gle between free white
persons and the defenders of slavery.

The propaganda of Southern and Western abolitionists had as a primary
object the prevention of both servile insurrection and civil war. It was
as clear to Southern abolitionists in the thirties as it was to Seward
and Lincoln in the fifties that, unless the newly aroused slave power
should be effectively checked, a terrible civil war would ensue. To
forestall this dreaded calamity, they freely devoted their lives and
fortunes. Peaceable emancipation by state action, according to the
original program, was prevented by the rise of a sectional animosity
which beclouded the issue. As the leadership drifted into the hands of
extremists, the conservative masses were confused, misled, or deceived.
The South undoubtedly became the victim of the erroneous teachings of
alarmists who believed that the anti-slavery North intended, by unlawful
and unconstitutional federal action, to abolish slavery in all the
States; while the North had equally exaggerated notions as to the
aggressive intentions of the South.

The opposing forces finally met on the plains of Kansas, and extreme
Northern opposition became personified in John Brown of Osawatomie. He
was born in Connecticut in May, 1800, of New England ancestry, the sixth
generation from the Mayflower. A Calvinist, a mystic, a Bible-reading
Puritan, he was trained to anti-slavery sentiments in the family of Owen
Brown, his father. He passed his early childhood in the Western Reserve
of Ohio, and subsequently moved from Ohio to New York, to Pennsylvania,
to Ohio again, to Connecticut, to Massachusetts, and finally to New
York once more. He was at various times tanner, farmer, sheep-raiser,
horse-breeder, wool-merchant, and a follower of other callings as well.
From a business standpoint he may be regarded as a failure, for he had
been more than once a bankrupt and involved in much litigation. He was
twice married and was the father of twenty children, eight of whom died
in infancy.

Until the Kansas excitement nothing had occurred in the history of the
Brown family to attract public attention. John Brown was not conspicuous
in anti-slavery efforts or in any line of public reform. As a mere lad
during the War of 1812 he accompanied his father, who was furnishing
supplies to the army, and thus he saw much of soldiers and their
officers. The result was that he acquired a feeling of disgust for
everything military, and he cons