March 26, 1860
John Brown Jr. Collection
John
Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (and his subsequent execution)
solidified Northern and Southern sentiments regarding slavery. Some began to act out in their own private
“attacks,” as demonstrated by a letter found in the Hayes Presidential Library
& Museums' collections.
In March
1860, the noted phrenologist Nelson Sizer conducted a mildly subversive one-man
campaign in Virginia. The state had been nicknamed “The Mother of Presidents”
by this time for birthing seven chief executives: Washington, Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe, W.H. Harrison, Tyler, and Taylor. But Sizer and other abolitionists were
scornful of the role Virginia played in violently perpetuating slavery and
proudly executing Brown. He wrote to
John Brown, Jr., the grieving eldest son of the martyred abolitionist:
“The
other day I went to Washington and I walked three miles & across the
Potomac bridge for the privilege of spitting on the state of Virginia. I met a negro slave near the end of the
bridge in [Virginia] & asked him if he ever heard of the [Underground
Railroad], & his Eyes brightened as he replied, “Yes Massa, heap o’times.” I said, “Some of your boys get away to a land
of freedom on the [Underground Railroad], do they not[?]” He answered, “deed
they do, sir.” I call that tampering
with a slave. I did it out of contempt
for the “Mother of Presidents,” and now of a race of braggarts and cowards.”
Such
personal demonstrations became popular sentiment, leading to the election of
Lincoln later that year, and the outbreak of civil war in April 1861.
Sizer’s
letter to John Brown, Jr. is one of about 600 letters in the John Brown Jr. Collection found in the Hayes Presidential Library’s Charles E. Frohman
Collection. John Brown, Jr. settled at
Put-in-Bay, Ohio, and received correspondence from many prominent abolitionists
and reformers of the late 19th Century. Learn more about this collection: https://www.rbhayes.org/collection-items/charles-e.-frohman-collections/brown-john-jr./
