oct 16, 1859 - John Brown's Raid of Federal Arsenal
Description:
John Brown led eighteen heavily armed black and white men in a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown hoped to arm slaves with the arsenal's weapons and mount a major rebellion to end slavery. Republican leaders condemned Brown's unsuccessful raid, but Democrats called his plot "a natural, logical, inevitable result of the doctrines and teachings of the Republican party." The South began to fear that the North would do whatever it took, even attack the southern people and burn their belongings unless the South freed their slaves.
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Events Leading to the Civil War
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