Crown of Thorns

Political Martyrdom in America From Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Eyal J. Naveh

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 1990
• ISBN:
  9780814758717
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

"A provocative treatment of political martyrdom in the United States.... a well-crafted, thought-provoking book."
— The Lincoln Herald

"In the U.S., dead politicians and controversial reformers have frequently been called martyrs to a cause. But achieving martyrdom is more elusive than simply being jailed, murdered, or rejected in fighting for what one believes. This is the thrust of Naveh's argument, which traces the martyr motif in American political culture since the 1830s."
— Choice

"Drawing upon eulogies and obituaries, sermons and biographies, poems and public memorials, Crown of Thorns is most valuable in providing a taxonomy that helps suggest why some public figures sink into oblivion while a very few others belong to the ages."
— The Journal of American History

"Naveh makes admirable use of a wide range of primary sources, particularly those drawn from popular rather than elite culture.... well written... Crown of Thorns should be of some interest to all who are interested in the dynamics of cultural inertia and social change in the United States."
— History

1
Suffering for the Sin of Slavery

Although the symbolic figure of the martyr in its religious setting was familiar to most Americans, the concept of sacrifice, suffering, and martyrdom, became an important ideological component of American political discourse only in the midnineteenth century. The first group to use these concepts politically were the radical members of the anti-slavery reform movement, known as the abolitionists. A famous English author, Harriet Martineau, who visited America in the 1830s, wrote about the abolitionists in her book The Martyr Age of the United States. She urged her English readers to view the abolitionists as

the true republicans . . . the sufferers, the moral soldiers who have gone out armed only with faith, hope, and charity. . . . Let us not wait . . . for another century to greet the confessors and martyrs who stretch out their strong arm to bring down Heaven upon our earth; but even now . . . let us make our reverent congratulations heard over the ocean which divides us from the spiritual potentates of our age.¹

Indeed this radical reform movement, which rejected any compromise on the issue of slavery and refused to use conventional political channels to promote its goal, resorted to the martyr tradition as an ideological device and made martyrdom a leitmotif of its rhetoric. Operating as a small but very influential reform movement from the third decade of the nineteenth century until the Civil War, the radical abolitionists were the first group to demonstrate the significance that martyrdom had for dedicated reformers. Faced with overwhelming opposition both in the South and the North, the abolitionists cultivated in certain important aspects a sense of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. They asserted that martyr figures were instruments of redemption, whose struggle for reform would help America purge itself of the sin of slavery.

The abolitionists operated in a period when numerous evangelical reform groups were active. Many Americans at this time were receptive to the political implications of religious concepts and generally interpreted their historical experience in moral, pietistic, and even theological terms. They took biblical symbols seriously and incorporated them into what can be defined as a distinct civil religion.² Thus the concepts of sin, sacrifice, martyrdom, and redemption, which abolitionists emphasized in their political struggle, were in accordance with the general pietistic climate of opinions. Many Americans believed that their society had the mission to recreate the perfect Garden of Eden through a cycle of sin, suffering, and sacrifice. Such convictions enhanced the potential of a particular reformer who suffered for his cause for becoming a revered martyr figure.

Certainly, not every reform movement celebrated the idea of martyrdom for the cause, and many reformers did not value such sacrifice as a worthy act that would promote the goal of their reform. Even those reformers who might have perceived themselves as potential martyrs did not necessarily succeed in conveying such an image to their friends and followers and thus the image did not become a common ideology of their reform movement. Moreover, even when a reform movement used martyrdom as an ideological device and had a celebrated figure who had been martyred for the cause, this figure was unlikely to have an impact on the indifferent masses of the population and become a recognized national martyr.

By contrast, when the leaders of radical abolitionism stressed the martyr tradition, they seemed to have a certain impact on the American people as a whole. The social profile of the movement, their self-image as reformers, the tactics of the struggle, their very cause, and their perception of their enemy—all these factors reinforced the ideology of martyrdom and spread it among the Northern public in general. Historian Hazel Catherine Wolf noted in her book On Freedom’s Altar that personal agony and the ability to interpret suffering as God’s favor provided the abolitionists with fire and momentum.³ This book certainly minimized the real opposition that radical abolitionists faced throughout the country, by suggesting that they were motivated as much by personal psychological needs as by the moral evil of slavery. By contrast, it seems to me that the antiabolitionist climate of opinion of ante bellum America, together with a profound moral preoccupation on the part of the abolitionists with the American destiny and fate, accounted for their tendency to rely heavily upon the rhetoric of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

Comprised mostly of Northern whites, the radical abolitionists fought to redeem the whole country from the sin of slavery. Many of them were Quakers who had a long tradition of martyrdom, and many would have enjoyed prestigious careers had they not chosen to engage in the struggle to free slaves. This social profile helped abolitionists to develop a martyr image: they could be depicted as ultimate altruists fighting and suffering not for their own self-interest but rather for the salvation of others, for “creatures” that were below them. In that sense they fitted into the whole tradition that viewed the martyr as free of self-interest, as one who suffered persecution because his destiny determined for him a life of service to others. “I have opened my mouth for the dumb, I have pleaded the cause of the poor and oppressed,” wrote the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, the abolitionist who sacrificed his life for his ideas. “For these things I have seen my family scattered, my office broken, my furnitures . . . destroyed . . . my life threatened. . . . Yet none of these things have moved me from my purpose.”⁴ Another member of the movement, George Thompson, wrote from jail, “We long to be instrumental in doing something for our brethren in bonds. . . . To die for the slave I felt willing.”⁵

Resistance to unjust laws together with a devotion to nonviolence characterized the tactics of the radical abolitionists. These tactics recalled the example of biblical and Christian martyrs who refused to obey immoral laws, but preached nonviolence and preferred self-sacrifice to violent struggle. These tactics helped the abolitionists not only to develop an ideology of martyrdom but also to present themselves to their supporters and followers in the North as real or potential martyrs. Committed to nonviolence, they portrayed themselves merely as victims of violence and thus increased their potential for becoming martyrs. Abolitionists asserted that the more a persecuted member was committed to the ideal of nonviolence, the more deserving he was to the title of martyr. His martyrdom in turn served to convince indifferent members of the society to support the cause of reform and even converted new members to the movement.

Abolitionists had a single cause of reform—to eradicate slavery from the land and thereby to redeem the people from this terrible sin. A single cause enhanced the ideology of martyrdom far more than support for many reform ideals. A single outstanding cause could command the attention of large segments of the society and could arouse total, passionate commitment. The clearer the ideal, the easier it became for a reformer to be completely identified with it. Likewise, one universal evil that could be portrayed as a sin was better than many abuses that could be depicted as social shortcomings. The focus of attention upon one great evil that inhibited the one central reform cause placed the specific demand for reform in a universal and even cosmic context and enabled radical abolitionists to interpret their struggle for reform as a fight between the universal forces of Good and Evil. Consequently they perceived themselves as the avant-garde in this war, willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of redeeming the country from the sin of slavery.

Abolitionists assumed that the cosmic nature of the antislavery struggle necessitated martyrdom. They viewed slavery as a sin that prevented human redemption and required human sacrifice. As Adam had rebelled against God, so a slaveholder was a rebel against divine authority. According to William Lloyd Garrison, the founder and leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society, when a man presumed that he owned another man he competed with God for control and government over mankind and therefore he defied the divine principle that all human beings were accountable only to God.⁶ Henry Wright, another radical abolitionist, defined abolitionism as a fight to redeem man from the dominion of man.⁷ Hence, by fighting a profound sin abolitionists rose to the cosmic plane as God’s messengers aimed at redeeming humanity from the sin of slavery.

“I determined at every hazard to lift up the standard of emancipation,” wrote Garrison in the first editorial of the Liberator, the official organ of the abolitionists.⁸ In another editorial he declared that he would not hold his peace on the subject of slavery and oppression. “If need be who would not die a martyr to such a cause?”⁹ Early in his career Garrison expressed his quest for self-sacrifice: “My trust is in God, my aim is to walk in the footsteps of his son, my rejoicing to be crucified to the world, and the world to me.”¹⁰ Among his favorite subjects were himself, his persecution, and his probable martyrdom. These themes appeared again and again in his editorials, speeches, personal letters, and poems. Garrison felt that the closer he approached martyrdom, the greater would be the success of his agitation on behalf of the slave.¹¹

This quest for martyrdom was not simply a personal obsession of the leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Many other members shared the belief that personal sacrifice was necessary to promote the abolition of slavery. When a mob disrupted a Boston women’s antislavery meeting demanding the life of Garrison, the mayor of Boston put him in a protective jail. When the mayor asked the ladies to go home for their own safety, Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, an organizer of the meeting, responded: “If it is the last bulwark of freedom we may as well die here as anywhere.”¹² Wendell Phillips, second only to Garrison among the ranks of abolitionists, stressed the value of martyrdom in his speeches throughout the struggle and even after the emancipation. He proudly stated at Helen Eliza Garrison’s funeral on January 27, 1876, that “trained among Friends [Quakers] with the blood of martyrdom and self sacrifice in her veins, she came so naturally to the altar.”¹³

But Garrison, along with Phillips, Theodore Weld, Frederick Douglass, and many other prominent leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society never really experienced “the altar.” Despite their willingness to be sacrificed to the cause, most of the well-known leaders of the movement did not meet a tragic death. They continued to live valuable and meaningful lives long after slavery had been abolished and they died from natural causes in their seventies and eighties. Other abolitionists, less familiar to the general public, suffered attacks, injuries, and even persecution in their struggle against slavery. These persecuted members were necessary to the antislavery movement, since they provided the connection of blood that bound all committed abolitionists in sacrificial ties. Yet most of these persecuted abolitionists did not reach national prominence.

The first and only effective martyr to the abolition movement was Elijah P. Lovejoy. He was killed by a mob in Dalton, Illinois, on November 17, 1837, and his personal destruction came to be regarded as a forecast of the fate that all human liberty must suffer if slavery were perpetuated. He won the martyr’s crown because he died and lost, not because he triumphed. His death also affected for a short time members outside of the abolitionists’ ranks. For a decade after Lovejoy’s death, lust for martyrdom permeated abolitionism, and many individuals demonstrated in life what he had demonstrated in death. But without the death ritual their suffering had only a slight impact on the public in general.

Abolitionists offered plentiful examples of such “living” martyrs. Prudence Crandel, a Quaker woman, was arrested after admitting a black girl to her school. She proved that Northerners as well as Southerners would not tolerate the education of black children. Theodore Weld suffered mockery and violence while preaching black freedom and temporarily lost his voice. James G. Birney, a Southerner ex-slaveholder, lost his wealth, prestige, and status when he joined the abolitionists‘ ranks. Thus he was perceived as a martyr to his conscience. Alanson Work, James E. Burr, and George Thompson were jailed and sentenced when caught by Southern and Northern authorities while assisting slaves across the Mississippi River. Amos Dresser was beaten, and Jonathan Walker was humiliated and tortured by proslavery foes, who branded his hand. This branded hand— reminiscent of Jesus‘ bleeding hands—became a symbol of the abolition crusader’s love and charity for the black man. Stephen S. Foster, who preached abolitionism from the pulpit in defiance of church authorities, supplied the movement with a profound example of suffering and tribulations. He declared that in one year church members had dragged him from places of worship twenty-four times, that they had twice thrown him from second-story windows and seriously injured him, that he had paid fines for preaching the Gospel, that he had been forced to escape assassins, and that he had been jailed more times than he could count. Such concrete examples reinforced the ideology of martyrdom, expanded the martyr tradition, and constantly stressed the abolitionist’s willingness to suffer for his goal of freeing the Negro.¹⁴ These examples supplied the raw material to the rhetoric of martyrdom.

In a eulogy to Lovejoy, Pastor Thomas T. Stone noted that he had consecrated himself to God by working and dying for others. Stone defined slavery as a curse not only to the slave but to the master, the country, the nation, and all humankind. He also emphasized that slavery was a blasphemy against God and violence to man. Therefore God had called upon Lovejoy to plead for the oppressed and had caused his death in order to promote the destruction of slavery.

The lovers of truth . . . will remember him and his blood they will feel to be the seed of glorious harvest, which trust shall gather in when the time of harvest comes. . . . Yes they are, who will feel themselves anew baptized into the name of God’s holy truth . . . who will live for it so long as it lets them live, and who will die for it when it needs their death, to seal it afresh.¹⁵

Other obituaries explained Lovejoy’s murder in similar terms and interpreted his martyrdom as part of a divine plan.¹⁶

In an attempt to elucidate the divine context of their suffering many abolitionists resorted to an analogy with Jesus Christ. “I do not forget that Christ and his apostles . . . were buffeted, calumniated and crucified,” wrote Garrison, “and therefore my soul is as steady to its pursuit as the needle to the pole.”¹⁷ In his last public appearance, the Reverend Mr. Lovejoy himself defended his writing of antislavery articles in a Christ-like mode: “I can die at my post but I can not desert it,” he told his audience at a public meeting in Alton. “I forgive my enemies and with the best assurance . . . in life or death, nothing can separate me from my Redeemer.”¹⁸ Likewise, George Thompson wrote to a friend from jail, “If I am thus to be sacrificed I submit cheerfully, rejoicing that I am counted worthy to suffer . . . for the name of Jesus.”¹⁹

Such identification with Christ affirmed the doctrine of nonresistance as the only way to achieve victory over the sin of slavery. Sacrifice, total submission to suffering and torture was the way of the martyr who never offended his foes and neve...