{"id":12595,"date":"2024-03-08T00:26:51","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T05:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=12595"},"modified":"2024-03-18T23:22:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T03:22:16","slug":"the-john-brown-way-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/03\/the-john-brown-way-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe John Brown way\u201d part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850. The Constitution already allowed private individuals to pursue escaped captives into the North, but the new law created federal forces to do the job. It also forced local officials to get involved and suspended habeas corpus<\/em>\u2014the right to appear in court to challenge one\u2019s detention. This law threatened all the operations of the Underground Railroad, and it put free Black people at risk of simply being kidnapped. It also sparked an exodus into Canada; the law was ex post facto<\/em>, so in theory, those who had escaped slavery years or decades before could be snatched back into captivity.1

New vigilance committees sprang up all over the North. In Springfield, where John Brown still did business, there was no vigilance committee, so he initiated one. This was an armed all-Black group of 44 people called the League of Gileadites. On Brown\u2019s advice, the group included women. He mentioned Cinque to the members\u2014and the idea that Black courage and self-assertion would win more sympathy and respect than any tales of Black suffering. Like David Walker, Brown believed that whites would never treat Black people as equals if Black people didn\u2019t stand up for themselves. Frederick Douglass recalled, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847: \u201cNo people he said could have self respect, or be respected, who would not fight for their freedom.\u201d2

The abolitionist minority was becoming galvanized and more radical.<\/p>\n

Next came the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Back in 1820, the Missouri Compromise had drawn a line and said that there would be no slave states admitted to the north of it. The new law left the issue of slavery up to the settlers in the territories north of Oklahoma. This set up conditions for civil war in the Kansas Territory. Heavily armed people from Missouri crossed into Kansas. These people, known as Border Ruffians, fixed an election in the territory and created a pro-slavery government.3