The Pursuit of Perfection

Jason P. Matzke

The John Brown Way: Frederick Douglass and Henry David Thoreau

on the Use of Violence

INTRODUCTION

Tw o NAMES NOT OFTEN HEARD t o g e t h e r in academic circlesare those of Frederick Douglass and Henry David Thoreau; scholars of one have tended to ignore the other. This should not be terribly surprising, however, given that they hved such differ- ent hves and failed to make reference to one another in their own work. Thoreau mentions Douglass only in his essay "Wendell Philhps Before the Concord Lyceum":"...referring to the case of Frederick—; to our disgrace we know not what to call him... [H]e communicated to a New Bedford audience, the other day, his purpose of writing his hfe, and telhng his name, and the name of his master, and the place he ran fiom...."' For his part, although Douglass speaks of Emerson in his third narrative, he says nothing about Thoreau. In fact, it appears that if they met it was only once, at an annual meeting in 1844 of the Concord Women's Anti-Slavery Society, at which Douglass and Emerson both spoke.2

Despite this, Douglass and Thoreau do share many things in common. They were roughly the same age, with Thoreau born in 1817 and Douglass probably in 1818; they knew several of the same people, such as WiUiam Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Philhps, Horace Greeley, Theodore Parker, Emerson, and John Brown; they each spoke pubhcly for the anti-slavery cause, in fact, Thoreau delivered his well-known "Slavery in Massachusetts" while filhng in for Douglass at a rally in Framingham, MA; and they were each active with the underground railroad.̂ What caught my attention and what I will focus on here, however, is their simultaneous enthusiastic support of John Brown's use of

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violence against slavery in his failed attempt on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry,Virginia, in 1859."* In short, it is my contention that Douglass's argument supporting Brown's use of violence is superior to Thoreau's. First, however, a brief reminder of the historical case and an explanation of the evaluative criteria are in order.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND EVALUATIVE CRITERIA

John Brown, a Northern white with a passionate hatred for chattel slavery, grabbed the national spothght when he and a small company of men temporarily took over the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. From there he had planned to recruit and arm slaves fiom nearby farms before retreating to hiding places in the Appalachian Mountains from where he would begin a larger fight to fiee slaves throughout the South. He was caught, how- ever, before leaving the arsenal (incidentally, by the then Union general Robert E. Lee), tried, and shortly thereafter, hanged for his crime. The pubhc and press were outraged by Brown's actions. Northern abohtionists, who typically supported only non-violent tactics such as moral suasion, called the plan foohsh and Brown insane, though WiUiam Lloyd Garrison admitted that Brown's actions had "inspired and strengthened millions to abhor slavery,"^ and later that, "John Brown executed will do more for our good cause, incomparably, than John Brown par- doned."^ But although more would later agree with Garrison's quahfied attribution of martyrdom, Douglass and Thoreau stood almost alone in their immediate pubhc support of Brow^n's use of violence against slavery, which Douglass dubbed "the John Brown way."^

In the following comparative analysis of Douglass's and Thoreau's support of Brown's use of violence, I will make a couple of key assumptions. First, I w îll assume that there exists a moral presumption against the use of violence and that for any particular use of violence to be acceptable it must be shown to satisfy some minimal criteria. And second, I will assume that

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these criteria include such things as proportionaHty, avoidabiHty, imminence, and severity, such that a particular act of violence must be a proportional response to an otherwise unavoidable, imminent, and serious harm.^ This means roughly that violence may be used, if at all, only to the extent that it is required to stop or prevent a harm. It must not be used if there are other (feasi- ble) ways of avoiding the harm, which must be occurring or about to occur, and which must be significantly serious.' These are not meant to function in any algorithmic sense—there might be additional considerations (e.g., the degree to which one was responsible for bringing the harm upon oneself), and the relative importance of particular criteria could change firom case to case. Nevertheless, the criteria do seem to provide us with a good starting place by which to evaluate cases of violence; they seem, that is, to be the kind of things we expect a person attempting to justify the use of violence to address.

I win begin by considering how Douglass and Thoreau treat these suggested minimal criteria and wiH then look briefly at Thoreau's emphasis on action from principle and Douglass's use of the notion of rights, in their support of Brown. The claim I wish to forward is that Douglass's argument surpasses Thoreau's in two ways. First, it moves further in the direction of addressing the issues of proportionaHty, avoidabiHty, and the Hke, and second, in part because of this, Douglass's argument provides us with a fuller, more developed approach that might help us to evaluate other cases in which violence is proposed. It is good to keep in mind, however, that this is only a starting point— în the end we might reject Douglass's position as, for example, relying too heavily on the traditional liberal notion of rights.

THOREAU AND PROPORTIONALITY, AVOIDABILITY, IMMINENCE, AND SEVERITY

Of the four suggested minimal criteria for the acceptance of violence—^proportionality, avoidabiHty, imminence, and severity— we can dispense with the second two quite quickly. The criterion of imminent harm is met clearly enough in the Brown case

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because the harm of slavery was an ever-present reaHty for several mUHon people in the South, and a constant threat to Northern blacks as well due to the Fugitive Slave Act and ubiquitous racial prejudice.Thoreau says nothing about this, but it would have been strange, of course, if he had—the fact of slavery was not in doubt. Second, the question of severity is equally obviously met. We might nod our heads in agreement with Thoreau's comparison of slavery to murder"* and his suggestion that one should be shocked by the death of a slaveholder only if one were equaHy shocked by the horrors of slavery." As with slavery's imminence, we should not expect Thoreau to say much about its severity.

The question of whether there were effective alternatives to violence to end slavery—the question of avoidabiHty—is, how- ever, less obviously answered by the situation itself So, what does Thoreau say about it? O n the one hand, it is clear that he thinks legal means wiU not work, at least not with the desired speed. A common theme throughout Thoreau's writing is that his feHow N e w Englanders (he says Httle about other citizens) know that slavery is unjust but are far too apathetic to vote against it.Voting to end slavery could succeed, he thinks, only when there is Httle left to aboHsh—when Northern whites are no longer reaping the benefits of Southern slavery.'̂ But, he says, this is not enough: "There is no such thing as accompHshing a righteous reform by the use of'expediency'There is no such thing as sHding up hiH. In morals, the only sHders are backsHders."" In fact, the Constitution itself, he objects, fails to provide sufficient avenues for positive change in Hght of people's general self-absorption and apathy—there was Httle hope of enacting change through the legal means of voting or petitioning.^"*

O n the other hand, however, it is less clear whether by the time of Brown's action in 1859 Thoreau had entirely given up his earHer position that nonviolent, though iHegal, resistance (such as with- holding one's taxes) could be effective in ending slavery.The evi- dence, far from conclusive, suggests that he had not changed his mind. First, even in his support for Brown, Thoreau does not call for others to engage in violence. And second, he does not indicate that he himself would follow Brown's lead. In fact, he says that

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although he can conceive of a time in which he might be pushed to use violence, he has no wish to kill or be killed.^^ Given his insistence that people must act to end slavery, his failure to call for more acts of violence suggests that he believed there ^vere effective albeit illegal alternatives.

This is not to say that Thoreau's support of Brown fails to meet the avoidability criterion. It might be that by 1859 he had come to realize that the nonviolent resistance of withholding his taxes, even if much more productive than legal means, had proven to be ineffective against slavery. Perhaps some degree of violent action is needed as well. This would explain why he supported Brow^n but had no immediate interest in pursuing violence himself or in encouraging others to do so. We might conclude, then, that by claiming that legal means inevitably fail due to human short- comings and to the restrictions inherent in the political system, Thoreau goes at least part way, though not all the way, in address- ing the avoidability criterion.

Unfortunately, Thoreau says virtually nothing about propor- tionality, which Howard McGary succinctly describes as the notion that violence should be used only to the extent that it is needed to avoid or stop the harm in question.^'' This is very sim- ilar to the above consideration in that ^ve want to know^ in each case if there are alternative actions we might take in response to an impending harm w^hich would present less of a challenge to the moral presumption against violence, and hence demand less from us by way of justification—here we want to know^ if less violence is an available alternative to greater violence. It is useful to separate the questions of avoidability and proportionality, however, because we can imagine asking first w^hether there are alternatives to violence, whereupon if the answer is "no," we can next inquire as to the acceptable level of violence. If Thoreau's answer to the avoidability question is (even if less than convinc- ing) that some violence is necessary, ŵ e can then ask him w^hat we should think about the degree of acceptable violence. W h e n we consider the two times he publicly supported violence—in the Brown case and in an attempted rescue of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns by a Boston mob—it is noticeable that both

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involved deadly force.'̂ But there is no indication firom Thoreau that he had considered whether a lesser amount of violence might be better, morally speaking. Perhaps he thought that the greater amount was, in these particular situations, more warrant- ed, but in any case, we do not know what he was thinking.

As mentioned, the four suggested minimal criteria are not meant to be necessary or sufficient conditions for the accept- abihty of violence, though they do seem, at least on the face of it, to be important considerations w ĥen evaluating such cases. The fact that Thoreau says little about them, or at least about the two most in question, should strike us as a reason not to rely on his work when we move to evaluate the use of violence in cases other than Brow^n's.

DOUGLASS AND PROPORTIONALITY, AVOIDABILITY, IMMINENCE, AND SEVERITY

As with Thoreau, Douglass's silence on the question of immi- nence means little given the obvious existence of slavery. It is worth mentioning, however, that Douglass has much more to say about the severity of the injustice than does Thoreau. As part of his attempt to convince white Americans of the evils of slav- ery, he spent many years writing and speaking extensively about his own experience as a slave. In addition to his first-hand descriptions, Douglass argues that wherever slavery is instituted, the horrors involved are inevitable: "Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man over the body and soul of another man, without brutal chastisment [sic] and enor- mous cruelty."^^

With respect to the avoidability criterion, Douglass goes fur- ther than Thoreau in arguing that violence is the last available option with any hope of ending slavery. He points out that despite the existence of abolitionist societies since the beginning of the American state, the number of slaves had multiplied many times over, and slaveholders had become more entrenched in their positions, more indifferent to the plights of their slaves, and less reachable by nonviolent tactics such as moral suasion. Even

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with the horrifying details of slave life made pubhc, people failed to end the practice.''Violence, he thought, was needed because nonviolence could no longer reach the conscience of slave- holders who had been hardened by their participation in slavery. Fear, created through violence, might do the job. '̂̂ This is not to say that Douglass gave up nonviolence in favor of violence. H e continued to employ and encourage other tactics as well. For example, he made several trips to Great Britain to try to persuade people there to exert pressure on Americans to end slavery, and thought that Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Gabin suited, better than any other, "the moral and humane requirements of the hour... [and] touched the American heart."^' Presumably, dif- ferent tactics were meant for different segments of society, with violence being aimed at slaveholders.

There is some evidence that suggests that Douglass was also concerned about the degree of violence used. First, as just sug- gested, he says that violence "v^ll play its part in the abolition of slavery,"—that is, it has a role to play, but is not the only thing needed.22 Second, and more to the point, upon arguing that slave catchers forfeit their right to life and that violence is sometimes needed to protect fugitive slaves, he suggests that when merely wounding them w^ould suffice in sending a message to other would-be slave catchers, this is all that should be done.^^ Third, in commenting on his use of force to defend himself while still a slave against the attacks of a slaveholder, Douglass stressed that he had used only enough force to defend himself and did not purposefully injure his adversary.̂ '̂ Perhaps each of these exam- ples reflects merely strategic concerns for not using violence beyond that w^hich is necessary, but even so, this at least points to Douglass's aw^areness that to convince others that violence is sometimes acceptable, the question of proportionality must be addressed.

Thoreau and Douglass both, then, go some way to argue that the use of violence against slavery meets the suggested criteria of acceptability, though Douglass appears to have made much more of an effort to do so.

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THOREAU'S ACTION FROM PRINCIPLE ARGUMENT

Perhaps Thoreau s lack of contact with, in particular, the issues of avoidability and proportionality can be overlooked if he offers us another approach to thinking about violence. One possibility is that the use of violence is acceptable largely because it is a clear case of action from principle, or doing what we know to be right regardless of possible negative consequences to ourselves or to the state. H e argues, for instance, that "people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a peopie."^^ Brown, who put his life on the line for the principles he held, became for Thoreau a sort of moral hero—a modern Christ who "offered himself to be the saviour of four millions of men."^^

Thoreau argues that there are objective moral truths w^hich, though not always obvious, are knowable: we each posses an "eternal and only just C O N S T I T U T I O N , which [God], and not any Jefferson or Adams, has written in [our] being."^^ To learn these truths, 'we must separate ourselves firom the confining and paralyzing effects of society by immersing ourselves in nature, wherein we can experience moments of simplification or clarity, and absorb these moral truths. Thoreau does not give us an explicit list of these truths or principles, but they include at least the notion that we should value fi^eedom, individuality, and self- sufficiency rather than money, reputation, and legal consistency. Slavery and the laws that further it clearly violate these positive principles. Nonetheless, we might object that again Thoreau gives us little useful material—the principles are overly general— or method (other than a vague intuitionism) by which to come to know them in more detail. Should freedom be balanced with other values, such as equality? Can individuahsm and self-suffi- ciency puU us away from the benefits of more communal think- ing? The answers to these and similar questions are far from obvious or self-evident.

In his earlier work, Thoreau had argued that action from prin- ciple entails severing one's ties to an unjust state. H e describes his famous refusal to pay his taxes as an act of individual secession.

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or "peaceful revolution."^^ His aim was to simultaneously avoid any guilt of association v\rith an unjust government and to encourage others to do the same, hoping to force an end to slavery. Brown, however, went well beyond Thoreau's "peaceful revolution" in his rebelhon against the state. By willingly put- ting his life on the hne, he went far beyond Thoreau's own sac- rificial night in jail, and in doing so captured Thoreau's imagi- nation as the finest example yet of hving according to one's convictions.

By presenting his argument in terms of action fiom intuited principles, Thoreau, even if right to support Brown, gives us little basis to evaluate other cases in which violence might be used against injustice. The idea of personal secession from a grossly unjust state is an intriguing and potentially useful one, but his move fiom this to the use of violence needs more than the claim that this demonstrates adherence to intuited moral principles. Thoreau might have given us more with respect to the suggested minimal criteria for the acceptability of violence, such as arguing further that violence was likely the only way to end the suffer- ing of milhons of people. My aim here, however, is less to find problems internal to Thoreau's argument than to make the observation that Douglass gives us a clearer, more carefully articulated, and hence potentially more useful approach than does Thoreau.

DOUGLASS'S RIGHTS-BASED ARGUMENT

In his support of Brown, Douglass relies on the concept of rights. I would like to, from the start, set aside his appeal to the divine origin of rights as it is not central to his case and because it is more or less consistent with other conceptions of rights. It is worth mentioning, however, that Thoreau's more problematic notion of intuited principles plays too central a role in his think- ing to be similarly dealt with. In a nutshell, Douglass claims that all people have certain individual rights, such as to Hfe and liber- ty, which are so essential to one's physical and psychological well-being that self-defense (or the defense of someone else in

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trouble) can sometimes justify violence. His argument here is not particularly original, but this might, in fact, give his case wider appeal, especially in our liberalized world where rights-talk has gained special currency.

Douglass's discussions of his own use of force, while still a slave, against the attacks of the self-proclaimed "slave-breaker," Edward Covey, has attracted some recent attention. Bernard Boxill's view seems most correct. He argues that Douglass's fight with Covey is best viewed as a case of self-defense in which fail- ing to act could result in irreparable damage to one's sense of moral personhood, or sense of worth.^^ Describing himself before the fight, Douglass says: "I was completely wrecked, changed and bewildered; goaded almost to madness at one time, and at another reconciling myself to my wretched condition."^° And, although defending himself against Covey was directly aimed at protecting himself against an instance of physical abuse, it resulted in a change in his conception of himself. He gained a sense of personal dignity and self-respect: "I was a changed being after that fight. I was nothing before; I WAS A MAN NOW... A man, without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity."^'

It is important to note that Douglass thinks this new-found dignity came in part firom a change in Covey and not just firom the awareness of his newfound willingness to stand up for him- self. Covey could no longer stand in a perfect master-slave relation with Douglass—the power Covey held over him was no longer absolute. Douglass claims that human nature is such that we can- not help but fail to honor a person who lacks power. And, given that our sense of self involves seeing ourselves through others' eyes, it was important that Douglass not only stood up for him- self, but that Covey came to see Douglass as something more than a mere object or animal to be used.

What became most important for Douglass was that his moral self-worth was protected or reclaimed by this event. But, although centrally important in Douglass's thinking, this aspect of self-defense cannot provide a justification for the use of vio- lence by anyone other than the slaves themselves. Brown's case.

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for example, must be justified in some other way, though the notion of individual worth, couched now in terms of rights, continues to play a significant role.

In his defense of violence against slaveholders, Douglass had argued that all people have rights to things such as life and lib- erty, though these are not absolute and can be forfeited under certain circumstances.̂ ^ The right to hfe is similar to the right to freedom in that its security hes v^th how a person uses it. A per- son can forfeit his or her liberty and be put in jail by society if he or she violates another's freedoms. Likewise, a person deliber- ately "taking pleasure in enslaving, imbruting, and murdering... feUow-men"^^ forfeits his or her right to life. In harming others, he or she grossly violates the right of society to preserve itself, and, when the governing body of a society fails to protect the rights of its citizens against others, the person whose rights are violated (and that person's intimates) can act according to an "original right of self-defense." '̂*

It is this right to defend one's fireedom that Douglass uses to defend Brown. He also considers, however, the objections that, first, "while men deprived of their liberty had a right to get their freedom, it [is] a very different thing for free people to go and assist people to get their freedom," and second, that Brown's attack on the federal arsenal was not aimed directly at the guilty party—the slaveholders.̂ ^ In response to the first of these objec- tions, Douglass argues that because slaves are unable to speak or act for the protection of their own rights, the right to defense is shifted, so to speak, to those who are capable. He adds that if those objecting were to put themselves in the shoes of the slaves, they would "thank any John Brow^n.. .who came there to release them."^^ With respect to the second criticism, Douglass argues that Brown had merely responded to an "insurrection against the rights and liberties of mankind," in which the slaveholders were backed by the American government.^'' In other words. Brown is responding with violence to existing violence supported in part by the state whose armory he had attacked.

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CONCLUSION

What is interesting about Douglass's support of Brown's use of violence is not that it is particularly original, but that it, much more so than Thoreau's, seeks to address the minimal criteria for the acceptabihty of violence. In addition, Douglass has provided us with the substantive details that could potentially be used to evaluate other cases—keeping in mind, of course, that there is a general moral presumption against the use of violence. For instance, we might wonder whether violence could legitimately be used by aboriginal peoples when their culture is threatened by newly restricted fishing and hunting rights once guaranteed by treaties, or whether migrant workers with few legal or polit- ical options could justify violence in cases where their physical or psychological well-being is being threatened from both busi- ness and the state. We could ask whose rights, and which rights, are being violated and whether, for example, violence would be the only effective response. In one sense none of this is very deep. However, real Ufe cases often quickly become quite complicated, and Thoreau's rather vague notion of action firom principle seems considerably less helpful in sorting out the issues than does Douglass's work. This is not to suggest that Thoreau's impas- sioned defense of non-violent, iUegal protest is not interesting and important. N o r does it mean that Douglass's emphasis on rights is problem-free—it may be, as mentioned above, overly individualistic. My claim here is that at first blush, Douglass's argument connects more directly with the commonsense crite- ria for justification of violence and gives us more substantive material to work wdth when approaching other cases of violence in response to injustice.

N O T E S

'Henry David Thoreau, "Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum," 77ie Writings of Henry DavidThoreau, vol. 4. (New York: AMS Press, 1982), 313. In a collection of Thoreau's correspondence, there is a letter dated Oct. 31, 1859, to "Thoreau or Emerson" from Charles W. Slack that says only: "Thoreau must lecture for Fraternity Tuesday Evening—^Douglass fails—

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Letter mailed." The lecture was "A Plea for Captain John Brown." Thoreau, 77ie Correspondence of Henry DaWrf T7joreflM, Walter Harding and Carl Bode, eds. (New York: New York UP, 1958), 564.

^Thoreau later arranged to have Emerson's speech published as a pam- phlet, though I can find no mention by Thoreau of Douglass having been at this gathering. Thoreau, "Chronology," Henry David Tlioreau, Robert F. Sayre, ed. (New York: Library of America, 1985), 1045; Frederick Douglass, "Chronology," Frederick Douglass, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. (New York: Library of America, 1994), 1057.

3This was Thoreau's response to the arrest of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns and was given at a July 4,1854, rally set up by William Lloyd Garrison. It was then published in the Anti-Slavery Standard, Tlte Liberator, and the Tribune (New York). This was the first of two times (see note 1) Thoreau filled in for Douglass when the latter was unable to make it to an address.

''Harpers Ferry is now in West Virginia. ^William Lloyd Garrison, "To W H. Furness," Dec. 17,1859, Tlte Letters of

William Lloyd Garrison, vol 4, Louis Ruchames, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1975), 293.

6"To an Unknown Correspondent," Dec. 18, 1859, vol 4, 294. •̂ Douglass, "Speech on John Brown," Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,

vol. 2, Philip S. Foner, ed. (New York: International Publishers 1950), 533. ^The first three of these are suggested by Howard McGary as criteria most

Americans expect cases of violence as self-defense to meet. Howard McGary, "Psychological Violence, Physical Violence, and Racial Oppression," Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy, Lewis R. Gordon, ed. (New York: Routledge, 1997), 263-64.

9Ibid.,268and271. lOThoreau, "Slavery in Massachusetts," Civil Disobedience and Other Essays,

Philip Smith, ed. (New York: Dover, 1993), 22-23. ii"A Plea for Captain John Brown," 45. i2"CivO Disobedience," 5. i3"Slavery in Massachusetts," 27. '""Civil Disobedience," 8. 15"A Plea for Captain John Brown," 45. i^McGary, "Psychological Violence, Physical Violence, and Racial

Oppression," 271. '^Thoreau's 1854 essay "Slavery in Massachusetts" is a public condemnation

of those in the North who accepted and even participated in the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act's mandate to capture and send escaped slaves back to their masters.

'^Douglass, "Inhumanity of Slavery,"fi-om Appendix of My Bondage and My Freedom, Philip S. Foner, ed. (NewYork: Dover, 1969), 436.

''"Speech on John Brown," Ufe and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. 5 (Supplementary Volume), Philip S. Foner, ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1975), 533-35.

20Ibid., 535.

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21 "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," Frederick Douglass, 726. 22"Speech on John Brown," 535. 23Ibid., 537-38. 2''My Bondage and My Freedom, 242. 25Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience," 4. 26"A Plea for Captain John Brown," 47. 27"Slavery in Massachusetts," 27. 28"Civil Disobedience," 10. 29Bernard R . Boxill, " T h e Fight with Covey," Existence in Black: An

Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy, 281. 30Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 221. ^'Ibid., 246-47; emphasis in original. 32"Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?" Ufe and Writings of Frederick

Douglass, vol. 5, 285. 33Ibid., 286. 34Ibid., 286. 35Douglass, "John Brow^n and the Slaveholders' Insurrection: An Address

Delivered in Edinburgh, Scotland, O n 30 January 1860," The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, vol. 3, John W Blassingame, ed. (New Haven:Yale UP, 1985), 316-17.

36Ibid., 317. 37Ibid., 317.

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