Abolitionist John Brown was executed because he led an interracial band of whites, freed slaves, fugitive slaves, and free men of color, who attempted to seize a federal armory and use the weapons to arm slaves.
It was their plan to create a wave of slave rebellions, arming the slaves of one county at a time who would then liberate the next county to the south.
Statist historians claim that an expanded federal government was needed to rid the country of racism and slavery; but did the federal suppression of slave rebellions and “violent” abolitionists in fact allow slavery to last decades longer than it would have?
John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States.[1] During 1856 in Kansas, Brown commanded forces at the Battle of Black Jackand the Battle of Osawatomie.[1] Brown’s followers also killed five pro-slavery supporters at Pottawatomie.[1] In 1859, Brown led an unsuccessful raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry that ended with his capture.[1] Brown’s trial resulted in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging.[1]
Brown’s attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty on all counts and was hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party to end slavery. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War.
The Insomniac Libertarian 