The Secret Six : John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement (Paperback)

~ Otto Scott (Author)
Key Phrases: abolition business, aid committee, wool business, New York, United States, Gerrit Smith (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Its vast gallery of characters ranges from Fourier to Julia Ward Howe and includes the Alcotts, Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier, Carlyle, Wordsworth, and Victor Hugo on the belletristic side; Frederick Douglass, Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, Channing, and Greeley among the explicit abolitionists; Polk, Van Buren, Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and J. E. B. Stuart from the world of great affairs. And, of course, there are the six themselves, of whom Emerson's disciple Theodore Parker is best known to modern readers."

"The author ties all these notables together in a skillful narrative that drives home the central thesis: the derangement of John Brown in the realm of political action resulted from a prior derangementof Brown and othersin the realm of theology. The ultimate point is that the same thing is occurring now, only more so. John Brown has his counterparts in the modern-day terroristthe FALN, the PLO, the SLAwho attack the innocent in order to remedy the alleged evils of society. Like Brown, these terrorists fill the void of modern nihilism with the fearful certitudes of violence, and have their deeds explained away as understandable, if extreme, responses to a monstrous evil." -- M. Stanton Evans, Dark Horse

"Scott's portraits of the Six are detailed and realistic; indeed, his book is full of vigorous and accurate detail, forming a panorama of politics and culture in the 1850s. It may be grimly amusing to picture the Proper Bostonians of this successful conspiracy against the laws of the United States, meeting initially at the Boston Institute for the Blind, at their genteel work of fomenting civil war. But it is not equally amusing to contemplate the similar conspiracies of intellectuals and rich and fashionable folk which in this century have reduced half the world to ruin and tyranny." -- Russell Kirk, The Birmingham News

Product Description

The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement, including Notes, Bibliography, and Index, 375 pages.

(First Edition, New York Times Book Co., 1979. Second Edition, The Foundation for American Education, 1987, as The Secret Six: The Fool as Martyr. Third Edition, Uncommon Books, Seattle, Wash., 1993, as The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement.)

Unlike previous biographies of John Brown, this is the first to look at the rich men who funded his attack on Harper's Ferry. It looks into their backgrounds and personalities, their associations with Emerson, Thoreau, and other Transcendentalists, and places them not on the fringe, but in the center of the Abolitionist movement.

In the process, antebellum New England takes on a new and more interesting aspect than the whitewashes of the past. This is history as it was, not as it is taught by the winners of the Civil War.

First published by Times Books in 1979, The Secret Six elicited the following comments (among others):

"The author's thesis is that John Brown and the cabal of eminent Massachusetts clergymen, literati and wealthy businessmen, the Secret Six, who encouraged and financed him were pioneers in a use of terror that in our day has come to plague the world: the idea that killing even innocent people is moral if it serves a greater good." The New Yorker

"...Scott's accomplishment is considerable, and worth studying, not only as a signal contribution to the bibliography of terrorism, but as a vivid and penetrating account of an awful phase of our history." Norman Corwin in The Los Angeles Times

"Thanks to Otto Scott's energetic and intricate account of past delusions of righteous grandeur, terrorism may not in the future be so easy to rationalize away." Dr. Gordon M. Pradl in Chronicles of Culture

"If Scott's thorough study of the half﷓secret movement behind John Brown receives the attention it deserves . . . there will be less adulation, even in liberal and radical circles, of a 'reformer' as mad and merciless as any 20th century terrorist. And there should be some reassessment of the famous Northern abolitionists who made mad Brown their tool." Russell Kirk.

"Among other distinctions, John Brown is the only known mass﷓murderer in American history to be remembered as a national hero." M. Stanton Evans.

Now an underground classic for its "incorrect" perspective but eminently correct historical accuracy, this is the definitive book on the exemplar of modern political terror (the practice of murdering helpless and innocent people to make a political point) and the physical origins of the Civil War.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 375 pages
• Publisher: Uncommon Books; 3rd edition (November 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963838105
• ISBN-13: 978-0963838100
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,102,898 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Otto Scott's book on John Brown, December 1, 2005

By	Dr. James Brooks (Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This is a marvelous book! A real eyeopener, and backed with facts, not opinions! The author, a professional journalist, really did his homework before he wrote this very professional and thorough fact filled book. Highly interesting and thought provoking, though some of what he reveals is a bit shocking. As a college history instructor, this is one book that I highly recommend to everyone who enjoys history and who values truth.

Dr. James Brooks

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read!!, March 1, 2006

By	P. Lorincz "Navigator" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A great treatise on a subject that many Americans are ignorant and misinformed about. As with any work, the reader must realize the underlying assumptions and agendas being put forth by the author and their reasonableness and validity. I believe that Otto Scott has done an exceptional job presenting and supporting his argument.

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent, Must Read book on John Brown, October 19, 2005

By	Lamont G. Sible Jr. - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book shows John Brown's victims were NOT "Pro-slavery" and they were NOT slave owners. (Contrary to Northern mythology.)
The previous person said to read Renehan's book instead, which refuted this book. That's NOT correct. Here is what Renhan had to say:

[Quoting directly from Renhan's book]

Free-state emigrants flowed not only from the North but also from the South, looking to found a state where, in the absence of slavery, their labor would be in demand. One John Doyle, who was destined to have a fatal run-in with John Brown, brought his family from Tennessee, recalled his widow, in order to "get to a free state where they would be no slave labor to hinder white men from making a fair day's wage." Her husband often said to her "that slavery was ruinous go to white labor; and that they had a large family of boys and would go there [to Kansas] and settle and try to get comfortable homes for their children." (5)

Source-"The Secret Six"-Edward J. Renehan, Jr-copyright-1997; University of South Carolina Press-ISBN 1-57003-181-9 (pbk)-p. 82-83

(5) [p. 281] Amos A. Lawrence, Papers Relating to John Brown, Given to the Massachusetts Historical Society by Amos A. Lawrence, February 12, 1885, 151. Maggie Moore to Amos A. Lawrence, Chattanooga, 26 May 1885, Lawrence Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society

[End Quote]

Now notice, what Otto Scott says. (again notice, both books state, Browns victims were NOT "pro-slavery", and they were NOT slave owners. (also note the footnotes both books use. The footnotes are primary source material)

[Quoting this book-Otto Scott]

The night was hot and humid; the river was not far away. The Doyle family was asleep as the men approached their cabin. Two bulldogs rushed out, barking. Two of the men stopped and slashed one to death with their sabers. The other dog fled, howling, and the family awoke.

The men knocked heavily on the door and James Doyle swung out of bed. "What is it?" he called.

"What way to the Wilkinson place?" a man's voice answered.

Doyle opened the door, saying he would tell them, and was almost knocked off his feet when several men rushed in shouting, "We're the Northern Army! Surrender!"

Mahala Doyle clutched her youngest, a girl, and began to stammer. "Hush, Mother, hush," said James Doyle. His three sons moved beside him: William, twenty-two, Drury, twenty, and Hon, fourteen. The men pushed Doyle, and then the two eldest sons, out the door. Mahala Doyle began to weep, but when they reached for the fourteen-year-old she sprang out of bed and clutched him "Not him; Oh, God, not him." (3)


The old man in the light jacket, leather tie, and farmer's straw hat, his face as thin and stern as an ax, punched the boy back and the men left, slamming the door.

Mahala Doyle clutched John and listened, her eyes wide.

The men stopped their prisoners about two hundred yards from the Doyle cabin, The leader placed his revolver against Doyle's forehead and pulled the trigger (4) as coolly as a man shooting a lame horse.

That set them off. One, in a frenzy stabbed Doyle's corpse with his saber. William Doyle was stabbed in the face, slashed over the head and shot in the side. Drury broke and ran in the darkness, was pursued, and overtaken near a ravine. He put his arms up to ward off their blows, but the men, bearded, burley, and in a near frenzy, hacked at him with their sabers. His fingers and then his arms were cut off, his head was cut open, and he was stabbed in the chest. They continued to hack after he fell-and after he was dead. He had frightened them; he might have escaped.

The Wilkinson cabin was next.


Source-"The Secret Six" (John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement)-Otto Scott-copyright-1979-p.6

(3) [p.323] Cf. Howard Report Appendix, ex parte testimony, 1193; Villard, op. cit. 159

(4) [p.323] James C. Malin, John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1942), p. 385.

Dr. Malin, who explored John Brown's career in Kansas with thoroughness that has enraged propagandists, especially Marxists ones, quotes George Grant-a young settler who knew that Brown boys, saw them leave on their murder mission, and spoke that Brown shot Doyle but personally did nothing more..."

[Emd Quote]

This is not only the best historical accurate book, but a very good reading book also. Hard to put down!