remember the very first moment I heard the latter version of this song. A salesman whom I had done business with took me to lunch nearly fifteen years ago and when I jumped into his car he said, "You've gotta hear this." Like myself he had grown up in the Sixties. If adolescence is challenging, adolescence while your country is in a war that doesn't make sense is especially so.

George Eliot once wrote, "We must not inquire too curiously into motives." That's the problem right there. We're born with inquiring minds. We are always wanting to ask "why?" We're too young to understand that this is considered impudent by our elders.

I'm not sure of the origins of "Just War Theory" but the ideas came to the forefront with Viet Nam. To say that such probing is irrelevant does nothing to bolster our confidence.

So the songwriters who gave us words, raised questions. How many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned? And how many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?

Dylan's "John Brown" germinated in soil such as this. It hearkens back to another war protest song from an earlier time, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda." It personalizes the matter in a storyline that hurts.

John Brown

John Brown went off to war to fight on a foreign shore
His mama sure was proud of him!
He stood straight and tall in his uniform and all
His mama’s face broke out all in a grin

“Oh son, you look so fine, I’m glad you’re a son of mine
You make me proud to know you hold a gun
Do what the captain says, lots of medals you will get
And we’ll put them on the wall when you come home”

As that old train pulled out, John’s ma began to shout
Tellin’ ev’ryone in the neighborhood:
“That’s my son that’s about to go, he’s a soldier now, you know”
She made well sure her neighbors understood
She got a letter once in a while and her face broke into a smile

As she showed them to the people from next door
And she bragged about her son with his uniform and gun
And these things you called a good old-fashioned war
Oh! Good old-fashioned war!

Then the letters ceased to come, for a long time they did not come
They ceased to come for about ten months or more
Then a letter finally came saying, “Go down and meet the train
Your son’s a-coming home from the war”

She smiled and went right down, she looked everywhere around
But she could not see her soldier son in sight
But as all the people passed, she saw her son at last
When she did she could hardly believe her eyes

Oh his face was all shot up and his hand was all blown off
And he wore a metal brace around his waist
He whispered kind of slow, in a voice she did not know
While she couldn’t even recognize his face!

Oh! Lord! Not even recognize his face

“Oh tell me, my darling son, pray tell me what they done
How is it you come to be this way?”
He tried his best to talk but his mouth could hardly move
And the mother had to turn her face away

“Don’t you remember, Ma, when I went off to war
You thought it was the best thing I could do?
I was on the battleground, you were home . . . acting proud
You wasn’t there standing in my shoes”

“Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here?
I’m a-tryin’ to kill somebody or die tryin’
But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine”

Oh! Lord! Just like mine!

“And I couldn’t help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink
That I was just a puppet in a play
And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke
And a cannonball blew my eyes away”

As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock
At seein’ the metal brace that helped him stand
But as he turned to go, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand

Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music