Caden Arnold

Essay #4
Hist. 2700
4/23/2015
During the latter half of the 1850s, the United States was on the brink of emerging itself
into a civil war. The tensions of the North and South were growing immensely over the issue of
slavery. Abolitionist John Brown, on October 16, 1859, decided that it was time to play against
those tensions and try to get rid of the institution of slavery. Brown put together a small army
and decided to attack the city of Harpers Ferry, Virginia to free the slaves within the town. He
had also planned to raid the armory that was located in Harpers Ferry, to supply his army of
eventually freed slaves with weapons. Browns attack on Harpers Ferry wouldnt go according
to plan, word spread very quickly about the attack, which led him to being captured and arrested
by federal troops for the raid and trying to create a slave uprising. There were obviously mixed
feelings between the North and the South about Browns raid in Harpers Ferry. The North saw it
as motivation to bring down slavery and considered Brown a hero, while the South considered it
as a personal attack and came to the conclusion that Brown was a madman.
Browns attack on Harpers Ferry certainly didnt go according to the plan he had come
up with. It never amounted to a slave uprising as he had hoped, and they had never made it into
the armory, but he was successful in stirring the emotions of people in the North and South.
Fellow Abolitionist Wendell Phillips, believed that Browns actions in Harpers Ferry were
completely justifiable and how he was acting against a corrupt government. Virginia, the
common wealth of Virginia! She is only a chronic insurrections she is a pirate ship, and John
Brown sails the sea as Lord High Admiral of admiralty, with his commission to sink every pirate

he meets on Gods ocean of the nineteenth century (Source #5). Phillips believed Brown wasnt
an insurgent, but a man who had accomplished a good deed in Harpers Ferry. His want to free
the slaves in the city made a good and lasting impression on the citizens in the North and in those
who believed in freeing the slaves. William Garrison, Editor of the Liberator, also thought
Brown was justified in his attempt to cause a slave uprising in Harpers Ferry. He states that if
Washingtons acts were justified when for taxes on tea, then Browns just as or even more
justifiable when it came to saving people from the clutches of slavery.
Though most Northerners saw Browns movement against slavery as a heroic and brave
task, attitudes in the South were varied quite significantly. Many saw Brown as a madman or a
maniac and the government had made the correct decision for punishing him for his crimes. The
Chicago Press and Tribune made the statement that Brown was indeed a madman, and those who
participated in the raid were guilty of the most incomprehensible stupidity and folly as well as
unpardonable criminality in all these acts (Source #7). Some even used the raid as a reason to
pull away from the Union, such as Southern writer George Fitzhugh who stated; The Harpers
Ferry affair, with its extensive Northern ramifications, gives now interest to the question of
disunion (Source #17). Fitzhugh saw this attempt as the Northerners tying to place danger
among the South.
John Browns raid wasnt successful as he had hoped, there was still success that arose
out of his plan. What he had done at Harpers Ferry, managed to have a big enough impact on
peoples emotions, positively or negatively, after it had happened. It has had enough effect in our
history that 100 years after the event had transpired, it was still being argued if Brown was a
madman or if what he had done at Harpers Ferry was an act of stupidity or bravery. An example
of this is the articles written by C. Vann Woodward and Louis Ruchames, proved that even a

century after Harpers Ferry and Browns execution, it was still hotly debated whether he was
insane or not. Woodward believes he was most definitely insane, especially because he was able
to find records of insanity being very prevalent in his family history. Ruchames counters this by
saying the evidence Woodward had found supporting Browns insanity, was simply created to
save Brown form execution by showing him to be insane (Source #26).
John Brown had created enough chaos in 1859, to further build up the negative feelings
between the North and South which were already escalating at this point in our history. He set
out to show America was ready to do away with slavery, even though he failed to do so himself
at Harpers Ferry. Although he wasnt able to live long enough to see the freedom of slaves
become a reality, Brown played a signigicant role in proving to the people of the United States it
was time to do something about the issue that was tearing the country apart.