Customer Reviews

Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America

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This is an excellent, thoroughly researched and referenced book by Evan Carton which is also a very gripping read. Even though the outcome is known, the book is hard to put down. But while the style is nearly novelistic, it is solidly factual. I read this book because I wanted to understand if the usual myths about Brown were correct - if he was indeed a madman. Carton shows him to be a deeply religious and principled man, and one whose reasoning was consistent with his values and with his understanding of the enormous injustice of slavery in nineteenth century America. Brown was an extremely effective fighter against the murderous "border ruffians" from Missouri who attempted to terrrorize free state settlers in Kansas. These Missourian slaveholders and their agents drove free-soil settlers away, burning and looting their settlements such as Lawrence, Kansas, fixing elections, and occasionally killing free-soil setlers, and bragging to "shoot, burn, and hang" abolitionsts, not believing the abolitionists or the free soil settlers(who often weren't abolitionists) would dare to fight back. Initially, they didn't. Brown did, with a very small force, and the reader may find his actions quite shocking. On some occasions his small force routed or captured gangs of the border ruffians who outnumbered them substantially. Brown's desire to accelerate the end of slavery, which he clearly saw as a odious blotch on the ideals which founded his country, led him eventually to more decisive action. Carton provides a clarification for his thought processes through his letters, meetings with sponsors and other associates, and the recollections of survivors after the raid on Harpers Ferry, and convinces that Brown's reasoning was sound, although it certainly was radical. Both before and after the raid, Carton shows us the Brown was confident of the positive effects of the raid even if it were a military failure. Ultimately, it was the notion of the slaveholders that they could indefinitely extend their profitable institution that proved to be madness.

A balanced biography of a complex man, "Patriotic Treason", is both scholarly and involving. A rich, anecdote-laden text, it easily moves between chronicling the life of abolitionist John Brown and describing the larger tapestry of American life in the 1850s.

The book is chockful of dramatic scenes and thematic discussions, including- as pointed out in the other Amazon reviews of this book- the question of whether it's acceptable and perhaps even a moral obligation to sometimes break the law in favor of a greater good. Mr. Carton covers the question well, quoting leading figures of the time who address that very question in response to Mr. Brown's well-publicized actions.

The book is sobering at times, and not just for the expected reasons (like being reminded again of how terribly slaves were treated or how much widespread support there was for slavery in this supposed land of liberty). No, what I found surprising is that among whites who didn't like slavery and even among outright abolitionists, there was very little use or affection for blacks. Most just wanted them deported or resettled somewhere else, where they wouldn't compete for American jobs or mingle with the more "refined" white race.

John Brown, on the other hand, actively befriended blacks all his life, had them over to his house for dinner with his family (unprecedented!), humbly solicited advice from his black friends on a variety of matters, and regularly interacted with blacks in all kinds of other "normal" ways. For John Brown, abolition wasn't just the right answer to an academic question or a detached moral opinion that had little to do with one's daily life. John Brown lived his anti-slavery views because he lived side by side with blacks every day. Whatever excesses Mr. Brown may or may not have undertaken later when he put his anti-slavery views into action, that fact scored points with me.

If you check out my other Amazon reviews, you'll see that I don't read a lot of biographies or memoirs, but every now and then I dive into one. I'm really glad "Patriotic Treason" grabbed my attention. It illuminates a shameful part of U.S. history and again debunks the tired mantra among many that we need to return to the values of our historical past. No, many of those "values" should stay in the past where they belong. It was a dark, evil time in many ways, and John Brown played a huge part in helping this country move beyond it.

This is the first book that I've read about John Brown and I'm glad that I waited. Brown's story is a simply amazing one and Carton is the master of every detail. He writes very well, is excellent at telling a story, and, most significantly for me, he is well-versed in the historical period. He has deep knowledge about pre-Civil-War politics, intellectual life and social relations. And he integrates what he knows brilliantly into John Brown's story. Brown emerges as more than the leader of the raid at Harper's Ferry; in this book we come to understand his Christianity, his early life, his family, his values and most particularly his relations with black people, which were perhaps without precedent in America. The book is very moving, though quietly so: Carton doesn't shy away from being critical of John Brown, but eventually his esteem for Brown comes through and it's tough not to be sympathetic. The book was a great pleasure and I felt that I learned a lot from it about race relations past--and present, too.

John Brown's attempt to free slaves by sparking a national uprising through the assault on the Harpers Ferry in October 1859 was a complete and utter failure when measured by how quickly they were thwarted, how many of Brown's men died in the attempt or by execution. Yet, his communications during his trial and from prison galvanized the hardest of abolitionists in the north (including the Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau) and the secessionists in the south. More than a few people believe it was the reaction to this raid that set events in process that led to the ferocious bloodshed of the Civil War less than eighteen months later.

Was Brown a madman acting in a crazed spasm or emotion? That judgment has changed radically in the near century and a half since his execution. Immediately afterward, the largest popular reaction was negative because it was lawless and was an assault on the Federal Government. Some of the most extreme abolitionists did hold him up as a kind of messianic figure. When I was in high school, he was regarded as someone hardly worth mentioning. He was clearly crazed and criminal to boot. In the past decade several books and documentaries have taken another look and come to a much more favorable view of Brown. Some even see him much as the Transcendentalists talked about him right after he was hanged.

Evan Carton focuses more on the life of Brown and only gets into the societal issues in a couple of places. He does a fine job in keeping the life Brown lived front and center rather than letting it stand for whatever his supporters or detractors would have it be. Carton trusts the reader enough to let him decide for himself. This is quite important for the modern reader who likely knows little about Brown because of the issues his life raises for our own time. Is a private choice to violence ever justified? Certainly slavery was a great evil. Was Brown justified? Would or could slavery have been eradicated in the United States as it was elsewhere in the European Empires without war?

If you answer that slavery was so evil that Brown was justified how do you say that someone who is trying to prevent millions of abortions is wrong? Or someone who wants to retain affirmative action? Or whatever else drives their personal conscience to extreme action? If you say that Brown was not justified, how do you avoid the guilt of slavery? Weren't the millions of souls in bondage worth fighting for? Should they have been left as chattel property for another decade or two or another century until things could work themselves out?

I guess my own view is a cheat on the question. I do not condone private violence and believe that those who blow up abortion clinics or violently attack Federal installations actually help their opponents more than their cause. Brown was so fervent and articulate that his passion moved a great many people. If he had stepped forward more as a Frederick Douglass and engaged in demonstrations he would have probably accomplished more. But you can justly come to different conclusions than mine.

Brown was a man of great integrity to the point of rigidity. As a businessman his personal sense of what was right led him to drive customers away. He wouldn't sell leather until it was cured to his level of satisfaction even if the customer wanted it as it was. When he was selling wool, his own classifications mattered more to him than what his customers wanted to buy and what those he was an agent for wanted to sell. When he and his family were caught up in the Kansas War, he was clearly justified in protecting those who opposed letting the Missourian slave advocates run roughshod over the territorial government. The Missourians committed many atrocities and Brown was the man who taught the victims that they could stand up to their oppressors. Still, attacking and murdering people in the homes and hacking them to death with a sword still shocks us.

Brown was not an unfeeling man dispensing justice as if he were God. He was a man of deep passion who also knew pain and personal loss. Many of his children died in infancy or youth. He knew poverty and want. There is a tremendously moving scene when Brown is found flat on his Dianthe's, his first wife, grave crying in agony. And his last visit with his second wife especially when she has to leave him is also quite moving. Brown did what he did because he knew (that personal conviction problem again) that he was on God's work and was doing what God wanted him to do. And this despite the deep personal loss the mission brought him.

I recommend this book because I like the way Carton focuses on the life and leaves most of the commentary to you and because Brown's life raises issues that resonate in our time. The author does get in to the larger national issues in chapter 10 and in the aftermath of the execution in chapter thirteen. In the epilogue he shares a few of his own views that you might or might not accept. I also recommend it because one can never know too much about the Civil War and its origins. It was a cataclysm whose shockwaves still resonate underneath almost everything in our present national life.

There are some very good pictures in the book, but the one flaw I hope they correct in a subsequent edition is to provide a listing of the illustrations and their page numbers. Now you see them mixed in the text as you read, but if you want to find them later it becomes somewhat of a hunting game.

In the Civil War's Emancipation Tradition John Brown is one of the major players, the doomed idealist, martyred by the evil slave-holding empire. With his full beard and wild eyes, Brown is an Old Testament prophet passing judgment and calling down the plague of civil war on America. This view makes it almost impossible to find an objective book about the man. He seems either bathed in a white light blinded by his vision or a cloven hove monster with bloody claws. Neither view is accurate, historical or likely to help us understand the man, his actions or the era. John Brown is a complex man full of inconsistencies and excesses. He loves his children but puts them in harm's way, resulting in their death. A deeply religious man, he is capable of cold-blooded murder without remorse. In an age where race dominated society, he is one of the few whites who truly felt blacks are equal. Doing a book on him is full of dangers and can easily incite rage from his supporters or detractors.
Evan Carton gives the reader both John Brown, a history of Abolitionist thought, race relations and America from 1830 to 1860. This is a large amount of information for a book that reads like a novel not a history. The author uses endnotes with chapter and page numbers without footnoting. We are told "to convey their living drama, I sometimes visualize the undescribed sensory and emotional particulars and imagine the unpreserved words, thoughts and motives", reading that statement worried me! Was this would be historical fact or Emancipation Tradition fiction? Whatever the author did, they did well producing an excellent read that was enjoyable and informative. I liked this book much more than expected. It is an excellent read, balanced and fair to all parties. These people have serious differences in a society very different from ours. The author never judges them by today's standards. While clearly anti-slavery, the treatment of slave-owners never falls into unwarranted condemnation.
John Brown emerges from this book a full figured man with a self-defined mission. The author has problems with some of the presentation but pulls no punches. While Brown's story may always lean toward "half full", all the failures, bankruptcies and the embezzlements are here. Bleeding Kansas, for the most part is accurate and well written. Brown could enflame the problems and that is not fully developed. Neither is the reaction of many "Free-soil" residents toward his actions. However, his military exploits and his use of them to raise funds are. This is Brown at the peak of his fame and ability to captivate an audience. From here to Harpers Ferry is a slippery slope of disappointments. As the Republican Party rises to power, America's views on slavery start to change and Brown's view cannot. The Secret Six, Brown's New England intellectuals that provide most of his funds, do not get full coverage. This is proper in a book on Brown but I would like to see the author do that book some day.
John Brown is a little mad. Perhaps driven to madness by his sense of injustice, nonetheless he is guilty of murder and treason. Perhaps the difference between John Brown and William Quantrill is more the side they chose then the men. Both allowed events pull them outside of the law and into murder. Both felt they were right and had no choice but to act as they did. I often think that except for the slavery issue, these two charismatic men would have had much in common.

Well-researched, insightful, and gripping, Patriotic Treason is nearly as good a biography as John Brown was great a man. My only quibble is with Carton's failure to explain why exactly Brown and his troops tarried so long at the Kennedy farm before moving on Harpers Ferry. They couldn't train at the site for fear of exposure, and they weren't waiting for supplies, so why did they spend months there before the attack?

My daily commute allows me to listen to many audio books. Mainly I like biographies and historical books. I must state that of the historical biographies I have heard in the last several years, Patriotic Treason is by far the most interesting and engrossing of the lot.

Mr. Carton does what every biographer should do. He lets the life of the subject speak for itself. And he tells the story of John Brown's life in an exciting manner, not dry like many historical writers who portray the past. There is no judgment in Mr. Carton's tone. Additionally, he doesn't place Brown on a pedestal either. He lets the story of this man's life just tell itself.

I need to also comment on Mr. Prichard who reads the audiobook. His voice is soothing emphasizing the proper areas and competently reading the rest. One thing I have found about audiobooks is that a good story can be spoiled by the audio reader. Mr. Prichard's experience in reading audiobooks really comes through and adds to the gripping story of Brown. I could have done without Mr. Prichard singing the hymns, but this is a minor nit.

The audiobook is highly recommended. You learn a lot and it makes the commute that much nicer.

John Brown who gave his all in order to make his point that all men are created equal is a hero who many over look . I searched for literature that would be easy reading and at the same time do justice to this man and Evan Carton's book 'Patriotic Treason' did just that . American's owe him a great debt for his committment to making all men free in the face of a government that condoned slavery. I loved this book and recommend it highly. It's a story of family life and of a man who was color blind to the bitter end. So well written that it reads almost like a novel .

John Brown's fall from grace was his willingness to risk the lives of others to advance the abolitionist cause. Due to his zealous Calvinist religious beliefs, he believed in the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.) and the Declaration of Independence (All men are created equal.). His long friendship with Frederick Douglas expanded into his desire to find a haven for the blacks, especially those in slavery. Henry David Thoreau described his rebellion against the government as an "act of civil disobedience." I believe it was a bit more than that. Too many innocent people were killed there at the U. S. armory.

John Brown had been born on May 9, 1800. By the time he and his sons pulled their stunt taking over the National Armory on October 16, 1859, he was fifty (that's old for that era). He was an abolitionist and religious zealot. His misbegotten mission was to make people release their slaves and create a stronghold in the Virgina/Maryland mountains for them to live in peace. His plan to liberate them using violence cost him the lives of two of his sons, Oliver (20 yrs. old) died on Oct. 17 and Watson (24) on the 18th from their fatal injuries. Joseph Barry wrote an indepth account of the captives and how they were caught in his book printed in 1903, 'The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry.' Here they were trying to liberate the blacks and the first victim was a black train porter there on the tracks leading to the bridge, which I found ironic. I took my sons and two nephews to Harper's Ferry and it is a quaint little place, there at three states. That part of Virginia near Sandy Hook where the Appalachian Trail meanders was later made into a new state called West Virginia. The whole population of the town was involved in this botched takeover.

Robert E. Lee and J. E. B. Stuart captured Brown's raiders; he was found guilty of treason against his country, conspiring with slaves to create an insurrection, and hanged on December 2, 1859. Stephen Vincent Benet wrote a long poem of the Civil War which became an American classic, first printed in 1927 and won the Pultizer Prize in 1929. In it, he wrote: "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave." That is the legend school children learn.

In September, 1862, the largest military operation against Harper's Ferry occurred prior to the Battle of Antietam when Stonewall Jackson's Confederate forces seized the town and captured the 12,500-man Union garrison, the largest surrender of troops during the Civil War. The first shot occurred at Fort Sumpter, S. C. on April 12, 1861, prior to the bloodiest battle of all at Antietam and the deadliest at Gettysburg, PA. John Penn Warren wrote about John Brown: 'The Making of a Martyr.' I'm glad this legend has now been reviewed to put the atrocity to bed for good. It as the damnest thing a demented person could do; how he ever thought he would get away with it beats me. He met his end at John Brown's Fort.