JOHN BROWN TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Akron, O[hio]. 9 Jan[uary] 1854.

F. DOUGLASS, ESQ:

DEAR SIR:—

I have thought much of late of the extreme wickedness of persons who use their influence to bring law and order, and good government, and courts of justice into disrespect and contempt with mankind, and do what in their power lies to destroy confidence in legislative bodies, and to bring magistrates judges, and other officers of the law into disrespect amongst men. Such persons, whoever they may be, would break down all that opposes the passions of fallen men; and could they fully carry out their measures, would give to the world a constant succession of murder, revenge, robbery, fire and famine; or, first, of anarchy in all its horrid forms; and then

of the most bloody despotisms, to be again succeeded by anarchy, and that again to terminate in a despotism. What punishment ever inflicted by man, or even threatened of God, can be too severe for those whose influence is a thousand times more malignant than the atmosphere of the deadly Upas¹John Brown likens the destructive influence of proslavery supporters, especially those who retain some official capacity, to the upas tree. The upas, , is native to Java and other Indonesian islands, Africa, and China. The extremely poisonous sap of some varieties is used to treat the tips of poisonous darts, spears, and arrows. Brewer, , 1435.—for those who hate the right and the Most High?

I will now inquire who are such malignant spirits—such fiends clothed in human form? Amongst the first are men who, neglecting honorable and useful labor to seek office and electioneer, have come to be a majority in our national Legislature, and in most of our State Legislatures, and who there pass unjust and wicked enactments, and call them laws. Another set are from the same description of men, and who fill the offices of Chief Magistrate of the United States, and of different States, and affix the official signature to such enactments. Next come another set from the same horde, who fill the offices of judge, justice, commissioner, &c., who follow that which is altogether unjust. Next come a set of Capt Rynders²Isaiah Rynders (1804-85), New York City gang leader and Tammany Hall boss of the sixth ward, was a powerful figure throughout the late antebellum era. Of German and Irish background, Rynders was born in Waterford, New York, and attended school until about age twelve, when he shipped out as a deckhand on a riverboat running between Troy and New York City. He later either owned or commanded a small Hudson River sloop, retaining the title “Captain” for the rest of his career. Abandoning maritime pursuits around 1830, Rynders spent several years in the South, where he gained a lasting, and possibly exaggerated, reputation as a duelist, gambler, and horse-racing enthusiast. In the late 1830s, he returned to New York City and established himself in the slum area known as Five Points. Active in Democratic politics from the time of his arrival, Rynders opened a public house on Park Row that became a gathering place for local Tammany leaders as well as the headquarters of the infamous Empire Club, a band of street toughs first recruited by Rynders to disrupt Whig political rallies during the election of 1844. Over the next dozen years, Rynders’s services to the Democratic party brought him a series of local federal offices. When not intimidating political opponents, Rynders and his followers participated in a number of rowdy civil disturbances, including the bloody Astor Place Opera House riots of May 1849. A staunch defender of slavery, Rynders became the nemesis of New York abolitionists during the 1840s and 1850s, periodically disrupting their meetings with tactics he had perfected in the political arena. As early as 1857, however, he began to lose his grip on the Five Points gangs, and despite being a Copperhead during the Civil War, he had to appeal for police protection during the 1863 draft riots. Rynders remained active in New York Democratic politics after the war, holding a variety of minor city and county offices throughout the 1860s and 1870s. , 17 May 1849; New York , 14 January 1885; New York , 14 January 1885; , ser. 1, 2:237n; Herbert Asbury, (New York, 1928), 43-45; James McCague, (New York, 1968), 118. men—marshals, sheriffs, constables, policemen—brave cat paws of the last named, ever prompt to execute their decision. Another set are such as sometimes succeed in getting for some office, and are very loud at hotels, in cars, on steam-boats and in stages, urging upon others the duty of fulfilling all our solemn engagements. And “last, but not least,” ³This phrase appears to have originated in 1580 when John Lyly used it in the didactic romance . John Lyly, , ed. R. Warwick Bond, 3 vols. (Oxford, Eng., 1902), 2:113. come the devils, drummers and fifers—such fellows as in get into the “sacred desk,” there to publish the Gospel, (no doubt;) for numbers of them are Doctors of Divinity. But what Gospel do they preach? Is it the Gospel of God, or of the Son of God? God commands, “That which is altogether just shalt thou follow;”⁴ Deut. 16:20. and every man’s conscience says Amen! God commanded, “That thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best. .”⁵Deut. 23:15-16. Every man’s conscience says Amen to that command. The Son of God said “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the Prophets.”⁶Matt. 7:12. The conscience of every man that ever read or heard that command says Amen! But what says these so called Divines? You must obey the enactments of the United States Congress, even to the violation of conscience, and the trampling under foot of the laws of our final Judge. “Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood.”⁷Neh. 13:29.

There is one other set of the same throngers of the “broad way,” which I have not mentioned. (Would to God I had already done!) I mean Editors

of, and writers to pro-slavery newspapers and other periodicals. These seem to vie with each other in urging men on to greater and still greater lengths in stifling conscience, and insulting God. What, I ask, could possibly tend so to destroy all possible respect for legislators, presidents, judges, or other magistrates or officers—or to root out all confidence in the integrity of civil rulers and courts, as well as legislative bodies, as the passing of enactments which it is self-evident are most abominably wicked and unjust, dignifying them with the name of laws, and then employing the public purse and sword to execute them? But I have done. I am too destitute of words to express the tithe of what I feel, and utterly incapable of doing the subject any possible degree of justice, in my own estimation. My only encouragement to begin, was the earnest wish that if I might express, so that it may be understood at all, an important fact, that you or some friend of God and the right, will take it up and clothe it in the suitable language to be noticed and felt. I want to have the inquiry everywhere raised—Who are the men that are undermining our truly republican and democratic institutions at their very foundation? I forgot to head my remarks “.”

Yours in Truth,

JOHN BROWN.

PLSr: , 27 January 1854.