¶ … John Brown's Raid lead to the Civil War?
In 1859, John Brown led an attack on a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia with the hope of arming slaves for a revolt against their masters. The plot failed and Brown was captured and hanged. Northern abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison,
Horace Greeley, and Frederick Douglas hailed Brown as a martyr, but Southerners viewed him as a crazed lunatic. The fanatical and probably mentally unstable Brown confirmed the South's worst fears of radical abolitionism when he made this attempt to galvanize a slave uprising. This was the most noted attempt at a genuine slave revolt since Nat Turner's revolt of 1831. This "act of war" enraged the South. Newspapers throughout the South were crying for John Brown's death. The Mobile Register wrote,
The ark of covenent has been desecrated. For the first time the soil of the South has been invaded and its blood has been shed upon its own soil by armed abolitionists" who invoked our slaves to rebellion" (Oates 320). "The Harper's Ferry invasion has advanced the cause of Disunion more than any other event that has happened since the formation of the Government" (Oates 323).
His impractical plan was to use guns from the federal arsenal (which he specifically targeted) to arm Virginia's slaves. Federal troops, under the command of Robert E. Lee captured Brown and his band after a two-day siege.
Some moderates in the North, including Lincoln, condemned Brown's actions...
The raid on Harper's Ferry struck terror in the heart of the South and encouraged northerners, for it "showed how fragile the system of
slavery was beneath its brutal exterior" (Nelson 215). Some extreme Southerners believed that the entire Northern militia was behind the raid in addition to Brown and the slaves. Many agreed with the sentiments of Ralph Waldo Emerson who described Brown as "that new saint, than whom none was purer or more brave was ever led by
love of men into
conflict and death, the new
saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the cross" (Nelson 218). William Lloyd Garrison said, "In firing his gun, John Brown has merely told what time of day it is - it is high noon. Thank God" (Dupuy, 7). Lincoln said in his
debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858 that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." However, the raid led to even further division. And the divided house could not stand when it came to
war (Dupuy 4).
After the condemnation of Brown and his associates, fearing from published threats that an attempt might be made by Northern sympathizers to rescue them, Governor Wise ordered Virginia troops to Charlestown to guard the prisoners until after…
