Existing comment:
"If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery. If we look over the dates, places and men, for which this honor is claimed, we shall find that not Carolina, but Virginia -- not Fort Sumter, but Harper's Ferry and the arsenal -- not Col. Anderson, but John Brown, began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain. The irrespressible conflict was one of words, votes and compromises. When John Brown stretched forth his arm the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was gone -- the armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken Union -- and the clash of arms was at hand. The South stakes all upon getting possession of the Federal Government, and failing to do that, drew the sword of rebellion and thus made her own, and not Brown's, the lost cause of the century."
Frederick Douglass, the famed African-American abolitionist, served on the Board of Trustees for Storer College. In an oration at Storer in 1881, Douglass described John Brown's Raid as the opening event of the war that ended slavery. |