It is said without John Brown's raid on a Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Oct.16 1859, the pro slavery Democrats would have won the Election. Abraham Lincoln won that election, and the rest is history.


"Before Harpers Ferry, leading politicians believed that the widening division between North and South would eventually yield to compromise. After it, the chasm appeared unbridgeable. Harpers Ferry splintered the Democratic Party, scrambled the leadership of the Republicans and produced the conditions that enabled Republican Abraham Lincoln to defeat two Democrats and a third-party candidate in the presidential election of 1860. "


Present at the hanging of Brown were some leading lights of the civil war.. In charge of the company of marines sent from Washington was Robert E Lee, and his deputy was J.E.B.Stuart. Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth witnessed the execution.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/history/the-raid-on-harpers-ferry/?jwsource=c [ click on the video in the link below]


John Brown's Day of Reckoning
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History
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