Why John Brown Wasn't a Hero - Monsieur Z Reaction
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- See the original here - • Why John Brown Really ...
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Never heard of Monsieur Z before, but anyone who claims to be “the last honest historian” probably isn’t
As a former subscriber, he was an alternate history UA-camr who went off the deep end into far-right stuff.
No historian is truly "honest" and without bias, history is simply a narrative and the historian is there to create it.
Also anyone who is so self congratulatory should not be taken serious
@@cammyman32 ahh, seems similar to WhatIfAltHist then, unfortunate to see formally fun channels devolve into just plain nonsense
The fact that he has spoken in favor of eugenics is certainly alarming. I'm sorry to subject you to that fact.
Monsieur Z sure seems bent on making this a left vs right issue
I think there is definitely a good point to be made about calvinism/puritanism being ingrained in American culture in unexpected ways, but he was very reductionist in how he went with that idea.
@@roddbroward9876That take is hardly unique to Monsieur Z TBF. Max Weber famously wrote an entire book linking Calvinism to modern capitalism.
Given that I have watched his channel for a long time now, I can safely say that Monsieur Z is that he is very conservative. He is a staunch social conservative and traditionalist. He supports Trump and considers himself an America First conservative. I personally don’t agree with all of his political views as he is definitely more conservative than I am, but I really like his alternate history content and I’m aware of his conservative perspective when making his videos even though I may disagree with it. It’s definitely fair to argue that he has become more overtly political in his content than he was when he first started making videos back in 2017.
@@abrahamlincoln937 See that's what I don't get. This guy isn't the first or the last to make these kinds of videos essays. Why does the right go out of their way to make the south look good, while simultaneously doing the "The Democrats were the slaveowners" schtick? It ignore a whole lot of context.
And don't get me wrong, the left absolutely does this too (especially in regards to modern conflicts, I'll say no more on that). I just feel like everyone wants to turn history into a contest. There's never nuance in most of these videos. It's sad, honestly. I guess that's why I tune into this(VTH) channel. He's really up front about what he believes on a subject, yet explains it in a very neutral way. It's refreshing.
@@sudafedup It's more of a culture war thing, which his channel is definitely about. I think equating him with "the right" sort of falls into the same trap that he is pulling with this video by framing "the left" as the same as the most negative take on John Brown imaginable. He's very much on the fringe of any political aisle, with awful takes such as claiming that Abraham Lincoln was akin to some sort of tyrant and other videos that are clearly sympathetic to the south.
“I have only a short time to live, only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause. There will be no peace in this land until slavery is done for.”- John Brown
That sounds very heroic to me.
@@antoninedelchev6076 True, but I would also argue that we must be wary of taking what people say at face value. I think you can only truly judge someone by their actions, not necessarily by what they say or think.
@@thecynicaloptimist1884 I think John Brown's actions speak for themselves.
@@antoninedelchev6076 Sounds suicidal and maniacal to me, given the context of his actions. Classic case of extremism. Just because the extremism is for the good side does not make Brown's extremism and political violence against those innocent of wrong-doing any less despicable. Please, try to have some nuance.
@@LuxRoyale cope.
You notice how throughout the video monsierz repeatedly frames abolitionism as somehow oppositional to christianity? As if one cant be a real christian and an abolitionist.
Which is bizarre to me. You would think Christian values would be inherently abolitionist.
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"
My favorite Bible quote
"Thou shalt brain the slave owning baby" Hebrews 1-8
@@MyUsualComment The bible has some lines about making and handling slaves, usually not very favorable to the slaves.
But there are also lines you could interpret against slavery. Love thy neighbor might be one, another is the Moses Story and the exodus of the slaves.
It is complicated.
@@MyUsualComment, that's what a lot of abolitionists (including Johnny Brown) thought too.
Yes, because many people take a few lines from Pauline apostles and the old covenant law to mean that Christianity is pro-slavery.
It's total nonsense. Slavery as practiced in the America's was never aligned with slavery as laid out in the Law.
Anyone who disagrees with me about that is a liar, or illiterate, or hasn't read the Bible, or is severely misinformed about the history of America.
They didn't practice the Feast of Jubilee, so it wasn't biblical slavery. Period.
VTH: I want people to be civil.
Mr Z new video "Why Ohio is the worst state"
VTH: Need to break my own rules 😡
I dunno, he was able to keep his cool, more or less, on the Dreaded Wilson.
Screw Mr Z, I live in Ohio, anyone who makes fun of our state makes fun of all of us.
19:35 Even Thomas Jefferson, of all people, predicted some sort of divine retribution/conflict due to the violent legacy of chattel slavery in the United States, writing prophetically that: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever." Jefferson also stated in the same quote that in the event of such a conflict, God would not side with the slave-owning oppressors.
Jefferson on religion is kinda weird though. He’s anything but orthodox…
@@Justanotherconsumer That's hardly the point. He was right about one quality of God in that statement. However, how did he square this with his deism?
And this is just as true with the big atrocity of the 20th and 21st century, which the US hasn't yet shaken off, despite recent court decisions.
@@Justanotherconsumer Jefferson was all over the place in terms of his religious beliefs. On one hand, he was a staunch deist who distrusted organized religion, going so far as to even painstakingly remove all references of miracles in his edits of the New Testament. That said, Jefferson did, like in the quote above, suggest his belief in a higher power that directly and occasionally intervened in the universe -which contradicts the deist conception of God as a watchmaker god" that created the Universe but did not intervene in his own creation.
@@str.77 Which is?
Monsieur Z makes it seem like the Pottawatomie massacre was just an out-of-the-blue murder spree, conveniently leaving out that it was retaliation for the sacking of Lawrence, KS. The people that were targeted at Pottawatomie were those that had participated in the sacking of Lawrence.
Remember, you don't have to own slaves to ally yourself with slaveholders and participate in raids on abolitionists, and that's what these people did (including the one whose widow is quoted in the video).
Again, we can discuss the morality of retaliation or the methods, but pretending that this wasn't retaliation is disingenuous.
Very good point. By leaving that out of the video, he made it look like the widow and her family were just minding their own business.
For a little more context on the widow quoted in the video, her husband was James Pleasant Doyle. He and his two sons William and Drury (who were all 3 killed that night by James Brown's Posse) had all worked in Tennessee as professional slave catchers. James moved to Kansas when it was announced that the residents would be allowed to vote on whether Kansas would be a free state or a slave state for the purpose of ensuring that Kansas would be admitted as a slave state. He worked as a slave catcher in Kansas, catching escaped slaves and returning them to the Border Ruffians (pro slavery paramilitary group) so they could be returned to slavery. James and his sons collaborated often with the Border Ruffians, informing them about new abolitionist settlements, including targeting Lawrence as a place to send a message that would discourage future abolitionists from settling in Kansas.
So yeah, not owning any slaves was about the only positive thing he had going, and that was likely just because he was too poor to afford slaves, not because he objected in any way to the institution of slavery.
This comment really needs to be seen because Z used that lady as, in my opinion, his strongest argument. I truly dislike people's tendency to purposefully leave out context while informing the average audience. Most people won't go and fact check, or in this case "context check", the information that he provided in this video. It's one of the cardinal sins in creating misinformation.
Yes, this was a retaliatory raid. You cannot go around attacking those you disagree with and then complain when they hit back.
I'm honestly not surprised, it's just like Z to leave out context maliciously like that.
I feel like Monsieur Z just wants to be a contrarian
Because he has a different opinion? One that is more nuanced than saying someone's a hero or villain as if they're in a cartoon?
@@anonymousperson3023 Exactly. You can agree with the overall sentiment behind his actions but still believe him to be a terrorist who did horrible things to try and achieve political goals. They're not mutually exclusive. So much civil war discussion has devolved into "my side good no matter what" to both northerners and southerners. Pathetic lack of nuance in the comment section.
@@anonymousperson3023You guys would say the same thing about Nat Turner
@@anonymousperson3023I don't know if monsieur z is nuanced. He is painting a picture of the left and using the brush of some people justifying John Brown's actions to say that all of the left are zealous traitors.
It is not hard to condemn John Brown's actions just like it is not hard to condemn the entirety of the Confederacy, even easier. But some people wave the flags of that entire traitorous cause.
@@anonymousperson3023 Because he's talking about the topic in an extremely reductive way and using loaded language totally wrong. HE keeps throwing out genocide without actually understanding what it means.
Monsieur Z is using some pretty classic manipulative argument tactics here. Note how he keeps saying leftists or liberal historians say something but he never gives names or cites sources for it.
He also goes out of his way to make them an out group, a “them” that disagree with “us.”
Wait, so he is not right because he did not give you names and addresses? Is this really a question? Who else celebrates people like Brown? Its pretty much the left.
This is relativly normal!
@@killerkraut9179 Doesn't matter how normal that style of argument is, it's a bad style and if someone tried to argue that way in any setting more formal that UA-cam they'd either be laughed or booed out of the room. There's a reason in academic contexts that if you're going to say something like that you put it in the literature review which is usually the most citation dense part of an academic paper.
@@joshuawindsor-knox3626 Isnt what you do just a mix out of authority argument and bandwagen argument!
Thank you for calling out the hypocrisy between this analysis and his video defending Woodrow Wilson. Far too often people will demonize those they disagree with and will try to justify and redeem those they agree with while turning a blind eye to their misdeeds as well.
Wilson was not a leftist. He definitely had a messiah complex though. Kind of fitting the Spanish flu he ignored probably triggered his stroke.
Honestly, John Brown is the perfect grey character. He has many things on his record that were great, and many that were terrible, he was a radical terrorist and a devout freedom-fighter at the same time, it makes him a very interesting subject for discussion.
If he followed Haiti as a Example he was maybe just sick and evil!
John Brown more than most other historical figures reminds me of the Stannis Baratheon quote - "A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward (A Clash of Kings IIRC)."
Uh oh Chris looks upset in the thumbnail 😬😬
Im here for it baby!!!
Wasn't as upset as he should have been.
John brown seemed the most prominent of people ready to accept that slavery wasn’t going to just go away on its own, and wasn’t going to be legislated out without bloodshed.
So many genocides or mass murders have used that as excuse, it's not right.
He understood that as long as people’s lives and/or social status depended on slavery, the people who benefited from it would do anything to defend it.
@@drakal30 What was the alternative? Slavery was an inherently violent institution. It wasn't going to be abolished without violence. Hence, the Civil War.
How did Britain free its slaves?
@@Galow311by paying off slave owners, something that was never going to happen in the U.S.
I bet this monsieur z dude is in some pretty spicy discord servers, that's all I'll say.
The comment sections for his videos tell you enough about what kind of people he attracts as his subscribers.
His community posts and polls pop up on my timeline all the time. Can’t speak for him, but his commenters are…. Yeah. That group.
As someone who is further to the right than most and therefore has some knowledge of the sphere, I can confirm that he indeed is. He interacts a lot with another youtuber called Zoomer Historian, he makes some decent videos, but from watching his videos and speaking with him it is quite obvious that he's at least a nazi sympathizer.
I agree, he wasn't a hero. He failed, he was a Martyr. Words have meaning. That said: John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave,, His soul goes marching on! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His soul is marching on!
edit: As a girl with a very confusing set of political beliefs, its not as simple as "the ends justify the means" or "the ends don't justify the means", certain ends justify certain means within a proportional reasonability. John brown presses against that in a way that I don't seriously like, but its a farrrr cry from true evil (evil motive, evil action, evil result), which the confederacy was. A rebellion causing mass destruction to preserve slavery is not morally comparable to a rebellion to end slavery.
He was probably a hero to the 11 slaves he rescued from Missouri before the raid.
I think one way to look at it is that John Brown did reprehensible things, but what is more reprehensible is that this country was allowed to ever get to the point where a man who does the things that Brown did could even be argued as necessity or even good.
He murdered people in their homes, pulling them out of bed, and yet it is a legitimate and understandable argument to be made that he was in the right.
It's not that he didn't do anything wrong however his enemies and the institution of slavery was a far greater evil
I don’t have much to add other than that I really respect the perspective you give on John Brown in your edit, that’s the kind of level headed non-dogmatic take that I think people who both idolize and demonize him do a disservice by throwing away in favor of partisan viewpoints.
I can’t exactly condone or contextualize Brown in a positive sense as a historian, but his actions were a reaction to a great evil in his society and casting him as a villain instead of casting slavery as the villain is a really misleading idea. At the same time, making him a martyr for the sake of modern activism like, say, an Atun-Shei does really overstates his goodness and undersells the violent grim reality of his belief system.
@@01subject I don't agree with your interpretation of Atun-Shei's views on John Brown. If you watch his John Brown video, he's very clear on how violent he was.
Edit: He's also very clear on which lens he is using to interpret the history.
Note that Mr. Z finds it expedient to only quote the first half of Brown's final message. The complete quote is "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood. I had...vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done."
One can't help but wonder if this is because the full quote undermines his desired narrative that Brown was thirsting for a genocidal massacre?
Likewise he thoroughly misrepresents the history of the Haitian revolution, which contrary to his claims, did not begin as a genocidal project and certainly wasn't one under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture. Louverture was committed to a policy of attempting to reconcile the Haitian revolution with the French Republic. If John Brown were modeling himself on Louverture that would only further undercut Mr. Z's characterizations.
Mr. Z is trimming the facts to suit his agenda.
John Brown was undoubtedly right in deducing that the slavery issue would only be resolved in blood, but I’m going to use a quote from Octodad: Dadliest Catch here: “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you’re not crazy.”
John Brown above most historical figures scares me for the very reasons that he does truly awful and evil things in the name of something that I am very much in support of. He scares me because he forces me to confront that I may be willing to sign away evil things as justified or allow others to do evil things as justified in my name and not care. That I think is very scary, especially in todays world.
This is by far the best take I've seen on this topic. People fighting for the most righteous of causes can easily commit the most heinous of atrocities. It can be easy to fall into a twisted utilitarian view of justifying evil actions because the good of your end goal outweighs the bad of your means. After all, what's a few million dead on the road to utopia?
My general opinion on John Brown is that he was a terrorist with a good cause.
That doesn’t excuse what he did. He killed some innocent people if I am recalling correctly as I know there is a monument in Harpers Ferry to a slave he killed. I am not as familiar to him in Kansas as much. The ends don’t justify the means in my opinion; if anything it you could argue that it justified people’s fears. And when trying to talk to people who oppose you I think you have to do the opposite.
Are you willing to sacrifice your soul and morality for a cause? Are you justified to do evil things in the now that may change things for the future (without any guarantee that it will work or fail). That is what John Brown forces us to look at
I think in very extreme cases for an extremely good cause and to fight extreme evil, the ends justify the means, think of nuking of Japan for example, the nukes are horrifying, and there is a very good argument that they could be considered Warcrimes however many accept it ( including myself although I'm still very conflicted on it ) because it was an extreme act to stop Japan and force them into a surrender and it can be argued it saved more lives in the grand scheme of things, so I personally think under some rather extreme circumstances the ends may indeed justify the means
@@ninjagirl226 Isn't the monument at Harper's Ferry for a freed man John Brown's militia killed mistakenly? Doesn't excuse their killing. Just wanted to clarify that for everyone (including myself; I may be misremembering).
Wow, an actual comment with nuance! A rare sight down here.
It is videos like this that truly make me appreciate Chris' ability to hold his opinion on things without throwing insults at dissenting thoughts or beliefs. I consider myself a social democrat, but I have yet to watch one of his videos be incendiary or be peppered with veiled insults and childish name-calling. I respect his nuanced approach and find his content very engaging. As to the video, the person's modern example falls apart when you consider that John Brown was fighting to abolish the enslavement of human beings, and that it simply has no modern equivalent in the U.S. Furthermore no reasonable and serious person would say that indiscriminate murder of non-combatants is something to be honored or glossed over. I have never heard anyone on my side say as much, but his ideals to risk his blood and life for the freedom of an enslaved people, at a time when it was easier to look away, is in fact admirable. I will also add the usual statement liberal =|= leftist. They are different philosophies mainly focused on the fact that liberals still support capitalism, the person in the video seems to use it interchangeably.
In any case, I wish I had subscribed sooner. Thank you for your content, Chris, and I will continue watching though now as a subscriber.
As long as you don’t threaten or impugn Ohio, you’re safe in the house of our host.
Its clear you do not pay attention to what some on the left say about John Brown and your self identification sort of proves out some of the points you complain about
But to say there no modern equivalent is rather odd. Abortion anyone? I know we argue around who is being aborted but if that is a baby our country is supporting the largest genocide ever.
But again you prove why slavery was acceptable to so many back in the 19th and prior centuries. They did not see it as we do now and Im betting a 100 years from now society will not see abortion as we see it now.
@@robertfetrow4612 Can you point to evidence that a fetus has thoughts, feelings, consciousness etc.?
@@adamdavis1648
Can you prove they don’t?
@@robertfetrow4612 Can you prove a golf ball doesn't? If not, is it appropriate to compare golfing to slavery?
The problem for me with people like Monsieur Z is that he takes this deeply flawed approach to history that there are only two perspectives: "true" and "everything else". There are as many perspectives on history as there are people, and it's oh so convenient that when you take that binary approach to history, "true" history is nearly always what soothes one's own personal biases.
He takes the approach here that John Brown being a hero or not is something that can be objectively demonstrated, rather than it being a subjective interpretation of his actions. I also don't like his culture war binaryism that "the liberals think this, while all us smart folk know the truth". I think you could be a conservative and view Brown as a hero, and be a far-leftist and think he was a monster. I don't think it's contingent on one's own political beliefs.
He does the exact same things he accuses this nebulous "left" and "liberal historians" of, but is completely blind to it.
This struggle here is so seen in the idea I find so prominent in social media. It is the assumption that because I feel this way about some, me..., it must be right! If I believe it, it is true, or else I wouldn't believe it. We flawed humans just aren't that perfect. BTW though I no longer live in Ohio, I am from there, and I knew that the underground railroad went a lot through there, but I never realized just how much! I love history, and if anyone knows where I can start to find a better connection to historic places associated with this in Ohio, I would appreciate it!
I studied history in undergrad and wrote my thesis on genocide (I also have family members that surviveda genocide). One thing that gets my goat is how people throw around the word genocide but do not know what it means or how to apply it. This video shows how people throw the term around as a buzzword to advance a political agenda rather than actually showing motive.
Same. Anyone that wants to compare Brown’s to anti southern genocide should talk to the genocide survivors in my family.
I just wonder what the specific “throwing around” of the word is you’re referring to. Because if 1 event being claimed as a genocide that you don’t personally think is, that’s not really “throwing it around”, more something you need to personally confront and decide individually if it’s a genocide or not. I think we all know what you’re referring to.
@airanator1212 sure thing; it is like when people use the term facist not to describe someone who actually is facist/believes the ideology but calls someone that because they personally don't like them or their beliefs (making it a buzz word/insult). The end result is that the term becomes more and more meaningless and that is what I think happens with genocide (intending to and acting to destroy a group in whole ornin part, usually through physically and biological means) all the time. I kept the term simple here for brevity's sake. In the video though, we don't see Z show that John Brown had these genocidal intentions (which Chris calls out); we just see that he didn't agree with Brown (totally fine to do) and that he throws many terms in to demonize him (and "liberal" historians to outgroup people that disagree with him). TLDR, Z is lazy with his terms and historical analysis, thus making the video lazier, not as good, and making it harder to critique his views without being labeled in an outgroup (poisoning the well).
There are some problems with that, though, in that the definition of genocide is quite broad.
There are certain groups that want to reserve the word genocide only for what happened to them so that it cannot be applied to what they do to others.
Russian perceptions of WW2 atrocities let them feed the claims that justify their war in Ukraine even though they are attempting to deny that the Ukrainians even exist as a people, for the second least controversial example in today’s news…
@Justanotherconsumer 100% true, there have always been issues with defining the term (ex. Should it be broad or not, which groups to include, how the term was codified into international law had a lot of political behind the scenes, etc.). I don't know which is the best way to define the term or anything like that (I generally look to Lemkin, who coined the term and how he defined it). In any case, the point you bring up is really important historically and modern day with Russia and Ukraine that I hope people consider/think about!
My main point is that I just don't like when genocide or other political buzzwords are used either carelessly or to demonize someone/people you don't agree with. Like with the John Brown example from the video, I wish Z would further explained/showed that John Brown did have the intent to commit acts of genocide aganist southerners, slave owners, white people, or whichever group(s) he was trying to talk about. In the video, I think he shows that Brown intended to start a slave rebellion and free/arm slaves, but not to wipe out southerners (or another group) from America because of they are part of that group(s). In other words, he tacts it on to make Brown look worse rather than to actually show that he did that.
Thats my view but thank you for your responses, definitely loved engaging with and thinking about your replies today!
For me, morality is much more important than legality. I can recognize one law is injustice and should be overturned while respecting all the other laws. John Brown is an interesting case because it was impossible to free the slaves through peaceful means.
It was impossible in America
It went away peacefully in other places
@@JohnReedy07163ironic, isn't it?
@@JohnReedy07163Yeah, because it had become an issue of polarisation. It was not a matter of economics, but an inherent part of identity and culture for new people.
Legality is, in the end, irrelevant.
It is a means to an end, not inherently valuable.
John Brown didnt do anything to help free the slaves though. he just fed his messiah complex by orchestrating massacres of innocent people.
I'll file John Brown under "it's complicated."
i think the expression "well intentionned extremist" covers it well. noble goals, terrible means. it's debatable weather those means were necessary, but no one would deny he went at least a bit too far.
Exactly
I would argue abortion is today's Slavery argument. We call anyone who attacks an abortion clinic a terrorist. Same stuff
@@josephguillerey4391Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems like a contradiction. If his means were necessary to end slavery, then how could they have been "too far"?
@@josephguillerey4391It's never too far to use violence against a violent institution does anything it can to preserve itself. Though since humans are humans, mistakes will be made and will likely lead to excesses.
30:49 Monsieur Z made multiple videos explaining how he's against a second civil war! Though, his reasoning was "The right would lose"
I would think that all the nasty weapons we'd use to exterminate each other and the fact the Chinese and Russians would finish off or subjugate the survivors would be more of a motivator, but what do I know.........
@@RMSTitanicWSLChina being involved is just ridiculous, however Russia would be pretty quick to capitalize. I feel like Russia has a wet dream of taking back Alaska, and then they’ll just do what they want with Europe, now that the USA is “gone”.
@@airanator1212 Arguably so, but China spent centuries being the West's whipping boy, and they haven't forgotten it. China has also been investing and building relationships with a number of third-world countries, including Mexico. They also have a hundred million men with no prospects to find wives because of their "one child" policy. They have nothing to do and are a real liability to the PRC at this point because of that. China also needs resources. Most likely is that China and Russia team up. Neither country has that much real love for the US or its allies. Fighting a two-front war against both of them would be tricky even as a united country--fighting them off while fighting ourselves? Forget it.
@@airanator1212 France and the UK have their own nukes, so Russia could hardly take over Europe even with the US "gone".
@@francisdec1615 I know, I’m just saying Russia would just have vastly more freedom to push Europe around without the US constantly floating submarines carrying nukes past them telling them to slow their roll.
John Brown was right though, slavery DIDN'T go away without bloodshed. And a ton of it
This hasn't been a informative video or even critical analysis on John Browns motives or a really interesting look at how to interpret his martyrdom today.
It's just a hitpiece against the left or left ideology in general. "Look the left thinks John Brown is cool, they are just as bad!"
His constant mentions of "liberal historians" make no sense to me, because there are numerous academic sources that just plainly describe and explain the stuff John Brown did without sugarcoating it. He stylizes himself as some kind of contrarian that fights the academic landscape when nothing what he said is really new and John Brown was and probably always will be a rather controversial figure.
i think its a hit peice on anyone who supports John Brown and looks at him as someone to hold up as a martyr. And many left people do. You see WAY MORE hit peices on the right in the media now adays. When I read them i kinda just look at it as they are talking about a specific set of right or left now cause its so damn common lol.
He fights the academic landscape because he will never have the academic rigor to be part of it.
Your watching a reaction video bud... Hes not the one breaking down John Browns motives in this video, hes reacting to someone else doing it... Maybe stick to your day job lol. It sounds like you got a little butt hurt cause he didnt suck up to liberal historians and he remained pretty nuetral. He was just pointing out what people who support John Brown think. Obviously you dont know John Browns real motives, people have theories. Idk bro, your just sounding sadly offended cause he was pointing out the side that supports him (liberal historians) and not pointing out the side that dislikes him and you took that the wrong way...
@@jemiller226 he is part of it though... Hes a pretty well known historian and hes done videos with other historians... Plus isnt he a part of a history channel documentary coming out soon??.. Why you gotta be so negetive and rude? dude has an entire channel of amazing knowledge, appreciate it. He literally just remained nuetral and yall still got butthurt lool.
Maybe it's a cop out but I think history decides whether the ends justify the means. For example, Benjamin Franklin played a prominent role in a coup in Pennsylvania in 1776 with the aim of replacing the General Assembly, which instructed the Pennsylvania delegates to the Continental Congress that they couldn't support independence. The CC passed a resolution in May of that year deeming all crown appointed governments were to be replaced with colonial bodies despite having no authority to do so, and in Pennsylvania, Franklin et al got the militia on their side. And yet, we remember them all as liberty lovers and either leave out or justify the illegal overthrowing of their local, legally-elected governments simply because those local governments got in the way of accomplishing their goals.
I’m a bit confused about why you’re claiming a coup happening in this regard as something solely on Franklins shoulders. The transition to local representatives was a gradual thing in this specific scenario.
@@airanator1212 Well, what I said was "Franklin played a prominent role". But it wasn't gradual. The resolution passed on May 10th of 1776, stating essentially that any colonial governments who weren't "sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs" should be replaced. It passed unanimously because those delegates unhappy with their governments wanted them replaced and those delegates happy with their governments considered them sufficient and thought the resolution didn't apply to them. John Adams then wrote a preamble, which passed on May 15th, NOT unanimously, because it stated 'every kind of authority under the crown' would be 'totally suppressed', making it clear the resolution was meant to apply to every colony. On May 20th, the Pennsylvania General Assembly met, and protestors led by Franklin met on the State House lawn and sent a petition to the Assembly stating they had no legal right to govern. The militia also sent a petition stating they didn't recognize the Assembly's authority or any Assembly-appointed generals. By early June, radical Whigs in the Assembly stopped showing up, which meant the Assembly didn't have a quorum and, therefore, couldn't carry out their business (they never held power again). The PA Provincial Conference (selected by local provincial committees and not elected by the people) met at Carpenter's Hall from June 18-25 of 1776. They wrote new instructions for the Continential Congress delegates, approving their support for independence, declared independence for Pennsylvania, and organized a convention to meet on July 15th (with Franklin as president), where it was decided that a Council of Safety would govern PA in the interim while a new state-wide colonial government could be created. They also drafted the PA Constitution, which was ratified on September 28th. The first meeting of the replacement government (still called the General Assembly) met on November 28th.
So, the General Assembly lost its power within weeks of this illegal and unenforceable resolution, and there was a new government to take its place within months. It was undeniably a coup, and wasn't gradual in the least. But, moderates had the majority in both the initial General Assembly and in the Continental Congress, and Pennsylvania absolutely had to support independence if it had any shot of passing in Congress, so Franklin et al did what they believed they had to do, and because they did these things for the cause of independence, history doesn't condemn them for overthrowing their legally-elected government. It's, IMO, a perfect example of the ends justifying the means, and it's only one example. There are many examples of actions taken by radicals across the colonies in the 1770s that we would consider illegal authoritarianism, but those actions are more or less glossed over or given justification because history determined their cause was good.
God, the number of times he makes it about leftists and modern politics is irksome. Most analyses I've seen about John Brown fully acknowledges that his legacy is morally complex.
As for genocide... he's failing to distinguish between intent and effect. It's reasonable to argue that a successful John Brown rebellion would likely have featured genocide and rape and pillaging. I don't think it's fair to say his intent was. His intent was to free slaves. His methodology was utilizing acts of terror - whether he properly understood that or not. It is perfectly fair, IMO, to call him a terrorist. But to say he was genocidal, that's way too far.
Also, just because he researched the Haitian rebellion does not mean he understood the negative impacts of it. We routinely put on rose colored glasses when researching something we support and fully embrace the ends that we see while turning blind eyes or denying the consequences. Look at Nazi sympathizers who deny the Holocaust. Look at Lost Cause sympathizers who deny the Civil War was about slavery. Now, we condemn those people for their willful ignorance of the truth - often calling them liars - but it would not be unreasonable to imagine that John Brown had similar cognitive bias about Haiti.
Holocaust deniers, to be fair, are off in a category all their own. It's entirely possible to be a deeply confused person who believes myths about the cause of the civil war. Being a Holocaust denier is a level of wrongness that is nearly impossible to maintain without a pre-existing bias backing it up, which is to say that essentially every single one is a rabid antisemite whose opposition is based entirely on their refusal to accept anything that would inspire sympathy towards Jews. They know it happened, they just don't care and despise the fact that it's viewed by wider society as perhaps the greatest atrocity in human history.
He's using genocide to try and give himself the moral high ground. Genocide is a very specific thing and wanting to kill people for their political or social beliefs does not fit that definition. Much like the damage this practice does when some people on the left describing everything conservative as fascism and thus leaving us less able to actually recognize fascism, this type of hyperbole does a disservice to everyone involved. I've personally found the argument that the actions of others justify our doing the same thing morally and philosophically weak, and when someone tries to use that type argument its time to hold on to your wallet because they are trying to sell you something.
There are multiple definitions of genocide (and fascism) and some include social and political groups; the 1948 United Nations definition originally did include such groups, but the Soviet Union objected and refused to sign until they were omitted, likely because that would make them guilty of genocide.
Debates are often won by controlling the language; definitions are sadly often just tools for agendas and worldviews.
Also, I think on Z is insinuating that Brown was planning to genocide White Southerners as an ethnic group.
Good video but Gotta say one thing, Wilson was hardly a “leftist.”
He in fact started the first red scare. Even his liberalism was hardly liberal.
Yeah, at best you can point out at his white welfare reforms and being part of the progressive movement and even then it wouldn't be enough. He was definitely conservative on race, maybe even reactionary as he segregated the federal government. He was also definitely the most conservative of the "main" candidates of the 1912 election.
He was for child labor but then became against it, passing the Keating-Owen Act.
@@whilryke He didn't segregate the Federal government, he eliminated any "colored" employees. Wilson was a full-on racist.
And he loved the movie Birth Of A Nation . Great movie and a great man .
Leftist by American standards. Especially at the time. When an American says something you have to view it from an American lense mkay😂 for example if someone says “left policies” I think of democrat party policies, because very very very few Americans are actually leftists. But a lot of foreigners would view the Democratic Party as a Conservative Party, and would say there’s no true “leftist policies” being campaigned for by any major American party.
Watched this last night so pumped to see your reaction. Keep up the great work Chris.
Here's an example of the "do the ends justify the means" distinction regarding just rebellion against law and government:
The American Revolution vs the French Revolution.
The Continental Congress tried repeatedly to work within the laws of Great Britain. They sent the Olive Branch Petition and even enshrined in the foundational document that is the Declaration of Independence as axiomatic that a people were obligated to go as far as possible in the task of redressing injustice *within* the context of dutiful citizenship, and that only the last extremity could legitimately force a free people into rebellion. The founders also did not believe that the mere fact of their rebellion, even as deadly-serious and unlikely as it seemed, freed them from moral responsibilty.
Even when violent mobs attacked a pro-British governor in his home and burned it down, they deposed him, but didn't murder him. They drowned tea in harbor, not men.
Opposed to this, we have the French Revolution. When the Assembly were meeting to try to form a government of Republican virtue, the people laid siege to the Bastille. The governor of the Bastille was in direct talks with leaders of the mob and was clearly in trouble. In the end, they took him, cut off his head, stuck it on a pike and paraded it at the head of their column. Others' heads would also be paraded about on pikes at this very early stage of the Revolution. Did the men of the Assembly who were attempting to be the responsible representative leaders of the people decry such barbaric murders as being against French justice and Republican virtue? No. They celebrated them as just and deserved.
This difference in attitude explains how quickly the Revolution devolved into the Terror. Men at the reigns of power repeatedly felt justified by their own intelligence, the good ends of Liberty, and the supposed necessity of the moment to commit acts more barbaric and totalitarian than any French monarch had ever been able to manage.
American revolutionaries were willing to gamble the success or failure of the entire enterprise (to which their very lives were bound) on making sure it was done the right and just way. They would rather fail and hang as honerable men than succeed as tyrants.
When the government was completely broke in the middle of a war of survival, many leaders resisted the tactic of having the army forcefully requisition supplies from the populace.
The men who wrote first the Articles of Confederation then the Constitution which greatly restricted the power of the Congress *were* themselves that very Congress who were trying to steer the country in the right direction. They hobbled themselves for the protection of the people they represented.
Washington established the Chief Executive as a deeply limited office and stepped down after only eight years *even though* everyone loved and respected him and he knew that the infant republic he was willing to die for was *constantly* in danger of collapsing. Still, because it was the right thing to do, he left the work in the hands of others.
You undermine noble ends when you seek them by way of evil means. In the end, you usually find that you've sacrificed your soul for ends that have, in reality, become corrupted beyond recognition.
There are a few oversimplifications there. For one, the situation for the French proletariat was very different than that of the American revolutionaries. They were being taxed but they weren’t starving. For all the faults of the UK, the American colonies weren’t being mismanaged so much as they were used to a certain privilege, that being that they were not being taxed. Of course it is reasonable for the colonials to want representation if they were going to lose the privilege of tax exception, but the issue was clearly one of principle, rather than of one being starved by the state to the point of destitution, all the while the lavish lifestyles of the monarchy were in full display. There was a lot more for the French people to resent about the Monarchy than there was for the American colonials to resent the British crown.
You also leave out the fact that not only was the state being mismanaged it was also notoriously corrupt. The state literally employed knee breakers to enforce the tax burdens, again, even as the poor got poorer and the rich continued to live a life of luxury while justifying the taxation by claiming the state was bankrupt (which it was). On top of this, the French populace did try to reason with the government, and because the government and the people actually lived on the same contingent the French government actually managed to royally fuck it up by promising to hear the reforms repeatedly and then using their majority in the legislature with the church to completely veto the programs of the third estate, despite the third estate being the largest segment of the population.
A lot more went wrong with the French Revolution simply because the leadership situation was SOOO much worse than the colonies. This meant that the resentment in the general populace was so terminal that it became far too easy for radicalism to take hold. The worse the corruption is in the management of the state, the more reasonable extremists sound to the regular person.
@ravenblood1954 ,
That all makes sense. Thank you. It definitely adds a lot of context and nuance to what I said. It doesn't change the point, though. Yes, you explained *why* it was easier for the ends to be seen as justifying the means, i.e. why it was easier for radicals to take over, but it doesn't change the fact that they *were* seen as justifying them, and the radicals did take over.
I was just giving an example of an A vs a B situation, and your comment does well to explain why the B was a B.
@@jameswoodard4304 Because it’s more important to explain why B was B rather than extolling the virtues of A without giving the context for why A happened but not B.
I wanted to explain that the American revolution was not successful because of any American exceptionalism inherent to the movement, although there certainly were exceptional men in that movement, but because the conditions were right for that exceptional outcomes to arise. It wasn’t necessarily that the American colonials had better leaders, it was that the French monarchy was so much more inept.
It’s pretty much the story of the 19th and 20th century. It’s not an accident that the British colonies ended up peacefully seceding or ended up democratic and that the UK itself managed to transition to a democratic system without killing their aristocracy . The British monarchy were exceptional in that they were surprisingly one of the few royal families cognizant enough to realize that their time was coming to an end and it was better for their country, and more importantly their health, to give up power on their terms than to face the losing battle of of hanging on to power only to ultimately lose everything. The British monarchy survived into the 21st because unlike the rest of European nobility they developed a trait that hardly any of the nobility reason to develop, they knew when to give up.
So they didn’t bankrupt their country in attempt to control what they knew they already lost in the states, they didn’t insist on invading Ireland when the country was seceding and falling into civil war. And as a result, those places had a chance to proposer because they didn’t have to claw their independence through the calamity and devastation that often results in total war.
The living situation in France was far more dire and the French monarchy’s policies were making things objectively and disastrously worse. And in those situations, desperate people stop thinking rationally and start clinging to ideas that present easy solutions, and thus we get a breeding ground for radicalism.
It is not an accident that the most tyrannical and destructive regimes emerge in the background of poverty. Look at the Soviets in Russia, the Nazis in Germany, or the communists in China. All these regimes emerged in a time of immense economic decline in their respective countries, made worse by the slow to react, often vapid and corrupt, monarchal regimes that led them. And thus the most extreme ideologies, who promised quick, simple, and miraculous solutions became popular.
I know I rambled a bit. But what I’m essentially saying is the difference between the American and French Revolutions and their outcomes lies not in the purity of their pursuit in their ideals, but rather the despair and desperation that was fueling the spread of their ideals
I appreciate the eye roll on "made the gallows as glorious as the cross"
@@waltonsmith7210Yeah that line is spot on lol
“As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free.”
-Battle Hymn of the Republic (final verse)
Not an unusual sentiment of the period.
Woodrow Wilson was not a leftist. The only leftist thing he ever really did was treat coal miners like human beings for the duration of WW1. He did have messiah complex though.
He also started the federal reserve, the income tax, the capital gains tax, and socialized several American industries. Whether someone agrees with these things or not, Woodrow Wilson was still a pretty big lefty.
These terms, left and right, are too vague. Wilson was Pro War, pro government expansion, and a Democrat.
Will you watch the videos Atun Shei did on join recently since they partly deal with the questions you mention in the beginning of this reaction? I would understand not doing that since they're quite long videos.
The Atun Shei video was really interesting and quite nuanced
4:19 this was the exact moment Chris realized the bs he was about to be sitting through 😂
His smile and optimism, gone…
He mostly agreed with him though.. The main gripe he had was the classification of his religious beliefs.
@@MyName-lq7rv....carry on
I wouldn’t say that radical abolitions thought that blood was owed so much as they felt it didn’t matter if they killed slave owners and slave supporting militia members along the way. I believe John Brown when he said he would rather do things without violence and that he tried to limit it when possible.
Yeah, M Z is making it out as if John Brown was a psychopath who went on mass murder sprees claiming it was to free slaves
Real die hard Southern supporter vibes coming from that channel, I hope Chris doesn’t continue reacting to it because that’s giving it attention it shouldn’t get
His actions should be judged, not just his words.
@@zjjohnson3827 John brown did endorse going on murder sprees. He went on a murder spree in Kansas. M Z certainly is a provocateur, but John Brown shouldn't be defended.
@@waltonsmith7210 proto fascists? Not even sure what that means. John Brown’s gang murdered 5 men in retaliation for a non lethal bushwhacking raid.
I don’t endorse the pro slavery bushwackers any more than I endorse JB. Neither are heroes. Many other people who engaged in the fight to make Kansas a free state were.
@waltonsmith7210 john brown was more of a fascist and that's a good thing...
Yeah, guys I feel like we all know what Monsieur Z’s political opinions are…
He said that blacks and women were better off in the 1950s (you know, when segregation, racism and misogyny were the norm) because they would be "protected" as long as they stay "in line/their place" (can't remember the exact text he wrote. So yeah, full reactionary.
@@whilrykedoesn’t he also advocate for eugenics?
I mean it isn't coded, Z is pretty open about his ideology. He's basically just a paleo-conservative.
@@novaexplorer2397that was years ago, and the guy basically deleted the video, honestly I don't think it fully matters
@@whilrykeI think it's a bit dangerous to use words like Reactionary since reactionary is a loaded term. He might have a revisionist view on history and have some out there opinions that that doesn't make someone a reactionary.
“That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government”
These same arguments can be made against Lincoln, against the founding fathers, against Sherman, against military commanders during WW2
The truth is we as people decide if something was morally wrong or not. When we can look back at history subjectivity and form an opinion.
Me personally I’m of the mind you can’t expect to dehumanize people for centuries and expect them not to fight back with violence. Especially when the powers of government are complicit. You expect a slave to peacefully protest? To lobby congress? To run for office?
Lincoln wasn't even in office when secession began.
@@jdotoz but he let Sherman practice total war on a civilian population, and he abused his presidential power numerous times while in office. I love Lincoln he’s probably the best president we ever had and my point wasn’t to discredit him
@@kingknog9318 Even if we let that stand unchallenged, it's irrelevant since none of it caused southern secession.
Oh god. This guy, Monsieur Z, is super far right, fair warning. Like the other dude who did the “Lincoln was a dictator” video. Pain.
While he is right I wouldn’t say he is that far right like Lincoln guy. He feels more like a traditional Regan republican level of conservative rather than a Trump everything that is left is evil conservative
He's this close to outright defending slavery.
He really isn't, he more or less falls into Paleo-conservatism.
@@kaisermarxistdixie6842doesn’t he support ethno-states?
@@kaisermarxistdixie6842 Yeah, and I’d classify paleoconservatism as far right. At that point you’re adjacent to fascist politics.
Often I think Monsieur Z takes a radical position on any given issue, often inconsistently, just to get clicks and comments.
I think you mean reactionary...
Calling John Brown genocidal is definitely a stretch. His plan never involved actually conquering the South, or otherwise creating a situation where freed slaves could freely commit acts of vengeance on a scale of the entire Southern white population. Brown's plan was to wage a war of economic attrition against slavery by doing slave-freeing raids from the Appalachians. Of all scenarios where John Brown would have been successful, the most likely by far would have been one where slavery would have lost the war of attrition, ending up requiring a larger commitment of force to keep it up than is worth it. Then, slavery would likely have seen a negotiated, gradual phaseout with compensation to slaveowners, one state at a time, a process that would have strengthened itself over time as pro-slavery interests would have seen ever-diminishing political clout.
Heck, the Haitian revolution that he invokes as a boogeyman (much like Southern apologists did during the time) wasn't even genocidal at first, it only turned that way after many years of internal politics that ultimately resulted in the most radical revolutionaries ending on top. Which was nothing like an inevitable consequence of the forces at play, but an incidental one following from how foreign intervention made the chips fall.
Thank you for advocating for nuance in analysis. I bang my head sometimes when trying to promote that.
I really hope that Quentin Tarantino’s last film is the movie about John Brown which he has expressed a ton of interest in. He stopped production on his movie critic movie recently, so here’s hoping.
I love Quentin Tarantinos films but I don't think he'd be able to make a historically accurate story.
@@-Maxi.exe03 oh no of course not but he would make a fun as hell historically themed movie
@@xgcsurreal2608 absolutely. I love both Django and Inglorious.
"Do the ends justify the means" itself is not necessarily black and white. It is true that violence and attempts to create a new state due to political disagreements is treason. But at what point is the treason justified? The US revolutionary war itself was an act of treason. Independence fighters in Japanese colonies were considered treasonous. And of course, anyone defying the Nazis or the Soviets would be called traitors. That doesn't mean that every act outside the law is good or justified, but the answer to the first question is really "it depends".
If it really is about the ends, it’s far more understandable.
If claims about the ends are just an excuse to do means someone wants to do, less so.
I will say as somebody on the left, he utterly misrepresents what we are saying systemic racism is. Nobody, literally nobody, is saying that the situation is as bad as the 1890s, 1910s or 1950s. We are saying that some of the legacies of those times linger and you can see it in things like sentences given for the same crimes as well as the loss of generational wealth due to past bias in loans or running interstates through predominantly minority neighborhoods. We don't want to see anybody disadvantaged compared to anybody else due to how institutional rules are applied. What we don't accept is the idea that those things are all in the past, particularly when some are manifestly and demonstrably still happening, and that we can all just go forward singing kumbaya and smelling the roses. We as a society owe it to the people adversely affected by these things to fix them.
Personally I don't know what the fixes would be, but we need to start with acknowledging that they are real. Even if someone's answer is that it sucks for those affected but we shouldn't do anything about it, that person is at least existing in reality by admitting the issues are real. I think that all of us, barring outright racists, can agree that at the very least our justice system should be race blind in sentencing and policing, something it has some distance to go before achieving it. Again personally, I am pretty appalled at how American police treat white suspects, let alone black or brown suspects, compared to how police in our 1st world peers generally treat suspects. Addressing policing issues for black and brown citizens should, ideally, also address policing issues for white citizens.
I too am on the left, and yes there is people literally saying things have not improved at all. We need to admit that we too have extremes on the left. Just like the right has thier extremes.
@@rythania7686We have extremists on the left, like me (at least according to the average socdem), that believe revolution is the only way to truly right the wrongs of the past is to create a workers state.
@@Lolsout Thank you for proving my point.
The video doesn't mention that the Potawanamie Massacre was preceded by a massacre in Lawrence by the Pro-Slavery faction.
He was definitely a terrorist but he was fighting for something that (mostly) everyone agrees today is a good thing. He used some terrible methods and ultimately failed but inspired many to carry on the fight. He got exactly what he wanted even though he didn’t get to live to see it.
I don’t agree with brown but this is precisely why I could not stand it when z compared those Californian dudes to brown slavery is a much more terrible issue than those Californian guys are concerned about horrible and frankly disgusting comparision
I’m not sure where you take video requests so i’m just gonna put it here, I recently stumbled across a video called “The Politics of Forgetting: The Franco Regime in Spain” that deals with the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath.
It’s a very well made video, and I don’t believe you’ve really covered the Spanish Civil War, and is largely fascinating and i’d love to get your insight on it!
Monsieur Z also said that the times of segregation were “simpler” and that “everybody knew their place”, so I think it’s safe to take him with a grain of salt
Would you ever think of covering like Cold-War Era topics? Love your vids keep it up!
The comment on abolition being his religion is interesting. Theres a term called syncretism where two ideologies come together and join with one essentially becoming subservient to the other. What I assume the video guy is saying is that possibly Browns Christianity became the subservient ideology to his abolitionism
You can disagree without being disagreeable!! I really like that your a great teacher, mentor, role model, ✌️🫶
If John brown did what he did today I guarantee you most of America would hate him
I agree, but I would say because our society is very tollerant and inclusive.
I mean if someone would start a rebbellion today...for what cause they could do it?
In favor of homeless people killing all rich ones?
Today exists many methods to change the world, even in a pacifist way, because our society has compassion at his core I would say, at least on paper.
Maybe thought, Brown could have found another way to achieve his goal.
If MLK did what he did today he would be hated. Just like he was then.
@@Tiziotozio01-cz1nd it’s also important to point out that John Brown was highly driven by his faith and was very devout. I highly doubt anyone would be able to replicate his zealous drive without the religious component.
Since our time is so much more secular than his, combined with the fact that a lot of today’s political issues are far more nuanced, there is unlikely to ever be good justification for someone to take as extreme measures as John Brown did.
Same could be said of MLK.
@@Justanotherconsumer not as much
Thing is if the justness of the cause is never a justification for takeing up arms one could basically argue for a rollback for a lot of things.
French revoloution? Invalid!
Every subject that broke away from the British Empire ever? Invalid cause!
At the true end of the day the thing John Brown failed to do to go down as a true and accepted hero is a tiny little thing. Wining! The one excuse that makes rebellion, revolution and the like acceptable is when you win!
The reason he is not seen as villian by all is to a degree down to the fact that in a way he did win. He died, but his cause ultimatley won by a mile!
We should also not ignore that a lot of people of his time saw him as a hero. Union troops sang "John Brown's sould is marching on" before they ever marched to the rewritten version (Battle Hym of the Republic). And as it seems some units liked to sing the original text now and then rather than the approved version.
What we truly can learn from this comparision is that the legalistic argument. As in he broke the law of his time thus he has to be a criminal/villian falls short. Because the same people will also argue for other examples to be just and good changes in history. But those people always by definition also changed the status quo by going against the law of the time ...
To me from the perspective of the values I was brought up with his ethical stance on slavery was certainly the only valid one. And I can't accept a pure legalistic argument that his actions were wrong, because they were against the law. See I'm German and that argument does not fly when we look at our own history. A "I just followe orders" or a "I acted within the law" argument can't be accepted, if the orders or the law are unjust to the extreme. Do I claim that chattle slavery was just as bad as what the 3rd Reich did? No I make no attempt at compareing. But the very fact that there is quite general agreement that people in the 3rd Reich were still guilty while technically only following orders or the law makes my case that a pure legalistic argument is invalid without at least adressing the question whether the law was just or not.
Many will then use relativistic argument as in we have to judge people within the limitations of their time. But many people saw the evil in slavery at the time. Heck there was a hughe movment throughout the British Empire to not accept people who benefited from slave labour in polite society, to ban the trade, to not buy slave products. Were many of those still rascist people? Yes! But that is even more strikeing at showcaseing how abhorrent the reality of chattle slavery was. When you feel the need to shelter people from the practise that you see as your inferiors and not equals.
So even if I were to accept a relativic ethics argument (which kind of loops back to before. Do I then have to accept an arument similar to: "You know so many people were anti semits in their time look even other countries didn't take in the refugees so why do you judge your ancestors for being this way?). It wasn't even true for the time. People were able to understand the evil of slavery. Society gave you the information and tools to understand it. Many just didn't want to. Mostly because they benefited from it one way or another (be that economically, or socially, or just in a world view peace of mind kind of way).
So to me John Brown was perfectly justified to defey the law. Because the law was objectivley evil and unjust. And it was even easy to show. All men could not be equal, when some men were held in chains! He is a hero! Was he radical and violent in his methods? Yes! But many heroes throughout time we laud throughout history were. Was he a radical? Certainly! But the same applies again (we applaud many other radicals through history).
To me it is easy. If people are allowed to see Staufenberg and his group as heroic. Who attempted to overthrow the Nazi regime not to stop the killings, not even to stop the war against the soviets and certainly not to implement a democracy, but to take over and fight the war less stupid and hope to negoiate with the west in order to beat communism. Then I'm certainly allowed to see a man as a hero who commited violence to break people out of slavery.
Someone who claims John Brown had genocidal abmbitions just made any argument they made before invalid. Because they demonstrated they just throw words without understanding the meanings or implications of what they just said.
The only successful slave rebellion is modern history, and one of the only ones in all of history, was Haiti. That is what would have happened had the slaves rebelled and won. If the slaves had lost a full blown rebellion, the retaliation would have been brutal
@@vantaplat7411 And this makes slavery justified? Or the cause of fighting against it unjustified?
Also there is a major problem in your argument. Slavery itself was (and is) also brutal. Brutal to the extreme. A country that mythtified the sentence: "Give me liberty or give me death" into part of their founding myth ought to understand that there are some risks worth takeing. Because in hstory rebellions and indipendence movements also tend to fail more often than not and the repressions of a victorious overlord are also always brutal. So by that notion the very war of Indipendence was already unjustified and to foolish to try ...
Additionally Haitan Slave Rebellion wasn't a failure because it was dumb to rebell. It was a failure because slave powers worked against the new nation once it formed. And as much as the numbers of death and destruction hoorify us we have to weigh that against the life expectancy of a slave in the system that was in place which was measured in month ...
On the other hand Haiti had a major hand in Simon Boliviar's story. So without the Haitan Slave rebellion a very different story of whether or how and when middle and south america gained indipendence from spain.
@@BobHerzog1962 Okay? Not arguing about the practice of slavery just that a slave revolt would've ended poorly for one side, as it always does
@@vantaplat7411 with that argument the Roman Emperors ought to still be in power. Since for a long time all rebellions always ended badly.
History is unchangeable and a system so stable it can't possibly be changed until suddenly history turns on its head and the system collapses.
Also even failed uprisings change things. Even in his failure John Brown achieved quite a lot. He had a lot of press. And the bells in parts of the North certainly rang for what they considered to be a hero / martyr.
The Union troops didn't invent a marching song on his story for nothing. And it also wasn't rewritten into a song of liberation for nothing either.
One can point to other endeavours that were doomed to fail. Like the Easter Rising in Ireland, which nonetheless shaped the movement to come.
Or several uprisings and events in the lead up to the war of Independence. Or do you claim a mob in Boston had any chance against the armed and trained Garrison? But the fact that it happened and that the Brits used violence like they did was still important.
Heck even the at the time epic failure of the Boxer rebellion in China still in the very long term was the rally point for China to fight off colonialism in the long term perspective.
Also as said given the conditions many slaves might have felt there was nothing to lose anyways.
What you are basically advocating is that might makes right. Because the mighty will win and the weak thus should roll over and die so less people die in total. A very extreme utilitarian view. And a good demonstration why only very few people adhere to utilitarian ethics when it comes to all implications of sticking with it.
Speaking of the Underground Railroad, about 20 minutes south of my house of Levi Coffin. Coffin was a local business man and devout Quaker who he and his wife aided nearly 2,000 slaves on the Underground Railroad by hiding them in his house. His house is a famous landmark here in Indiana. You should come visit sometime Chris!
It is sad that he is overshadowed by other members of the underground railroad
The Friends were one of the most blatantly Christian responses to slavery.
No tolerance whatsoever for the practice, great personal risk for the good of their neighbor, no violence involved.
Monsieur z might be worse than whatifalthist he just lost his evangelical fan base by calling John Brown a villain
I don't know. That is really hard to do.
Whatifalthist isnt bad (still better than cody) a lot of people just have a lot of bad faith with his vidéos
He (Monsieur Z) is a self-admitted "race realist", which really tells you all you need to know about him.
@@alexandersturnn4530 Dang really sucks to hear used to like some of his alt videos
I feel safe saying that I dont need come into his videos with bad faith to believe that talking about "left side magic" among other things in a video about communism is just down right insane
I grew up in New Lenox, IL, where there were a couple underground railroad stops. A famous one, Haven Farm, got torn down in 1996 when I was a kid. It's now a Morningstar Thrift Store.
Something that Monsieur Z forgot to mention is John Brown personally knew people who were killed during and harrassed by death squads during Bleeding Kansas
Chris! How could you forget the other Monsieur Z video you reacted to about what if D-Day failed?
I would assume mister z was already taken as a UA-cam account
Hi Chris,
This video reminded me of the painting of John Brown by Thomas Hovenden. It was in both the fifth and eighth grade textbooks when I taught in PA. I was wondering if you’re interested in depictions of historical events in paintings?
Great job I love history and I agree with literally everything you said too often people compare ourselves to historical figures not realizing they lived in a different world which sometimes we cannot even comprehend
John Brown was more like an anti-hero than a villain.
While he was quite involved in the fight against slavery, his methods were quite flawed in some ways.
2:55 this very painting is directly on the walls of the 2nd floor of the Rotunda at the Kansas State Capitol. It is quite the sight to see.
There’s a billboard along the Kansas Turnpike/I-70 near Exit 197 that advertises Lecompton as where slavery began to die. The irony is that the Lecompton Constitution for the upcoming State of Kansas would have allowed slavery. Lecompton was nonetheless a part of abolition history.
His methods were adopted after the nearby slave states started flooding Kansas with pro-slavery voters, while using violence to suppress anti-slavery resistance.
If the southern states were to have tried peacefully succeeding. Without firing a shot. How far would it have gone?
That wasn't going to happen. MAJ Anderson told Beauregard that he would surrender if he did not receive reinforcements or supplies over the next 24 hours. Beauregard and the other pro-secessionist wouldn't wait that long. Then there was the seizure of Federal property equal to millions of dollars throughout what would become the Confederacy.
I feel the reasons why he defends Wilson, who was a great example of a racist liberal, but condemns John Brown so strongly is because Wilson aligns with him on the revisionist history of the Civil War, which he was a pioneer of. John Brown was unhinged, but he leave out the greater context behind several major events John Brown participated in. You can’t call out Pottawatomie without even mentioning Lawrence which happened before this or without discussing Bleeding Kansas to get the whole context of how bad both sides got. Also, the widow’s husband and sons did not own slaves, but they were notorious slave catchers who conspired with the pro-slavery side of Bleeding Kansas.
That's a gray area like all thing yes they did cache slave but it was thar job it was legal,
Man that guy is hella cringey. Its sad to see politics now treated as a sports team and the supporters are just fans really. No logic and reason just pour hate on the other and love your own no matter the policy or situation. Its extremely embarrassing and i hope we change our act soon on it. Eventhough i am a liberal i like watching chris because he is honestly just informative and mature. He seems more of a moderate than anything which is something america needs more of. I get he calls himself conservative because of his religious believes but hes the only one that i know that who doesnt push hard on right polices and logic, and im in the south which says alot. I respect you chris. Keep doing what you are doing. This channel is a light that shines to most americans.
32:15 I wouldn't say Woodrow Wilson was a leftist. At best he had a mix of left-wing and extremely right-wing views.
I believe in this case, Chris was using "leftist" interchangeably with "progressive," which is an accurate description of Wilson. It's not a super accurate label, but then neither is it when applied to John Brown, so I assume it was less about him being socialist-adjacent and more about Chris taking a shot at Mister Z's own shoddy reasoning and personal bias.
@@TheAngryXenite As I understand it, Wilson was opposed to Progressivism for much of his career and was on the right-wing of the Democratic Party (a "Bourbon Democrat") until he rebranded himself and made a deal with the Populist leader William Jennings Bryan in order to secure the Democratic Presidential nomination.
@@jonathancampbell5231 Wilson had been against the Populist Movement which was not the same thing as the Progressive Movement despite the considerable amount of overlap and William Jennings Bryan himself pretty smoothly operating in both worlds. The People’s Party, the main vehicle of the Populists who jointly-nominated Bryan, declined rapidly after he drew most of their supporters to the Democrats. Other future seminal figures of the Progressive Era including Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette and Louis Brandeis were all opposed to Bryan and the Populists of the 1890’s as well. Even the so-called Bourbon Democrats, an epithet comparable to how Corporate Democrat is used today, were very often classical liberals in the British “Manchester Liberal” mold rather than arch-conservatives. It was not a matter of every single critic refusing to pursue any measures toward reform whatsoever but shared issue taken with the perceived borderline-revolutionary rhetoric they were hearing. Progressivism writ large was arguably a project attempting to find a workable third way between party orthodoxy and radical innovation. It manifested in a couple of different forms such as those championed by Roosevelt and Wilson which were fairly analogous to the philosophies of “One-Nation Conservatism” and “New Liberalism” in Britain respectively while La Follette’s “Wisconsin Idea” brand probably came the closest to being a repackaged Populism.
My viewpoint on this is if you are fighting for a cause such as freeing slaves and all other modes of change have been eroded away by political processes, One is left no choice but to result to violence to bring upon the winds of much needed change to a corrupt system. And there is no cause nobler than willing to forfeit your own life for the freedom of others
He fought to genocide the white southerners, not much of a good cause.
As a Christian I think we have a high standard that both the ends and the means should be just. So while I get that you can exuse some law breaking for a good cause (freeing a slave would have been illegal), I don't see how that ever dips into murder, even of a slave owner. While some other lines migh seem to get grey, this one does not. I think Brown was ultimately overstepping the idea of letting the governing officals be God's avenger.
The Barnhiesal House in Girard was possibly a stop in the Underground Railroad. I lived across the street from the house for years and they said that it was a stop. I was in the house and in the basement there was a cemented over wall in the basement in the direction of Squaw Creek and the cemetery?🤔
My take with this video is, if by monsieur z logic if john brown wanting to cause a slave revolt is bad, number one. what was the other solution to the slavery issue? Number 2. What does monsieur z think about the confederate states of america doing a very similar thing but for the opposite reason? Number 3. If yet again, we use his logic isn't robert e Lee and other confederates, also traitors and terrorists?
3 questions,
1. There are other solutions to the slave issue. The problem was the government kept kicking the can down the road till it got too big and kicked back. I personally think the fugitive slave act in particular, if not passed, had the potential to avoid the civil war and lead to the end of slavery. Even John Brown himself has been referenced as a factor in the south seceding, they were reasonably concerned they would be forced to give up the slaves when Lincoln was elected. I sorta lean towards the idea that if JB hadn't existed, Lincoln's election may have led to the peaceful phase out of slavery, with no reconstruction/Jim Crow degeneracy for the next 90 years.
2. What did the confederate states do that was similar? Are you referring to stealing from the US army depots?
3. Lee, Jackson, etc, were traitors to the USA, they believed themselves to be loyal to Virginia etc, but Lincoln gave them amnesty. I don't think fighting in a war is the same as being a terrorist.
@@amrosh791 Kiilling a few dozen people to end slavery is terrorism but killing thousands to preserve it is just "war"? What a disgusting double standard.
@@amrosh791 There was no way at that time to separate slavery from the political, economic, social and cultural values of the slave states. There was no way to peacefully end slavery except by buying the slaves from the slaveowners. Buy the freedom of the slaves and they'll simply turn into sharecroppers and the former slave owners would be richer. The SCOTUS had already found that African-Americans could not become or be citizens nor did they have any standing before Federal law, and that Congress had not authority to prohibit, constrain or regulate slavery within the US despite the elimination of the importation of slaves in the US Constitution and the prohibition of slavery in the "Old North-West Territories The Reconstruction didn't go far enough. What was needed was something a bit more emphatic than the "denazification" of Germany.
@@michaelsnyder3871 I didn't say anything about a denazification. And yeah, by the late 1860s it was bad. I still disagree with the idea that there was no recourse. there is always recourse.
For number 3: I believe Z said that he was pro-Lincoln, so he would probably agree with the statement.
I will admit this straight up I don’t care much about the legality of Southern secession, I care about the reasons for it, mainly the preservation of slavery. I disagree with the South seceding because of slavery and agree with John Browns goal of starting a slave rebellion for the same reason. To me intent and methods matter more than legality when it comes to geopolitics.
I won’t go to the point of saying your opinion/perspective is “wrong” but there is one huge flaw in it you maybe overlooking. The whole premise of fighting the war in the first place was that there was no legal basis for secession, then came the argument that the federal government holds sovereignty over the issue of human rights vs states sovereignty to decide on their own. Winning the war meant the Union/Feds now had a concrete legal basis to later win the civil rights fight 100 years after the war. Without turning the war into the issue of freeing slaves it’s not likely there would have been a sound legal foundation for the Civil Rights Acts that came later. Food for thought.
@@James-zg2nl this applies to my view of history all together not limited to just the U.S. and the United States Civil War. Your points are good for this specific instance though.
"Agree with a slave rebellion" there was no scenario where a slave rebellion ends well for both sides
@@vantaplat7411 if your saying there’s no situation where white population doesn’t try to brutally crack down on the slaves and take significant casualties as result, your probably right. The reason slave rebellions are so violent is because the slaver population knows that no significant portion of the non slave population gives a damn.
@@vantaplat7411 Unless you are Haitian in 1803-4. But then your problem is a limited resource half of an island which never had the social, cultural or economic advantages to create and sustain a democracy.
Hey man, love the vids, and I just want to say that your vibe could actually be the vibe that saves the country, if more people chilled out and adopted it
My hometown along the Connecticut River in that state had an Underground Railroad station stop they discovered in the 1980s. It was in the basement of a hotel, called the Champion House.
A GGgrandfather of mine had his own antebellum hotel in Vermont near a spring that had "restorative powers." His main clientele came from the South. Business collapsed with the war, and the business failed soon after the War as the South was ravaged and vacations were out of the question. The structure still stands, although it is pretty much a shell.
"Slavery is gone and we all agree it's bad." If only... The perpetuation of the Lost Cause Myth will justify American slavery to one degree or another.
“…except as punishment for a crime” is a loophole that’s definitely wide enough for a rich man to get a camel through.
John Brown did one thing wrong:
He stopped.
He WAS stopped, so I wouldn't hold it against him.
@@octavianpopescu4776Or rather he intentionally allowed himself to get caught in order to get his message in front of the American people…
I appreciate your ability to parse out the nuances of issues in history. It is a critical thinking skill, that seems to be lacking in modern political debate.
At 1:07 "Shall we do evil to achieve good?" Princeton professor of ethics, Paul Ramsey, explored this idea in a book basically with this title. In war, it is the ages old question of collateral damage. It is a question that proponents of Just War Theory have long wrestled. Sherman was right. "War is hell."
John browns main flaw is that his plan was garbage.
Thaddeus Stevens said that John Brown should’ve been tried for incompetence as he should’ve realized that he needed more men
I kinda believe John Brown fell victim to something happening today too.
He believed more people were just as passionate about the cause he championed
But they weren't at the time
Would you prefer an alternate history where he was successful and took over Virginia, killing hundreds or thousands, and probably kicking off the civil war 10 years early?
@amrosh791 Would be a bit hard to kick off the civil war a decade early when the election happened less than three weeks later and the shooting not six months after the raid.
@@amrosh791at least it wouldn’t be New Yorkers dying
Monsieur Z is one of those guys who overpoliticizes things, makes downright impossible alternate history scenarios while claiming they're realistic, and overall makes himself out to be more of an expert when he really isn't.
It gets the clicks.
You mentioned doing a "Second Civil War" video at some point. Simon Whistler did one recently on his channel "Warographics" that you might have some interesting insights into!
I just love seeing your frustration build when confronted with foolishness lol😂
I love you Chris, but you missed out on several problems with this terrible video (and it deserves to be called terrible just based on the rant at the end alone).
8:50 - 9:47 No mention of Brown's forming of the League of Gileadites who prevented anyone from being taken from Springfield, Massachusetts under the Fugitive Slave Act.
10:38 - 12:17 No mention of the upwards of 2000 enslaved people he helped convey to Canda.
14:26 - 17:45 No mention of the Caning of Charles Sumner, the sacking of Lawrence (which is why Brown killed those five men, so they weren't "innocent" even if they weren't slave owners, and as a side note mirrors the destruction of Elijah Lovejoy printing press in 1837 and the destruction of the True American in 1845), or President Franklin Pierce's (my pick for worst president) corrupt decision to ratify the Border Ruffians electoral win despite knowing they stuffed the ballot boxes to be three times larger in their favor which is why Brown had to take matter into his own hands in the first place. And just as a personal note, saying Brown was "absolutely" wrong to kill those five men is much to matter of fact about it. Again, those five men helped destroy a house and two printing presses and got away with it (thanks for that Pierce) and were very much proslavery. If you always abject to that kind of vigilant justice, that is a fine point of view to have, but Brown defiantly had his reasons.
18:30 "Brown murdered several innocent civilians". Citation needed. If he is still referring to the Pottawatomie massacre, the word innocent is being very stretched. Sparing 16-year-old John Doyle shows that he didn't go out of his way to kill innocents.
20:20 - 21:34 Again, Brown sparing John Doyle shows he didn't intend for his revolution to be exactly the Haitian revolution or Nat Turners revolt.
21:28 - 22:42 Genocide is a completely unfair label, and it is not a fair argument that Brown saw all southerners the same. Again, Brown spared John Doyle, as well as James Harris and Jerome Glanville during the Pottawatomie massacre.
22:42 - 23:54 All those same agreements can be used against the American Revolution "If your argument is that fighting against the law of the government because you don't like the laws of that government and deciding you're going to start your own country or your own state that changes those laws what's the difference". Then what's the difference between George Washington and the Second Continental Congress vs Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and the confederate congress.
23:54 - 25:19 His comparison to the modern simply doesn't work because slavery can't be compared to any modern issue. Fair to you for saying it does come down on the issue.
25:17 - 27:04 No mention here or anywhere else of the 11 slaves he rescued he rescued in the lead up to the raid, how he didn't kill a single person at the Battle of the Spurs when a proslavery posse tried to stop him from escorting those slaves to Canda, or that Harriet Tubman was in on the Raid. Is she not a hero either for helping plan the raid and Brown's, hoped-for, large-scale slave revolt.
31:23 Again, sparing John Doyle, James Harris and Jerome Glanville shows that Brown was not genocidal.
32:34 It is very offensive to me that they would even slight compare John Brown to Jim Jones (unironically I consider Brown to be the best person who ever lived and Jones to be the worst). Jones blackmail his cult members into staying loyal to him and murder the 909 actually innocent inhabitants of Jonestown (276 of which were children) on top murdering Congressman Leo Ryan.
I admit, I'm very bias in favor of John Brown, but if you are going to judge his character and him as a person, you need the complicated facts.
Edit: One thing I meant to mention but forgot is that Brown also spared the life of noted border ruffian Henry Clay Pate.
For the most part, good comment that is actually refuting z's argument instead of attacking his character. Though I certainly disagree with some points of this comment.
@@gipsoneight Thank you, I put a lot of effort into that. If you think that Brown was wrong to kill those 5 men in the Pottawatomie massacre, that's a fair perspective. I just think that every time some mentions Pottawatomie and that "Brown dragged 5 men from their beds and killed them" (which is already a bit hyperbolic), it needs to be added that those 5 men (while not slave owners themselves) were proslavery settlers and participated in sacking a town and destroying anti-slavery newspapers and got away with. It's more complicated than Brown's critics say it is.
I mean the Civil War has very much shown that Slavery would have never been abolished by peaceful means. So Critizising Brown for resorting to violent means, specifically the slave rebellion not massacres on civilians, when millions of people were living under constant Violence (Slavery) is either naive or dishonest.
I would also argue that a successful Slave revolt would have been way more directed to actual Slave Holding Aristocracy and with less death on the side of innocent people than the civil war.
The Civil War happening is not proof that slavery could not be solved without violence. The civil war was a culmination of 50 years of mismanagement. I truly believe there is an alternate chain of events where the civil war oculd have been avoided, and the next 100 years of terrible race relations.
There are violent means and violent means, though.
Assaulting an armory to grab weapons to support a guerrilla campaign is quite different from dragging people out of their beds and offing them while they beg for mercy.
I've long been frustrated that a well-intentioned, but wildly misguided lunatic became a hero and household name in the pursuit of abolition, while Cassius Marcellus Clay remains almost entirely obscure (thank you TFE for addressing that).
Though being familiar with Mon Z, and having read the comments, I'm not sure THIS is how I want to see that addressed. Gonna put a pin in this one for now - but always happy to support VTH!
I think that Mr. Z is greatly simplifying the problem of John Brown as a person of his times. It's clear that the man showed some narcissistic and obsessive traits. I personally don't see Brown as a hero, but I can't vilify him completely either. I think that we often focus on individuals who made the "headlines" of history without examining the massive whirlwind of events that shaped these known figures. Thank you for ALWAYS taking pains in your commentary to paint the larger picture of historical events and individuals.
I like mister Zs videos, but I've heard him promote far-right taking points and dog whistles, so I'd take what he says with a spoonful of salt
Calling John Brown genocidal is absolutely bonkers
Despite his best efforts and the fact that I didn’t think it was possible…bravo monsieur, you have made me like John Brown even MORE.
Oh and Brown was so crazy to come up with violence being necessary. What a madman…unrelated, but this was right before the Civil War right? What was that fought over?
Thanks for your perspective, Chris. I very much appreciate the way you handle topics like this. As for John Brown, I have a genuine question that I want to hear others' takes on: Does the fact that attacks like Brown's raid are so small-scale & easily crushed, PLUS the fact that such attacks are usually just as good, if not better, at provoking opposition as they are at rallying support, make such attacks not worth it in the long run (justified as the cause may be)?
Another factor in the slavery issue is that many conflate "Emancipation" with "Abolition". The difference is the timeframe and means to achieve the goal. "Emancipation" favored the extinction of slavery over time. "Slavery will die out naturally" was a common sentiment, and vociferously opposed its expansion. Abolitionists disagreed, and wanted slavery ended NOW: It had gone on long enough, and was an embarrassment to a country founded on universal freedom.
New Jersey tried the gradual emancipation approach. In 1804 (IIRC), they passed a law which forbade importing *new* slaves, and required children born to slaves to be freed upon reaching adulthood, but existing slaves could remain slaves for life.
King’s letter from jail in Birmingham is a good read for those who think that gradualism was a better idea.
Man needs to visit Osawatamie, KS and stand in front of that statue of John Brown. Monsieur Z can say what he wants, but in that town, John Brown is a hero.
From what I remember of what little I've heard of battles, the geography of battles are often how battles are won and lost. The geography of Harper's Ferry in the late 1950s meant that John Brown's plan was almost certainly doomed to fail.
10 minutes from Salem? I Grew up just north of East Liverpool lol
29:00= I tell you how I see America. We inherited slavery. Slavery was part of the colonial ways of the time. When America became free, based on the Constitutional ideas set loose by the revolution, slavery quickly became an issue. People can say the USA is wrong at times, but what we have aspired to is good. Human beings are fallible, but that is not a reason to turn ourselves over to any form of authoritarianism. It is a reason to be wary of that kind of snake oil, no matter who is selling it.
Except that slavery became an issue and was abolished much earlier in Great Britain. By the time of the Congress of Vienna the British public was already massively pro abolition. In the 1860 election Lincoln couldn't even fully commit to full abolition out of fear of seeming "too radical" for the mainstream at the time. It was the war that made it possible.
@@masterplokoon8803 Here in Sweden slavery was outlawed 441 years before the US was founded, so, yes, the US abolished it "a bit" late.
The earliest verified authored historical writings of Ireland were written by Saint Patrick, who was motivated to write because of his vehement anti slavery views.
Anti slavery sentiment is neither fringe nor radical nor a modern concept.
Im a History Professor for a Junior College in Illinois. I love when we get to John Brown in US History I classes. I always have my students read Ken Chowder's The Father of American Terrorism essay. He paints a much more balanced picture of a John Brown that although extreme, was less extreme in his day than he seems to us today. Presentism gets in the way of trying to understand John Brown.
There is a line in the essay that always sticks with me, and it is a quote from another work, that basically says we should be careful to assume that a white man who is willing to die for black men is necessarily insane.
Mutual Combat is a concept in law. When two sides engage in violence, neither can claim to be aggrieved. Legitimate authority can still prosecute either, both or neither, but neither side can claim to be an aggrieved party.