Abolitionist John Brown's Treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia: A Lesson for State Governments about the Culpability of Non-Residents for Treason against the State

This article analyzes the specific issue of whether an individual could be tried for treason by a State government if that individual is not a resident or citizen of that State. This issue is analyzed through the prism of the landmark case of John Brown v. Commonwealth of Virginia, a criminal prosecution which occurred in October 1859. Brown, a resident of New York, was convicted of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, insurrection, and murder after he attempted to overthrow the institution of slavery by force on October 16–18, 1859. After a prosecution and trial which occurred within a matter of weeks following Brown's crimes, Brown was executed on December 2, 1859. To this day, John Brown's trial and execution remains one of the leading examples of a State government exercising its power to enforce treason law on the State level and to execute an individual for that offense. Of course, the John Brown case had a major impact on American history, including being a significant factor in the presidential election of 1860 and an often-cited spark to the powder keg of tensions between the Northern and Southern States, which would erupt into a raging conflagration between the North and South in the American Civil War a short eighteen months later. However, in the legal realm, the Brown case is one of the leading and best-known examples of a state government exercising its authority to enforce its laws prohibiting treason against the State. The purpose of this article is not to discuss treason laws generally or even all the issues applicable to John Brown's trial in 1859. Rather, this article focuses only on the very specific issue of the culpability of a non-resident/non-citizen for treason against a State government. With the increased array of hostile actions against State governments in recent years, and criminal actors crossing state lines to commit these hostile acts, this article discusses an issue of importance to contemporary society, namely whether an individual can be prosecuted and convicted for treason by a State of which the defendant is not a citizen or resident.

A Party Built on Bigotry Alone? The Scottish Board of Dissenters and Edinburgh Liberalism, 1834–56

By assessing the Central Board of Dissenters, arguably the most influential liberal-voluntary group of the mid-nineteenth century and the political wing of Scottish dissent, this article questions whether the Liberal party in Edinburgh was indeed built on ‘bigotry alone’, and asks whether the groups that would later form the backbone of Scottish Liberalism until the Great War were, as John Brown claimed, the enemies of all oppressions and monopolies, or simply the products of sectarian strife. The Central Board of Dissenters acted as the conduit for ecclesiastical and political organisation for Edinburgh's radical voluntaries during the bitter conflict of the pre-Disruption period, and utilised this organisational strength after 1843 to create a pan-dissenting alliance based on the anti-Maynooth campaign. Despite their foundations in the intra-Presbyterian strife of Victorian Scotland, the electoral successes of this period created a base both in Edinburgh and across Scotland for a Liberal party, once it threw off the ideological shackles of these denominational struggles, which would dominate Scottish politics until the Great War.

A brief history of Lepidoptera section contributions to Zootaxa

As a reviewer, John Brown received the first Lepidoptera manuscript submitted to Zootaxa in 2002. Within a year he was persuaded by a colleague to volunteer as its first Lepidoptera section editor. As submissions increased, he realized that he needed assistance, so in July 2005 he enlisted Robert Robbins (U.S. National Museum of National History), and the two editors split the submissions—Brown covered moths and Robbins butterflies. As submissions continued to grow, Robbins stepped down and Brown was again the sole editor. Owing to the ever-increasing manuscript load, in 2007 Brown submitted a proposal to several colleagues, inviting them to become Lepidoptera section editors, with the concept that the more editors there were, the fewer manuscripts each would have to handle, and their duties would include papers primarily in their area of expertise. The solicitation was successful, with four new subject editors coming on board in 2007: Lawrence Gall for macrolepidoptera families, Michael Toliver for butterflies, Jean-François Landry for microlepidoptera families, and Shen-Horn Yen for Pyraloidea and Zygaenoidea; the last two are still section editors today. Over the next 13 years, numerous editors came and went—turnover in editorship was always viewed as a positive way to involve new scientists and interject fresh ideas. From 2001 to 2020, a cumulative total of 21 scientists have served as Lepidoptera Section editors (Table 1), representing 14 different countries.

The Invention of Terrorism in Nineteenth Century Europe, Russia, and the United States

This chapter examines the emergence of terrorism. It argues that five men invented terrorist tactics in a transnational learning process between 1858 and 1866 in Europe, the United States, and Russia. After a systematic reflection on terrorism’s sociopolitical logic and its preconditions, the chapter analyzes Felice Orsini’s attempt to assassinate Napoleon III and the media reactions. This case is interpreted as the beginning of the invention of terrorism. News of Orsini’s deed traveled to America and had inspired John Brown, who changed his tactics from guerilla war to terrorism when he planned his raid on Harpers Ferry. Oskar Wilhelm Becker, John Wilkes Booth, and Dmitrii Vladimirovich Karakozov were the three most significant imitators of both Orsini’s and Brown’s deeds. They finalized the tactic by universalizing it politically and developing the claim of responsibility (Bekennerschreiben). With these developments the terrorist tactic as we know it today was fully developed.