In what is apt to the first of many items published in conenction with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, The New York Times today published two articles about John Brown, marking the, yes, 150th anniversary of his hanging. The author Tony Horwitz eloquently writes of the striking parallels between Brown and the Islamist terrorists of the last two decades.
“ Few if any Americans today would question the justness of John Brown’s cause: the abolition of human bondage. But as the nation prepares to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who calls himself the architect of the 9/11 attacks, it may be worth pondering the parallels between John Brown’s raid in 1859 and Al Qaeda’s assault in 2001. Brown was a bearded fundamentalist who believed himself chosen by God to destroy the institution of slavery. He hoped to launch his holy war by seizing the United States armory at Harpers Ferry, Va., and arming blacks for a 
campaign of liberation. Brown also chose his target for shock value and symbolic impact. The only federal armory in the South, Harpers Ferry was just 60 miles from the capital, where “our president and other leeches,” Brown wrote, did the bidding of slave owners. The first slaves freed and armed by Brown belonged to George Washington’s great-grandnephew. Brown’s strike force was similar in size and make-up to that of the 9/11 hijackers. He led 21 men, all but two in their 20s, and many of them radicalized by guerrilla fighting in Bleeding Kansas, the abolitionists’ Afghanistan. Brown also relied on covert backers — not oil-rich Saudis, but prominent Yankees known as the Secret Six. Brown used aliases and coded language and gathered his men at a mountain hideout. But, like the 9/11 bombers, Brown’s men were indiscreet, disclosing their plan to family and sweethearts. A letter warning of the plot even reached the secretary of war. It arrived in August, the scheme seemed outlandish, and the warning was ignored. Brown and his men were prepared to die, and most did, in what quickly became a suicide mission. Trapped in Harpers Ferry, the raiders fought for 24 hours until Robert E. Lee ordered marines to storm the building where the survivors had holed up. Ten raiders were killed, including two of Brown’s sons, and seven more hanged. No slaves won their freedom. The first civilian casualty was a free black railroad worker, shot in the back while fleeing the raiders. . . .Brown’s courage and eloquence made him a martyr-hero for many in the North. This canonization, in turn, deepened Southern rage and alarm over the raid. Though Brown occupied the far fringe of abolitionism — a “wild and absurd freak,” The 
New York Times called him — Southern firebrands painted his raid as part of a broad conspiracy. An already polarized nation lurched closer to violent divorce. “The time for compromise was gone,” Frederick Douglass later observed. “The armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken Union, and the clash of arms was at hand.” This was exactly what Brown had predicted in his final note. . . . In 1859, John Brown sought not only to free slaves in Virginia but to terrorize the South and incite a broad conflict. In this he triumphed: panicked whites soon mobilized, militarized and marched double-quick toward secession. Brown’s raid didn’t cause the Civil War, but it was certainly a catalyst.”
The second piece came from CUNY professor David S. Reynolds: “By the time of his hanging, John Brown was so respected in the North that bells tolled in many cities and towns in his honor. Within two years, the Union troops marched southward singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul keeps marching on.” Brown remained a hero to the North right up through Reconstruction. However, he fell from grace during the long, dark period of Jim Crow. The attitude was, who cares about his progressive racial views, except a few blacks? His reputation improved a bit with the civil rights movement, but he is still widely dismissed as a deranged cultist. This is an injustice to a forward-thinking man 
dedicated to the freedom and political participation of African-Americans. O.K., some might say, but how about the blotches on his record, especially the murders and bloody skirmishes in Kansas in the 1850s? Brown considered himself a soldier at war. His attacks on pro-slavery forces were part of an escalating cycle of pre-emptive and retaliatory violence that most historians now agree were in essence the first engagements of the Civil War. Besides, none of the heroes from that period is unblemished.”
Sorry, Professor, but Brown cannot be pardoned. He murdered people who were living peaceably and within the law. His cold-blooded butcheries of settlers in Kansas is simply, literally unpardonable. This violence stems from his assurance in the justice of his cause, but that cannot be enough. Mohammed Atta was sure about what he did. Major Hassan was sure. It is intolerable that people should have lived in slavery, and it is a woeful and terrible thing that so many leaders in the 19th century compromised away justice in exchange for peace. So Brown could not have been more right and he could not have been more wrong. It’s what makes him a fascinating figure, and like all hot-minded people who justify violence on the basis of higher law, one that should be judged with cold eye.