There are times in history when morality and law diverge so far that one simply has to choose a side. John Brown, American an anti-slavery fighter in the years leading up to the Civil War, he did not hesitate. While others debated about slavery, wrote pamphlets and gave speeches, he took up arms. He did not believe in gradual changes or compromise, but in the inevitability of conflict with evil, which he considered not only a social injustice, but also a deep sin.
John Brown was born in 1800 into a family that strongly condemned slavery. As he grew up, that conviction turned into an unshakable idea: slavery must be abolished, without delay or concession. By 1860, at the dawn of the American Civil War, there were four million enslaved people living in the US - about 13 percent of the total population. At that historical moment, the Confederate States of America (1861–1865) was shaped and guided by a specific interpretation of Christianity, which deeply intertwined the faith with the defense of slavery.
In such an ideological construction, the institution of slavery was not presented as a social evil but as a divine order, and the South saw itself as the bearer of an almost sacred task to preserve that order.
Even today, the idea of a "chosen country" under God's blessing persists in America, the same one that served as a moral justification for deep divisions in society at the time of John Brown. Those divisions did not disappear, they just changed shape. There are still invisible lines that separate the privileged from the non-privileged.
After all, the deepening of divisions is evidenced by the decree signed by Donald Trump on the first day of his second term, which claims that children born to parents who are in the US illegally or temporarily are not American citizens - which is in direct contradiction to the Constitution and current laws.
In America in the middle of the 19th century, violence was not the exception, but the iron rule. Reports from the time described a country where law had almost disappeared and violence had become a means of political reckoning. John Brown saw in this not chaos but confirmation of his idea: if the state cannot or will not stop injustice, the individual must. His story becomes cinematically dramatic during the conflict known as Bloody Kansas in the mid-1850s. There, supporters of slavery and abolitionists clashed over whether the territory of Kansas would be free or slave. Brown engaged in violent actions including murder, believing he was waging a holy war against injustice.
His most famous act took place on October 16, 1859 - the attack on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. His plan was as daring as it was desperate: seize the facility, hand out weapons to the slaves, and start an uprising throughout the South that would overthrow the entire slaveholding order. It was not just an action, it was a vision of revolution. However, the action soon failed. Brown and his followers were surrounded and captured by units led by future Confederate commander Robert E. Lee, then still in the service of the US Army. In his report, Lee coldly stated that "the rebels were quickly defeated" and the leader of the rebellion was arrested. Brown's uprising lasted less than the legend that would emerge from it.
When he stood trial in Charlestown, Virginia on November 2, 1859, Brown sounded not like a defeated rebel but a man who had fulfilled his duty. His words circulated in the newspapers, were retold in saloons and taverns, and divided the nation even more deeply. In a calm voice he said: "If it is considered that I should pay with my life for the further realization of justice and mix my blood with the blood of my children and the blood of millions of slaves in this country whose rights are neglected by wicked, cruel and unjust laws, so be it."
His entire philosophy is summed up in that one sentence - and the reason why he will become a hero of freedom for some, and an extremist and criminal for others. John Brown faced charges of treason, murder and sedition. The court found him guilty on all charges, and the sentence was carried out by hanging on December 2, 1859, making him the first man in American history to be executed for treason.
Seen from today's perspective, the time in which John Brown lived and worked does not seem as distant as it seems. A society then deeply divided over the issue of slavery – one of the darkest chapters of America's past – can be compared to modern divisions. The lines of division in American society are increasingly pronounced, and are especially deepening in the economic sphere. In an almost Alanfordian inversion, like the anti-hero Superhike, who takes from the poor to give to the rich, the Donald Trump administration is cutting support programs for the most vulnerable: from health care and food stamps, to student loans, to housing assistance. At the same time, tax breaks are being introduced for corporations and the richest, along with deregulation of the financial sector and easing of rules for cryptocurrencies. The head of the White House himself has significantly increased his wealth. According to Forbes, Donald Trump's personal fortune in just one year of his second term has increased from about 3,9 to approximately 7,3 billion dollars, mostly thanks to investments in cryptocurrencies and ownership stakes in social networks.
If there's a dividing line that could reignite America, it's the widening gap between rich and poor. The recent mass protests across the US were an expression of disagreement with the US president's policies, and millions of people took to the streets to show their dissatisfaction with the government's decisions. The movement "Without Kings" gained additional strength with the support of public figures such as Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda and Bruce Springsteen.
Director Quentin Tarantino called him his "hero" and "favorite American who ever lived." His interest in Brown stems from his admiration for such an ideology of action, especially his willingness to resort to violent methods - a hallmark of Tarantino's cinematic expression. He also mentioned the possibility of making a movie about Brown, and this fits with his interest in the themes of revenge against oppression, especially present in the movie Django's Revenge. Perhaps that is precisely why John Brown is still relevant today, because the question he left behind did not remain in the past, but continues as a constant dilemma: how far can the fight against injustice go?
