"During the war with England [in 1812] a circumstance occured that in the end made him a most determined Abolitionist: & led him to declare, or Swear: Eternal war with Slavery. He was staying for a short time with a very gentlemanly landlord since a United States Marshall who held a slave boy near his own age very active, inteligent and good feeling; & to whom John was under considerable obligation for numerous little acts of kindness. The master made a great pet of John: brought him to table with his first company; & friends; called their attention to every little smart thing he said or did: & to the fact of his being more than a hundred miles from home with a com-pany of cattle alone; while the negro boy (who was fully if not more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed; & lodged in cold weather; & beaten before his eyes with Iron Shovels or any other thing that came first to hand. This brought John to reflect on the wretched, hopeless condition, of Fatherless & Motherless slave children: for such children have neither Fathers or Mothers to protect, & provide for them. He sometimes would raise the question is God their Father? . . ." (From a letter John Brown wrote to 13 year old boy named Harry Stearns, he's referring to himself in the 3rd person)
Christman was speaking to this on the latest cushvlog, in regards to the Good Lord Bird show. How the lib take of the show portrays Brown as mad, as only a mad white man could think that black and white folks were equals. Matt says something to the effect that it’s backwards: John Brown was perhaps one of the only “sane” men in the midst of insanity.
Completely agree, from what I've read, the John Brown is crazy argument originates from southerners trying to prevent Brown from becoming a martyr and northerners trying to convince the south this was a one time event and to prevent succession. Reading about his early life, it's clear from a young age he had these views and saw himself as acting in the service of the lord in stopping slavery. There's a good quote from abolitionist Wendell Phillips that describes the whole period perfectly "hard to tell who’s mad."
I think it's got a lot to do with the general lib sentiment being ultimately "whatever the general consensus is."
You'd struggle to find any lib who would disagree with John Brown's views on slavery in a broad sense - e.g. that it's very bad. Likewise, they would consider anyone living now who wanted to bring back chattel slavery as being mad - let's leave aside their tendency to write off appallingly evil viewpoints as mental illness because that's a conversation for another time.
John Brown's actions however put him against the general consensus of the south that slavery was OK - that's what makes John Brown mad in their eyes. It's not what he did or how he did it, it's that he went against the established order.
Yeah its a lib take John Brown but I'm still enjoying it regardless. I'm just hoping his portrayal doesn't get any worse.
Having not watched the cushvlog but having watched the first episode of Good Lord Bird, I'd say the show less portrays John Brown as crazy for wanting racial equality, and more as portraying him as crazy because he agitated for civil war. The show's ethos seems to be equality=good, violence=bad. In the show all the slaves just want to take the first caravan north and get the fuck out of dodge, but John wants to go around fighting slaver militias. It's fine to believe in equality, but I think the show thinks it's not fine to fight for it with violence. It's okay to free slaves, it's not okay to kill slavers.
Which is a lib take. Clearly the show thinks John Brown should've just been part of the underground railroad but what was he supposed to do? Smuggle all three million slaves north on his own? Agitating for war is the only sane way if your goal is freedom from slavery and racial equality, and John clearly read the currents correctly as the country had been on the brink of civil war for years.
Militia's battling in Kansas or an armed slave revolt in Virginia could've sparked the war just as easily as Fort Sumter or secession or Lincoln's election or whatever it was that finally kicked off the war.
He means "became a US marshal after the time this anecdote took place (since then)", I think. I feel like a lot of temporal career phrases like this have mostly disappeared, like "sometime" meaning formerly/for a time, e.g, "sometime judge in Middlesex county."
Caveat: just speculating based on experience reading 19th century texts. Given that John Brown is writing in a style that is somewhat "clipped," he could mean "due to being a US marshal."
I interpreted the way you did, definitely an older expression that has fallen out of use. Nowadays you’d probably say “who is now a US Marshal”.
