A very good copy of this rare addition to material concerning John Brown and the raid on Harper’s Ferry.
John Brown (1800-1859) was a seminal abolitionist in the years leading up to the Civil War. A millennial Christian, he believed that evil of slavery was one of the main obstacles to the return of Christ. In about 1846, he commenced aiding fugitives and, a year later, began planning raids on the south, which culminated with that on Harper’s Ferry in 1859.
Parker (1810-1860) was a Unitarian minister and abolitionist. He was one of the secret committee of six who armed and financed John Brown’s campaigns and “shared Brown’s vision of the coming of a necessarily blood drenched but nevertheless sanctified destruction of slavery” (Fellman).
Dated 24 November, 1859, the letter reads in part: “My friend will have passed onto the reward of his magnanimous public services, and his pure, upright private life.” He warns that America “must give up DEMOCRACY if we keep SLAVERY, or give up SLAVERY if we keep DEMOCRACY.” Furthermore, he adds in strident tones: “A MAN HELD AGAINST HIS WILL AS A SLAVE HAS A NATURAL RIGHT TO KILL EVERY ONE WHO SEEKS TO PREVENT HIS ENJOYMENT OF LIBERTY.”
Indeed, in this long letter which details of horrors of slavery, Parker laments that “Brown will die, I think, like a martyr, and also like a saint.”
No physical copies in OCLC. Eberstadt, 77; Sabin, 58749. Not in Bartlett or LCP. Fellman, M., “Theodore Parker and the Abolitionist Role in the 1850s” in The Journal of American History, Vol. 61., No. 3 (Dec, 1974), p.676.
