John+Brown+DBE

John Brown Document Based Exercise Download the DBE [|document set] and [|student response] Word documents.

Students follow the instructions on the "[|Student Response]" document. Below are the documents to use with the student response.

=Document-Based Exercise Pretest=
 * How did John Brown’s actions contribute to hostilities between the North and South?**

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Document A:
//Julia Ward Howe would adapt this song into the Battle Hymn of the Republic in 1861//

Old John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save; But though he lost his life in struggling for the slave, His truth is marching on.

Chorus: Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! His truth is marching on!

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave; Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save; And now though the grass grows green above his grave, His truth is marching on.

Chorus

He captured Harpers Ferry with his nineteen men so few, And he frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled through and through, They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew, But his truth is marching on.

Chorus

The conflict that he heralded, he looks from heaven to view, On the army of the Union with its flag, red, white, and blue, And heaven shall ring with anthems o'er the deeds they mean to do, For his truth is marching on.

Chorus

Document C:
"Whereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens upon another portion; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment, and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence."

//John Brown, 1858//

Document D:
Charlestown, Va, 2nd, December, 1859 I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.

//John Brown's last letter, written on the day he hanged.//

Document E:
Richmond "Whig" Newspaper Editorial Though it convert the whole Northern people, without an exception, into furious, armed abolition invaders, yet old Brown will be hung! That is the stern and irreversible decree, not only of the authorities of Virginia, but of the PEOPLE of Virginia, without a dissenting voice. And, therefore, Virginia, and the people of Virginia, will treat with the contempt they deserve, all the craven appeals of Northern men in behalf of old Brown's pardon. The miserable old traitor and murderer belongs to the gallows, and the gallows will have its own.

//Richmond "Whig" newspaper editorial quoted in the "Liberator", Nov. 18, 1859. From "John Brown: a Biography," by Oswald Villard//

Document F:
John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate…..You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

//Abraham Lincoln - 2/27/1860 Cooper Union Address//

Document G:
//November 4, 1859// “Brave old man! Brave and generous, though sadly mistaken in his mode of operation. Whether they put him to death, or he escapes from their hands, I think this will prove the ‘Concord Fight’ of an impending revolution, and ‘Bunker Hill Battle’ will surely follow. May God make us strong for freedom! I would say that evil days were near, were it not that no days are evil which lead to good.”

//November 11, 1859// "Thousands of hearts are throbbing with sympathy as warm as mine. I think of you night and day, bleeding in prison, surrounded by hostile faces, sustained only by trust in God and your own strong heart.  I long to nurse you - to speak to you sisterly words of sympathy and consolation…..no honest man ever sheds blood for freedom in vain, however much he may be mistaken in his efforts.  May God sustain you and carry your through whatsoever may be in store for you!”

//Excerpts of Letters from Lydia Maria Child, Abolitionist, Journalist and Novelist//