149 years ago today, at 11:15 in the morning John Brown was hanged by the neck until dead in Charles Town, Virginia, for the crime of trying to start a slave insurrection.
Henry David Thoreau said in his breathtaking A Plea for Captain John Brown:
This event advertises to me that there is such a fact as death; the possibility of a man’s dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; for in order to die you must first have lived.
I read Thoreau’s piece this morning. Rather than quote it at length, or editorialize about John Brown, I encourage you to take a little time today and read it yourself.
Today, as in 1859, there are great crimes being committed on our soil and around the world by the rulers of these United States, committed in our name, with our taxes.
Let John Brown’s example encourage us to try and stand, like him, “with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you.”
Crossposted at Fire on the Mountain.