HOPPER THREAD · 4 CONNECTIONS
Brown, the war, and the price of slavery
Brown’s warning, Sherman’s experience, and Lincoln’s later words form a question I want to explore.
BEGIN WITH
John Brown’s final warning →
A written note on the day of his execution anticipates the terrible price of slavery.
- 01 · DOCUMENTED CONNECTION
Two positions before the war
Brown leaves a warning about bloodshed. Lincoln’s reported response the following day accepts the punishment while rejecting Brown’s methods.
Story
Lincoln responds to John Brown →
Lincoln’s response to Brown reveals the distance from which these trajectories began.
- 02 · PERSONAL CONNECTION
The scale that others resisted
Sherman’s estimates and the response to them belong beside Brown’s prescience in my reading of how the coming struggle was understood.
Story
Sherman and the war others underestimated →
The commander whose estimates of the coming struggle were treated as evidence against him.
- 03 · PERSONAL CONNECTION
Put the words beside one another
The warnings lead to the comparison at the center of this thread: Brown’s final note and the thematic crux of the Second Inaugural.
Story
Brown and Lincoln: blood, judgment, and a question →
Brown’s final warning and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, read beside one another.
- 04 · PERSONAL CONNECTION
A question worth wondering about
Was there a conscious or unconscious acknowledgment of parts of what Brown said? The question arises from the words and from Lincoln’s development.
Speech
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address →
Slavery, responsibility, and reconciliation at the end of the Civil War.