John Brown and violence: was declining Harpers Ferry prudence or desertion?

Frederick Douglass, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

I knew John Brown for years, I helped him, and at Chambersburg I told him the Ferry was a steel trap from which he would never get out alive, and I would not go with him. I was right about the trap. I have never pretended that being right about it was the same thing as being brave, and I have said in public that his soul goes marching on while I lived to speak. I hold that slavery would end in blood; I did not hold that every man was obliged to furnish his own.12345

Sources

  1. Placing her ear close to the ground she declared she heard the Slogan--the Scotch war song. For long hours in the night no member of the family could hear the advancing music but herself. "Dinna ye hear it? Dinna ye hear it?" she would say, but they could not hear it. As the morning slowly dawned a Scotch regiment was found encamped indeed about them, and they were saved from the threatened slaughter.
    John Brown - An Address at Storer College
  2. There has been some difference of opinion as to the propriety of my course in thus leaving my friend. Some have thought that I ought to have gone with him, but I have no reproaches for myself at this point, and since I have been assailed only by colored men who kept even farther from this brave and heroic man than I did, I shall not trouble myself much about their criticisms.
    Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
  3. I was for avoiding Harper's Ferry altogether. Shields Green and Mr. Kagi remained silent listeners throughout. It is needless to repeat here what was said, after what has happened. Suffice it, that after all I could say, I saw that my old friend had resolved on his course and that it was idle to parley. I told him finally that it was impossible for me to join him.
    John Brown - An Address at Storer College
  4. He looked every way like a man of the neighborhood, and as much at home as any of the farmers around there. His hat was old, and storm-beaten, and his clothing was about the color of the stone quarry itself--his then present dwelling-place. His face wore an anxious expression, and he was much worn by thought and exposure.
    Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
  5. If any body is disposed to think less of me on account of this sentiment, or because I may have had a knowledge of what was about to occur, and did not assume the base and detestable character of an informer, he is a man whose good or bad opinion of me may be equally repugnant and despicable.
    Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Where the argument is made

  • John Brown: An Address at the Fourteenth Anniversary of Storer College (1881)
  • Life and Times (1881) on the Chambersburg meeting and the flight to Canada and England

How the argument was received

Contested since 1859. He was indicted, fled to Canada and then to England, and the charge of having encouraged a man to a death he declined to share has followed him ever since.