Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America (Hardcover)

by Evan Carton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Carton has written an absorbing and inspiring, though not wholly innovative, biography of abolitionist firebrand John Brown. A historian of American culture, Carton (The Marble Faun: Hawthorne's Transformations) centers this portrait on Brown's ceaseless efforts to end slavery. From the earliest days, Brown's abolitionism was grounded in Christianity: for him, the biblical call to love thy neighbor trumped any argument a proslavery theologian could make. As for what Brown accomplished in the climactic 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry, Carton quotes, and seems to share, the assessment of Brown's contemporary Wendell Phillips that Brown "loosened the roots of the slave system" and can be credited with ending slavery in Virginia. Carton usefully sets Brown's abolitionism against the backdrop of a larger American story—the increased radicalism of black abolitionists beginning in the 1840s; the Compromise of 1850 (which admitted California to the union as a free state while passing the Fugitive Slave Act); and ongoing debates about whether slavery should be legal in western territories. Like Brown's other recent biographer, David Reynolds (John Brown, Abolitionist), Carton writes with great admiration for his subject. His Brown is a hero who set the nation on a road to justice that we are traveling still. B&w photos. (Sept. 6)
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From Booklist
Carton has penned an intriguing portrait of abolitionist Brown. He grounds this biography firmly in historical context by providing a digestible overview of the politically tumultuous mid-nineteenth century, and his admiration for the courage of Brown's convictions in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds shines through the compelling narrative. Although Brown was often portrayed as a crackpot or an unstable zealot, his abolitionist ideals were a natural by-product of both his Christian beliefs and his dedication to the letter and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Carton also poses an interesting question: Can one be a treasonous patriot? The answer is a resounding yes, when, as in the case of Brown, one sacrifices one's self and the law for the greater good. Crediting his subject with exposing the hypocrisy of democracy and unleashing the forces that led directly to the Civil War and the contemporary civil rights movement, Carton embraces Brown as a significant cultural beacon. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074327136X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743271363
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #526,950 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a madman, December 8, 2006

By	R. M. Williams "scientist" (Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A telling of Brown's life that leaves space for you to decide what to make of this complex man, December 15, 2006

By	Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe true evil sometimes requires an equal response, September 27, 2007

By	Joseph P. Menta, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.