Opinion of John Brown

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Short answer: Brown was regrettably correct to conclude that "the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood," and his actions in the Harper's Ferry Raid were morally justified. It is difficult for me to see how anyone could contend the War for Independence to be justified on the grounds that "taxation without representation is tyranny" and "whenever any government becomes destructive to these [certain inalienable rights], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it" could simultaneously contend that slave rebellions were beyond the pale. If the people have a right, even a duty, to rebel against tyranny, then it's hard to see how Brown's raid does not fit the bill.

I'm not certain that is enough for Brown to qualify as a 'freedom fighter' beyond the literal sense. Brown's aims may have been noble and righteous, but his actions in Bleeding Kansas display an unnecessary bloodlust (murdering unarmed civilians in the dead of night) that reflected more a desire to take "an eye for an eye" than any real or effective strategy to abolish slavery. The planning and execution of his raid, furthermore, betrays a megalomania that corrupted his plans and rendered his aims unachievable. By 1859, he seemingly cared more about his own martyrdom than actually freeing any slaves, which his raid ultimately failed to do. That doesn't strike me as behavior we should lionize as a great abolitionist.