Philosophy

A Plea for Captain John Brown

by Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau read this in Concord on 30 October 1859, two weeks after John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, when almost no one else in the North would speak up for him. He calls Brown a man of rare common sense and directness of speech, and a transcendentalist above all. Brown was hanged on 2 December, and that day Thoreau spoke again at a service for him in Concord.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 35 minutes

Where to find it

Walden Pond

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #2567. In the public domain in the United States.