John Brown,public relations,terrorism,and social capital: ‘His Truth Goes Marching On’

Historical and biographical details: Terrorism in the tradition of public relations

In October 1859, an attack on the US Arsenal in Harpers Ferry (then in Virginia) launched John Brown even more prominently into the sociopolitical maelstrom over slavery that had torn the United States for decades. By all standards, the raid was a blunder in how it was executed and what it implied for the future of slave revolts. However badly Brown and his small band miscalculated their act as the spark that would ignite slave insurrection, the back lash from the South and even among some abolitionists in the North opened the public dialogue to narratives of more attacks that were likely to succeed. The identity/persona that he created as a leader of a cause inspired not only his followers but it also set the foundation for the battle over his character that ensued after his execution. Such battles are fundamental to terrorism’s impacts not incidental to it.

That attack was planned to scare those who supported slavery, embolden those who opposed it, and foment an uprising among slaves who would create a defensive position in the countryside which would spread as a war of liberation. That act sparked increased calls for Southern state secession and increased enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA) which infuriated northerners who opposed both the FSA policy and the institution of slavery. This act (1850) had for nearly a decade required authorities and ordinary citizens to capture and return slaves to their owners. Following Brown’s raid, Southerners called for even more stringent enforcement (Reynolds, 2005).

The narrative of violent abolition made a relatively trivial event (the raid on Harpers Ferry) into such an iconic case of action that the resultant and augmented fear caused an overreaction in the South. How trivial? In his massive three-volume study of the narrative of the Civil War, Shelby Foote (1986) gave Brown’s life and raids less than a page, and suggested that Brown symbolized a nation fractured over an issue thus giving supporting evidence of Lincoln’s notion of a house divided, one of the key moments leading to Lincoln’s election. Thus, what might have been largely ignored in the flow of history became, through a major post-event public relations battle, the cause célèbre of the American civil war.

A short biography of Brown is a crucial starting point since his character (and that of the generic terrorist) is on trial as events unfold. (For standard historical accounts and interpretations, see Chowder (2000), DeCaro (2002), Furnas (1959), Horwitz (2011), McGlone (2009), Nudelman (2004), Oates (1979), Otto (1979), and Reynolds (2005).) He was born 9 May 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut. Not only could he trace his ancestry to the early Puritans but he also swam in the stream of their Calvinism. His family became more intimately associated with anti-slavery as his father moved the family to Ohio where he became enamored of the Oberlin Institute which was a key part of the Underground Railroad and the intellectual examination of equality and perfection of the human condition. As a child, John Brown was taught that the Golden Rule applied to all people regardless of race. He was prepared thereby to be repelled when, as a 12-year-old boy, he saw a slave boy of his age treated badly by his owner. Brown realized, having just lost his mother, that this boy had no parents to care for or protect him. This incident became that compelling moment in the trajectory of his life. He would become ‘the Moses who would lead a race out of bondage’ (Reynolds, 2005: 65).

Brown’s plans to become a congregational minister were derailed by his periodic bad health, but he and his father were evangelicals committed to personal righteousness. Key to that complicated theme was the notion that humans stand before a God in judgment and suffer predestination. That angry God judges people by deeds and actions against a stern standard. Central to that standard was the demand that people be able to exhibit freewill and freedom of action. Such multi-layered textuality not only defined his character and motivation but it connected him in religious spirit to ideologically binary moral purists.

Circumstances including failure in business, loss of several children, and death of his first wife motivated him to believe that God was continually testing him. He was more or less interested in the Anti-Slavery movement as an institution but became more compelled to join that cause by the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy in 1837. Lovejoy was a publisher whose press was destroyed and life ended as a way to stop his anti-slavery advocacy. On the news of Lovejoy’s death, Brown famously, publicly proclaimed, ‘Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!’ Public relations campaigns need a theme, a premise, and perhaps a tag line. Here was at least one of Brown’s. It not only proclaimed his position and commitment but it thereby created a key element of his identity, his persona, and issue position.

At this point, Brown shifted his focus exclusively toward the issues of abolition and racial equality. His opinions became hardened and focused by what he read and heard during his years in Springfield, Massachusetts. This community was deeply involved, from top to bottom, with the issues that would inspire his life. As a parishioner in the Free Church, he heard a steady stream of anti-slavery speakers including Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. Springfield gave him the opportunity to see and participate in the workings of the Underground Railroad. He had the opportunity to visit with and think deeply about these issues as he hosted Douglass and others.

Initially, the Anti-Slavery movement, organized at all levels of society, and internationally, aspired to a peaceful end to slavery. Slowly Brown began to believe that in certain instances war was not only justified but also warranted. His religious zeal and waning faith in the founding documents of the country (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution), coupled with the issuance of the FSA, motivated him to help establish The League of Gileadites (a group willing to act and advocate resistance to the FSA). Ready to go to war against slave catchers, Brown spoke frequently in settings devoted to such a cause, but also listened intently to examine all strategies that would produce the results to which he increasingly dedicated his life.

The FSA, as policy, was the ideology and inspiration needed for the anti-slavery cause – for anti-slavery advocates saw, via federal policy, that the stronghold of slavery was not loosening but rather becoming more entrenched. Put simply, slavery was tearing the nation apart. Part of the Compromise of 1850 (which included passage of the FSA) included a provision that certain territories could determine by popular vote whether to allow or ban slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed settlers to decide that issue in those (Reynolds, 2005). Anti-slavery, free-soil advocates poured across the Missouri border into Kansas. At the same time, hundreds of proslavery advocates also moved to the territory in preparation to influence the vote. To assure success, proslavery advocates paid ruffians (terrorists?) to intimidate by any means needed the Free-Staters to not vote or to support slavery. It is essential to the Brown saga to know that in 1855 he learned from his adult sons, living in the Kansas territory, that their families were completely unprepared to face attack of the proslavery advocates.

Before departing for Kansas, he had participated in an anti-slavery convention in Albany, New York. It was a controversial conference because advocates of violence enjoined others to join and fund the crusade. Those appeals were frustrated by those who believed that abolition would come naturally as the institution of slavery would die a normal death as the forces of agricultural labor would change. Despite some group discord, Brown marched on from New York to Kansas – inspired by the simple principle that an eye must be given if an eye is taken – and the Golden Rule. As Brown made his way to the Kansas territory, he engaged in fundraising (public relations) for the cause and acquired weapons; much of this funding and weaponry came from supporters in Ohio – the state in which he was reared. (He did this repeatedly, and later with sufficient success to arm his band and acquire the weapons of freedom to be distributed to slaves in insurrection – including those used at Harpers Ferry.)

Even though armed and prepared for war, Brown and other Free-Staters were convinced that the ballot would win the cause, and thus settle the issue. Despite a desire for a peaceful resolution, in 1856, proslavery forces upped the ante. They attacked, including the burning of Lawrence, Kansas, one of several Free-State strongholds. Brown called them cowards for violating the rules of law in order to bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state. It became clear to Brown that the trajectory of events would lead to the defeat of the anti-slavery vote – especially given intimidation tactics used by those dedicated to making Kansas ‘bleed’ for its freedom.

Brown fought back. For example, with only about two dozen men against an attack of about 400 men, he successfully defended the free-soil town of Osawatomie, Kansas, thus earning him the nickname Osawatomie Brown. On 24 May 1956, Brown and colleagues dragged five proslavery advocates from their homes and into the night. They were brutally hacked to death in what came to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. The motive was the self-defense of Brown and his followers as well as the deep hatred for FSA enforcers which the targets of the attack were believed to be. As Brown believed then and would continue to believe, he was doing the work of God, a vengeful God that would not tolerate inhumanity or weakness. The cause was righteous (DeCaro (2002) claimed Brown was more morally committed to abolition and racial equality than most abolitionists were). That is one of the fundamental principles of faith for the practicing terrorist. He was cheered after this action as he rode at the head of his band through the streets of Lawrence, a victorious ‘Roman general’.

After weeks of battling the proslavery forces, Brown and his followers helped several former slaves make their way to safety. He then engaged in more planning, raised funds, acquired weapons, and recruited the team that would help execute his plan.

As evidenced above, Brown did not develop the plan for inspiring a slave revolt quickly or spontaneously. Its germs began to sprout early in his life, blossomed during his adolescence and early adulthood, and matured fully in later adulthood when he, and a few others, came to doubt that peaceful means would end slavery and bring racial equality and harmony to the nation. He knew that he could do something immediately about racial harmony and instilled that ethic in his children by word and deed. Action against slavery, however, was less within his control. It took Brown years to bring together needed material, personnel, and ideological resources to challenge slavery. That planning and training was made evident to the nation in the Kansas confrontations.

As is typical of issue campaigns, this issue was slowly and inexorably moving toward some kind of resolution. None of the players could be sure how it would resolve, but all knew that at any moment it was likely to take a dramatic turn. Strategic issues management, inspired by the social movements of the 1950s and 1960s, has for years rested on a dynamic foundation of the sociopolitical stages of issues debate and power resource management. Such is also the case for terrorism.

Strain is that sense among persons considering, creating, and developing social movement positions and actions that some matter is not as it should be. Simply characterized as a ‘problem’, strain is the recognition of circumstances, cultures, ideologies, issues, ideas, and such that just are not right. To do something to ease the strain, social movement activists organize and mobilize forces for change. This aspect of social movement activism requires the discursive development of an ideology to focus and sustain action. It requires identity, identification, and a growing sense that action can be efficacious. In the case of terrorism, some dramatic event/moment (or a series based on trial and error) is needed to make the cause and solution well known.

If mobilization is successful in gaining enough power resources, that effort can lead to confrontation which is a power move that can, but may not, promote sufficient power leverage to force negotiation, even collaboration, and resolution. Terrorism often ends with confrontation, but may – given the context of many factors – move on to constructive solution. In the case of Brown, the act led to secession and civil war. By that means, the issue was ‘resolved’ but at huge material, cultural, and human cost.

In sum, this section has offered insights into three of the themes proposed earlier:

Extending this analysis, the next section sets the context for and explains in brief detail the event.

The event: The issue explodes

Reflecting on 19th century public relations, public relations scholars often condemn P. T. Barnum (1810–1891) for creating pseudo events, especially if based on lies, innuendo, and hyperbole. He was the huckster’s huckster. However, Barnum’s contributions to the practice of public relations are often overlooked because his behavior can too quickly and easily be used to condemn the ‘value’ of the event. In fact, one of the essential tools of terrorism is an (many, and even serially) event. It dramatizes, publicizes, and promotes a cause, personalities, identities, and even issue positions. Thus, especially since it is associated with harm and even death, terrorist events might not be tolerated as ‘public relations’, but issue advocates for a cause who encounter substantial resistance need (at least in their minds, and otherwise history judges) some power resource to level the playing field against organized resistance (Heath and Waymer, 2009). A violent moment can be that resource, and how it is played out is crucial to the public relations of terrorism.

Brown’s plan, simply, was to attack the federal Arsenal in Harpers Ferry, obtain weapons, take hostages, and foment a slave insurrection. In October 1859, he led 21 men (16 White, 3 free Blacks, 1 freed slave, and 1 fugitive slave) against the town and arsenal using 198 .52 caliber Sharps carbines, short broad swords, and 950 pikes that had been contributed by wealthy abolitionists. The pikes, carbines, and other weapons taken from the arsenal were intended to arm additional recruits, primarily those who revolted against slavery. This would, according to his plan, become the core of a settlement that would spread revolt throughout the South.

The raid began on 16 October and lasted only a short while. It started by taking hostages, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grandnephew of George Washington, and in the process, Brown acquired two talismans: A sword presented to Washington by Frederick the Great and two pistols given to the President by the Marquis de Lafayette. They were symbols of ‘freedom and democracy’.

The total raid, which actually in many ways was quite trivial in effect, is too complicated to explain here. People died on both sides, ironically including a free Black man, Hayward Shepherd, a baggage handler for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Another who died was Fontaine Beckham, mayor of Harpers Ferry, who had a reputation of kindness toward Black members of the community. Brown’s band was marginally successful, for a while. But, the raid ended quickly, hostages were unhurt, and even well treated. Brown and several others were captured, tried, and hanged. That modest event could have led to the end of Brown and his dream – the abolition of slavery.

Social capital and legitimacy: The event as discursive public relations

A fundamental challenge for organizations of all types is to create and/or associate with sufficient social capital to be viable (Ihlen, 2005, 2007). Extending that logic, that means that to have impact, terrorism requires habitus, field, and capital (economic relevance, cultural impact, and relational influence). Habitus is the conceptual, cognitive, discursively meaningful fields wherein and whereby acts are interpreted as variously legitimate. Field is the pool of available resources, and capital is the economic, cultural, and social/relational resources over which agents compete and collaborate. These conditions define the ways ideological and power forces compete for resources and resource distribution.

As the field for Brown’s attack, he sought to position himself physically and symbolically in the following way. Physically, he had associated with abolitionists and anti-slavery advocates of all ages, wealth categories, gender, and races. He had lived in various communities where freedom and race equality provided fertile ground for rethinking adherence to a political economy that not only tolerated slavery but also mandated that all members of society oppose fugitive slave migration and freedom. He lived and fought in Kansas to help create it as a free state. Now, he went to the South to foment a revolution.

Culturally, his acts were grounded by the field of previous revolts, starting with the New York slave revolt of 1712 which was inspired and led by 23 enslaved Blacks who killed 9 Whites and injured 6 others. Interestingly, that revolt predated the US War for Independence. Additional ‘fields’ of revolution include Gabriel’s conspiracy, in which Gabriel was a literate enslaved blacksmith who planned a large slave rebellion in the Richmond area in the summer of 1800, as well as more famous revolts such as the 1881 German Coast uprising near New Orleans; Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy, in which Vesey (in the 1820s) planned a slave rebellion near Charleston, South Carolina, after he purchased his freedom; David Walker’s Appeal, published in 1829, which urged Black readers to take an active role in fighting their oppression and to press White Americans to realize the moral and religious failure of slavery; Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion in 1831; and Cinque’s Revolt on the slave ship ‘Amistad’ in 1839. All of these ‘events’ were intended to ‘terrorize’ slave owners and their supporters and legitimize abolition.

The key, and a fact not missed by Brown, was that these were inspired, planned, and armed by Black men. Moreover, Brown recognized that violence was the rationale of slavery, and likely would be the necessary tool for its defeat. That was a part of the social capital field on which Brown built his plan. In this strategy, he was very much in tune with the social capital of the era.

As part of the Anti-Slavery movement, with its intuitive and often skillful application of public relations best practices and strategies, Brown’s plan was to act rather than continue debate to protect Free-State advocates in Kansas and to foment slave insurrection starting in Virginia. His communicative enactments and statements created newsworthy coverage of the immorality of the institution of slavery. His willingness to use violence created an explosive narrative in the South, including the eventual claim that the Union Army, Abraham Lincoln’s army, was ‘John Brown’s Army’ (Oates, 1979; Reynolds, 2005).

The centerpiece of that mythic/narrative overreaction by proslavery Southern secessionists was the spark that ignited, as a match does explosive fumes, fear of slave insurrections, both spontaneous and led by abolitionists. Violence itself did not create the conditions leading to the Civil War but found fertile ground in the battle for social capital in the anti-slavery/proslavery debate.

Brown did not invent violence, terrorism, or the idea that the slavery question might, and even should, bring about its resolution through war. That prospect traces back to the earliest days of the nation as voiced by leaders at all levels of society (including former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams). As did many others, Brown discussed and spoke out on the need for and inevitability of war.

For years, including examination of slave revolts, the narrative of war was set against the voluntary self-destruction of slavery and the virtues of patient non-violent resistance, the rewards of which would earn passage to Heaven. What could violence produce but more violence? The counter narrative asked what is earned by patience with an intolerable system. But, could violence prevail? It had not previously, but that fact did not deter an increasingly impatient wing of the abolition movement. As idealistic as he was, Brown was a hardened pragmatist tested by circumstances. He had vowed violence, even that which he believed to replicate primitive acts of rebellion by slaves and Native Americans. This narrative welled up in him and became an obsession, as Reynolds (2005) summed up in observing the motive for his brutal actions in Kansas against the proslavery actors who threatened him and his band:

His act of violence surged from the heart of racial oppression. Like his later revolutionary schemes – including his stealing of eleven Missouri slaves, his convention of blacks in Chatham, Canada, and his massive slave rebellion in the South to be sparked by the Harpers Ferry raid – it stemmed from his racially motivated vindictiveness. (p.167)

If no one had paid much attention to the raid, trial, and personality of Brown, the event itself would have been just a mere blip on the radar screen of history. But the quite minor shedding of blood and loss of life by hanging led to the Civil War which cost millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.

Narrative song captured both the physical and moral field of this event. One version sang, in part, ‘But though he lost his life in struggling for the slave/His truth is marching on’. Julia Ward Howe’s version, the one that became ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’, shifted the text from Brown to God: ‘He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword/His truth is marching on’. The total impact of Brown’s war on people and property was less than that to eventually be executed by myriad cannon blasts, fired muskets, and swords thrust during the War. So, is terrorist impact the violence enacted or is the violence a statement in an issue campaign?

This section supports the aforementioned premise:

As one of the key functions of public relations is publicity and promotion – the making of some matter or issue public (Hallahan, 2010) – actions such as the issue-oriented attack of a terrorist can foster visibility as social capital (Heath and Waymer, 2014). Such an act gives visibility, attracts attention, to the organization, its identity, and reputation; its ideas (facts, problems, and solutions/policies) and values/norms; and its criticism of others ideas (facts, problems, and solutions/policies) and values/norms. Some of that textuality preceded the Harpers Ferry attack (even going back to discussions of bloody Kansas), but much more came out in the trial, Brown’s speeches before he hanged, and the debate over his (His?) cause (by opponents and proponents). The event (public relations strategy) sparked and fanned an issue advocacy forum over slavery. Brown was hanged, but his truth went marching on as a proclamation of dedication, human rights, and individual dignity.

Very important to the final outcome of Brown’s story is the fact that his actions and statements captured the imagination and applause of the highly influential Transcendentalists. They admired resolve, individualism, self-reliance, justice, and even brashness to advance a cause. The next section looks at the moral equity (personal and societal) that supported the campaign, as well as the narrative equity fearing revolt by slaves. Thus, the next two sections provide support for the final premise:

Intellectual and moral fields: ‘Truth Marching On’

Committed to avoid violence if possible, Brown tried to negotiate after his capture, but the terms were unacceptable to his captors. He was willing (probably enthusiastic) to suffer the consequences of failed negotiation and be hanged. His Calvinism would not let him yield to injustice. To yield on the point of surrender would be to grant the authority of a system that supported slavery. He was willing to be judged within that system believing that he would ultimately, and ironically, be found innocent by a higher authority. This righteousness, the foundation of his stalwart and moral character, inspired those predisposed to bring him to justice. A key to his ‘terrorism’ is that there is nothing more terrifying than a righteous person willing to die for a cause.

Contemporary critics as well as critics during Brown’s day deemed him ‘insane’ for his acts. That assessment might be true, but it also can be true that such a statement is an allegation cooked up by opponents to discredit his character, as well as the legitimacy of the cause. Such too can be said about characterizations of others labeled as terrorists. If Brown was insane as some Southerners alleged, he was not to be taken seriously, but if he was ‘righteous’ in the context of a culture that adored righteousness, the fanaticism was inspired by head and soul (for discussions of Brown’s sanity vs insanity, see Donald (1995: 239), Finkelman (1995, 2011), and Oates (1979)). Reynolds (2005) captured this complexity in his discussion of Brown:

If John Brown’s effort to wipe out slavery by raiding Virginia with a tiny band of men seems absurd when viewed as an isolated military act, it makes sense when seen in light of the slave revolts, guerilla warfare, and revolutionary Christianity that were major sources of influence on him. (p.9)

Much has been written on the character and credibility of terrorists. One view can be that terrorism can be a rhetorical act required for the full and true expression of citizenship (Heath, 2011, 2012; Heath et al., 2013; Marsh, 2010). In the classical tradition that linked citizenship, rhetoric, and action, the demand was not only for participation but also the matter of character/credibility mattered. Character/credibility was centered on the morality of the cause that was championed and the values with which the actor associated. Brown believed his action was inspired by his duty as citizen, but more importantly, he believed that the ultimate judgment of an argument’s integrity was not only for humans to decide but also primarily for God to inspire.

With that authority, Brown believed he was predestined and affirmed by the times to be a mighty sword against slavery. From this ideology came an unshaking faith that slavery was a sin and that slavers must be punished – by God and the sword of the righteous. Embedded in this ideology, as well, were the principles of human rights. Brown even believed after the fact that his raid was predestined to fail in principle, but not purpose. He noted that in a letter after his conviction, writing, ‘The disgrace of hanging does not trouble me in the least. In fact, I know the very errors by which my scheme was marred were decreed before the world was made’ (quoted by Reynolds, 2005: 25).

Almost as quickly as the attack on the Arsenal was made, that phase of the battle was over, but Brown got his opportunity at publicity and issue advocacy that would be punctuated by his trial, conviction, and hanging.

Confrontation: The attack, trial, and public relations battle over character

As reputations go, a principle of public relations, objective assessment is unlikely to be the spirit of character building or destruction. Brown came to be deified in the North, and vilified in the South: Thus, he embodied and personified the divisions of civil war. Even before he entered Harpers Ferry, ‘“the hunted criminal” (of Kansas infamy) was transformed into a venerated warrior, the frontier pariah … an urban celebrity courted by a small but influential cluster of Northern businessmen and intellectuals’ (Reynolds, 2005: 207).

Within such textual narratives, the specific event, the attack on Harpers Ferry, began on 16 October 1859 and ended 2 days later. On the morning of 18 October, Colonel Robert E. Lee sent Lt J. E. B. Stuart under white flag to negotiate (recall stages of activism above) with Brown. Brown refused to surrender, and on Stuart’s order, a group of marines stormed the engine house which the ‘terrorists’ had barricaded. Soon after the marines gained entry, Lt Greene identified Brown, struck his head with his saber, and thrust the saber against his left breast. Had the sword entered Brown’s heart, the raid would have ended and no trial occurred. It was during the trial, hanging, and debate about the morality of the event that its impact magnified. (Stuart, as did others, would later interrogate Brown and challenge his religious convictions, asking if his acts were righteous as an instrument of Providence. Brown affirmed that he was such an instrument.)

Was it the Hand of God that saved Brown for the promotional campaign that followed? Lt Greene, in his haste to prepare for the assault, strapped on a ceremonial sword which bent against Brown’s breast (Malanowski, 2013). So, Brown emerged from the firehouse to be tried, hanged, cursed, and vindicated.

Even before this fateful moment, his narrative seemed invincible. He defied the best efforts of proslavery advocates to capture and kill him for his crimes in Kansas, for freeing slaves, and for advocating violence on speaking tours and at abolitionist conventions. ‘The mystique surrounding Old Osawatomie made him seem invulnerable’ (Reynolds, 2005: 283). He was mythic, larger than life.

That is just the stuff, the reputation as publicized, that not only inspires followers and supporters but also drives opponents to grander heights of fear and hatred. However badly the attack had failed, its symbolism was powerful, giving viability to his campaign, advocacy, and cause. Immediately after the raid, newspapers across the country used all of the hyperbole they could muster to characterize the raid. If public relations is supposed to cause ‘buzz’, this campaign did that. In an era without television, radio, and social media, everyone soon learned about and formed an opinion regarding the truly minor event in Harpers Ferry.

As Malanowski (2013, Brown quoted on p.61) mused, since the sword thrust against his breast did not kill him, ‘Brown used the next six weeks to pontificate on his cause, making an indelible impression on the public’:

Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments – I submit: so let it be done!

Hearing statements such as this, Southerners knew that Brown’s reputation had to be attacked and his cause either must be blunted or used as the rationale for secession – their enacted ‘self-defense’. Jefferson Davis, then a US Senator from Mississippi and later the president of the Confederacy, claimed that even if a thousand John Browns attacked the South, the nation would not protect the people there; thus, the South would have to organize and act as such to ensure its self-preservation. Brown’s name became the cause for secession.

Some Southerners could not believe that the raid was intended to free slaves because White men did not fight such battles. Crowds of commentators could not believe that people would unjustly kill to end slavery. But that narrative ended as members of the raid were found to be of both races and they proclaimed that such action was a voluntary matter of duty. And, had Brown’s life been temporarily spared to be the righteous voice of abolition?

Newspapers of all ideologies and key voices for the South were intrigued by Brown’s character and demeanor in the face of death. He showed no signs of weakness or lack of courage and conviction in his righteousness. In an age that adored Hegel, such character traits were redeeming of actions no matter how foul. Governor Wise of Virginia and Senator Vallandigham of Ohio (a Southern sympathizer who would become Lincoln’s Copperhead Democrat nemesis during the War) interviewed Brown as he awaited his execution. Wise used terms such as clear headed, courageous, collected, indomitable, and humane – but also called him a fanatic who is vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful, tough, intelligent, and a good commander if only for a better cause. Nevertheless, he was a murderer, traitor, and malicious (see Reynolds, 2005: 332–333). Brown, and this is important, demonstrated the courage to sacrifice his life for a cause and was not in the mind of Southerners a coward as they believed abolitionists universally to be.

And redeeming Brown’s cause and character, some claimed that instead of ‘madman’, he was a ‘SAINT!’ (Reynolds, 2005: 345), and some Southern sympathizers, including Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, the Calvinist ‘right hand’ of General Robert E. Lee, even spoke well of him. John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln’s assassin) was one of the soldiers standing guard at the execution; he hated Brown’s cause but admired his impact and modeled his very own act of murder on it. Anytime any act of violence, or even its threat happened, Brown was the attributed cause: His reputation ‘marched on!’

While his actions were being vilified, a public relations campaign began to both vindicate him and to champion his cause (Chowder (2000) reasoned that his act and character were fodder for arguments by all voices regarding slavery). Reynolds (2005) speculated that ‘the campaign’ to champion, redeem, and resurrect Brown’s reputation was essential to Brown’s impact:

Had Transcendentalism not been in the picture, what would have happened? The tide of negative commentary on Brown that flooded the Northern press would have continued. With few opposing voices, negativity would most likely have won the day. (p.343)

Voices speaking for Brown included such influential intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (Transcendentalists), John Greenleaf Whittier (poet), and Victor Hugo (French novelist); they led the post-raid image building and issue advocacy campaign. Hugo believed Brown had wakened a new era of democracy. Theodore Parker (Transcendentalist) championed this as a monumental event for human dignity through insurrection and rebellion – which he predicted would continue. Their statements, and those of hundreds of others, were stoked by letters Brown wrote from jail that were printed by a hungry press fascinated by the event, and the moral paradox captured in his speech made during the trial.

Emerson’s voice was perhaps the most powerful, insightful, and talented. He said that Brown’s act made the gallows ‘a glorious cross’. Although by no means original, this notion of the ‘glorious cross’ attached the act to perhaps the most powerful and redeeming narrative in American culture at the time (Reynolds, 2005: 367). The martyr, carrying the cross to justice, and for justice: Does that reputation-building narrative not make a public relations practitioner green with envy? Picked up by other voices, that became the redeeming reputation-building theme of the act and actors. Coincidental to the speech, a spectacular meteor shower lit the night. His cause was marching on!

Thus, it was not just what was said in hyperbole about positive (Hegelian) attributes of Brown and his cause, it was also who interwove the act, leader, band, and cause into the fabric of what is best about American democracy. He was a warrior against injustice of the most horrid kind. He was saintly, a hero, a man of courage, a leader, and on and on went the accolades. He acted to save his soul! Was that in his self-interest – a narrow motive? Or did the ‘saving of his soul’ require the willing and noble sacrifice of his life for a righteous cause?

Ever insightful on the discursiveness of Brown’s life and action, Reynolds (2005) captured the clash of narratives that explain how such failure of action could have so much impact:

The raid on Harpers Ferry helped dislodge slavery, but not in the way Brown had foreseen. It did not ignite slave uprisings through the South. Instead, it had an immense impact because of the way Brown behaved during and after it, and the way it was perceived by key figures on both sides of the slavery divide. The raid did not cause the storm. John Brown and the reaction to him did. (p.309)

Had Brown and his followers flinched, showing doubt or cowardice – even guilt or shame – the cause would be less powerful and had less impact. If they were insane, that would excuse the attackers without giving fire for the proslavery paranoia.

Terrorism cannot have impact unless it achieves social capital, arguably by advocating a cause and attaching to powerful pro-change narratives. One aspect of impact is the character and motive of the terrorist. The interests of the men in the raid were not self-serving; they were willing to sacrifice all for a cause larger and more noble than their lives. In fact, they would fail to be righteous if they did not willingly sacrifice for the betterment of others. As Heath and Waymer (2014) reasoned, the legitimacy of terrorism is achieved through the social capital that is earned by the terrorists as (1) agents of discourse, (2) terms of the discourse, (3) hierarchies of the discourse, and (4) trajectories of discourse.

Findings

As part of the Anti-Slavery movement, with its intuitive application of public relations best practices and strategies, Brown’s goal as part of the movement was to act rather than continue debate to protect Free-State advocates in Kansas and to foment slave insurrection starting in Virginia. His communicative enactments and statements created newsworthy coverage of the immorality of the institution of slavery. His willingness to use violence created an explosive counter narrative in the South, including the claim that the Union Army was ‘John Brown’s Army’. The centerpiece of that mythic, narrative overreaction by proslavery Southern secessionists, was the spark that ignited, as a match does explosive fumes, fear of slave insurrections, both spontaneous and led by abolitionists. Violence itself did not create the conditions leading to the Civil War but found fertile ground in the battle for social capital in the anti-slavery/proslavery debate.

Without knowing the public relations discipline as such, Brown called attention to a problem, helped polarize a nation, and ignited a reaction that moved anti-slavery and proslavery factions further apart so that a unified nation embracing slavery and the fugitive slave law was no longer morally viable. Such polarization was in large part the product of his character (others characterizations of him), his Calvinist commitment to freedom and equality, and the need to act rather than debate the issue per se.

As is typical of public relations campaigns, his work was issues oriented and spawned narratives that both condemned and lauded his courage and commitment, and the need for action to end slavery. Transcendentalists such as Thoreau and Emerson applauded his character and willingness to move the United States to higher order ideals of freedom and personal dignity. Proslavery forces, including those advocating secession, created fear as the motive for calling for violent opposition to abolition. His statements and actions generated substantial social capital for abolition.

Brown’s was a just war against an abominable institution. Many used scripture to justify slavery, but those same persons’ religious inspiration was torn over Brown’s personal conviction to be doing righteous work. If a key aspect of social capital is a good reputation associated with a good cause, that was the ace in Brown’s hand.

Implications

Publicity efforts of P. T. Barnum have long been used to condemn publicity and press agentry as less than noble and even unethical strategies. This study of Brown, a contemporary of Barnum, suggests that such analysis may avoid the important theme that social change needs publicity. That point has long been part of the Cutlip (1995) heritage of public relations history, but is often overlooked if publicity is dismissed as propaganda. A terrorist attack is an event, a ‘publicity stunt’.

Terrorism is often treated as a destructive force in society; however, we show that problematizing discussions of terrorism enables more complete nuanced definitions of it and fosters an understanding of the various roles it plays in society. It was ‘terrorism’ that motivated the US War for Independence, and ‘terrorism’ continues to influence the activities of 20th century animal rights advocates, environmental terrorists, and those who oppose clinical abortions as murder.

Originality and conclusions

An act of terrorism is not a definitive statement of opinion, but one of the many opinions expressed on some rhetorical matter of public interest. As Heath et al. (2013) concluded,

Language, argument, information and fact, values, character: These components of the rhetorical canon have survived for thousands of years because they are inherently democratic based on shared power and empowerment. They presume that discourse improves ideas and the public sphere allows for thoughts to enjoy support and suffer criticism. In this way, public relations is supported – and challenged – by principles of rhetoric and democracy, the rationale for deliberative democracy. (p.278)

Terrorism, as enacted by Brown, can be interpreted as an asymmetrical one-way strategy. If so, that model is insufficiently interpreted as unethical. His efforts dramatized the importance of publicity and promotion, the often denigrated corporate tools of exploitation. He saw terrorism not as an option but moral obligation and as a means for forcing debate over slavery and racial equality.

His case, and that of terrorists in general, gives evidence for the conclusions that reputation and legitimacy are vital, never inessential, aspects of the societal understanding of the act. Brown was tried, convicted, and hanged for treason against the state of Virginia (which actually was not constitutional), whereas that was not the fate of almost all of the former officers in the US Army who had pledged to defend the US Constitution but served in the Confederate Army. It was a penalty not meted against the persons, such as Jefferson Davis, who organized a war against a country (the United States) to which they had openly pledged allegiance. How are acts of violence and resistance labeled as terrorism? In essence, the answer to that question depends on the public relations interpretation of the persons and events, and causes.