A white abolitionist whose trial and execution for treason in 1859 hastens the Civil War, Brown is championed by Northerners as being a martyr while slaveholding Southerners dig in their heels to protect their rights. Brown's contemporaries, friends and foes alike, know he is sane, even if the attack he leads on a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, has no chance of success. During his trial and the month between his conviction for treason and his execution, Brown touches many hearts, and "John Brown's Body" becomes a Yankee anthem during the war. During the nadir in race relations between the end of Reconstruction and the advent of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Brown is depicted in history textbooks as insane; today he is merely swept over, leaving the motivation for abolitionism.....
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