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This Day in Civil War History October 16th, 1859 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-browns-raid-on-harpers-ferry ^

Posted on 10/16/2010 4:28:16 AM PDT by mainepatsfan

Civil War

Oct 16, 1859:

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery.

Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown came from a staunchly Calvinist and antislavery family. He spent much of his life failing at a variety of businesses--he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had more than 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed irrevocably when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, during which he was so moved that he publicly announced his dedication to destroying the institution of slavery. As early as 1848 he was formulating a plan to incite an insurrection, and he shared the idea with Frederick Douglass.

In the 1850s, Brown traveled to Kansas with five of his sons to fight against the proslavery forces in the contest over that territory. On May 21, 1856, proslavery men raided the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and Brown personally sought revenge. On May 25, Brown and his sons attacked three cabins along Pottawatomie Creek. They killed five men with broad swords and triggered a summer of guerilla warfare in the troubled territory. One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting.

(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; thecivilwar
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To: Salamander; aruanan; ctdonath2; Lonesome in Massachussets

Yeah, you’re probably right, there being four of you and all.


41 posted on 10/16/2010 10:01:03 AM PDT by Walts Ice Pick
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To: Walts Ice Pick

John Brown was a troubled and violent man. The Harpers Ferry raid probably did as much to set off the Civil War as Harriet B. Stowe’s book. I think the country would have been much, much better off in the long run without the Civil War. I am as opposed to slavery as anyone, as Abe Lincoln himself. I just think abolition was inevitable in time. The Civil War was a terrible price to pay. If the initiative to end slavery had come from the South, as I believe it would, there was a great deal of abolitionist sentiment in the South, then we might have been spared a couple of generations of racial strife.

Besides, the Civil War fostered an unhealthy self-righteous attitude in the North whose consequences we are living with unto the present day.


42 posted on 10/16/2010 10:53:54 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Great Season Tampa Bay Rays! Now, kindly send Carl Crawford to Boston.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
I am as opposed to slavery as anyone, as Abe Lincoln himself

Lincoln's opposition was borne of expedience in time of war. There are ample historical quotes and cites to verify this as fact.

Barack Obama himself admits that The Emancipation Proclamation was a military document.

43 posted on 10/16/2010 11:01:16 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry
Lincoln's opposition was borne of expedience in time of war.

That's an odd position for a Republican in 1860. The Republican Party was explicitly formed in 1854 to stamp out those twins vestigages of barbarism, bigamy and slavery.

Lincoln was personally very much opposed to slavery. I do not think there is one iota of reliable evidence to the contrary, Professor Obama notwithstanding. To think otherwise is to have missed the entire thrust of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

He understood that as president he had very limit legal authority to free slaves and was quoted as saying that if he could perserve the Union and free no slave he would or if he could perserve the Union and free all slaves he would.

He waited until after the Union victory at Antietam to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, because before then it would have looked like desparation. Some historians believe that the Emancipation Proclamation was intended to undermine European, especially British, support for the Confederacy. Lincoln was certain that if the South was yoked to the North slavery would end sooner or later. He did not seek the Civil War, but he certainly exploited Northern victory to end slavery.

44 posted on 10/16/2010 11:44:29 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Great Season Tampa Bay Rays! Now, kindly send Carl Crawford to Boston.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Unfortunately no initiative was forthcoming from the “leadership” of the south, who instead deliberately set out on their disastrous plan to immortalize the “peculiar institution”.

I’m not sure what “unhealthy self-righteous attitude” exclusive to the north you are referring to - I think that there have been plenty of such attitudes all around.


45 posted on 10/16/2010 11:57:18 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now)
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To: rockrr

The antislavery elements in the South did not lead the Confederacy, oddly enough. John Brown helped stifle abolition sentiment in the South. He explicitly called for freed slaves to rise up and murder Southern whites, the way he had kill proslavery partisans in Kansas. When he took over Harpers Ferry, he had 1,500 spears with him that he intended to distributed to the slaves who arose to join him on which to impale their former masters.

When a man is riding a tiger, the way to get him to dismount is not to tell him he deserves to be eaten.


46 posted on 10/16/2010 12:12:52 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Great Season Tampa Bay Rays! Now, kindly send Carl Crawford to Boston.)
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To: mainepatsfan

John Brown...the original community organizer.


47 posted on 10/16/2010 1:32:00 PM PDT by matt1234 (The only crisis 0bama can manage is one he intentionally created.)
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To: Canedawg

RINO? LOL! It’s full fledged liberal and was a fan of O since 2006. NS’s past posts speak for themselves.


48 posted on 10/16/2010 1:32:33 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: Non-Sequitur; Candor7; manc; LucyT

You’re nothing but a self-loathing, South-hating bigot troll. The southern states were not in rebellion but in protest and were the authentic defenders of sum and substance of the constitution of 1789. It was the north that was in rebellion, seizing power and sweeping the constitution aside and distorting its’ meaning for the personal gain and power of the few.......and so it has been ever since.


49 posted on 10/16/2010 1:42:43 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis

Not to worry, Lee made sure he got what was coming to him.


50 posted on 10/16/2010 1:53:05 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Lincoln wasn’t opposed to slavery, he used that as a means to justify his end. This doesn’t sound like a man that was sympathetic to the black man.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

“”I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.”

Lincoln didn’t start the ball rolling on secession but he did bring it to a head and became the worst tyrant this country has ever had. He committed the U.S. to a war without the consent of Congress, blockaded a Southern port without a declaration of war, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, imprisoned dozens of newspaper editors, replaced Maryland’s state representatives with federal appointees and imprisoned the elected officials in Fort McHenry (where they had to live in filth and eat food not fit for animals).

He ordered the extermination of untold thousands of people, bringing the war to civilians. Telegraph wires cut? Simple. Take four or five citizens from the nearest town, line them up against the wall and shoot them. What about homes with women, children and the elderly? Give them the chance to vacate and if the slaves tried to defend…. shoot them. If Booth hadn’t parted Lincoln’s hair at Ford’s Theater, who knows whether he would have ever given up power. He was a tyrant with an army behind him. How many of those have given up power without being killed?

Hopefully one day, Lincoln’s statue will be dragged out of his temple and America’s real #1 terrorist will then be exposed in real history books. Meanwhile, the fictional Lincoln lives on in the hearts and souls of the ignorant.


51 posted on 10/16/2010 2:07:04 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: mojitojoe
You’re nothing but a self-loathing, South-hating bigot troll.

And you're nothing but an idiot.

The southern states were not in rebellion but in protest and were the authentic defenders of sum and substance of the constitution of 1789.

The rebel states were the antithesis of what the founders had in mind.

It was the north that was in rebellion, seizing power and sweeping the constitution aside and distorting its’ meaning for the personal gain and power of the few.......and so it has been ever since.

Oh barf.

52 posted on 10/16/2010 2:34:01 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Hey mo-joe! Here's another one for your collection.)
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To: Non-Sequitur

And you’re nothing but an idiot.
__________________
Oh such a witty comeback Mary dear.


53 posted on 10/16/2010 2:35:41 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: Non-Sequitur

The rebel states were the antithesis of what the founders had in mind.
______________
If you say it then it’s true, right Frances dearie?


54 posted on 10/16/2010 2:36:21 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: Non-Sequitur

Tons of facts about the South that have been forcefully buried over the years by left wing degenerate PC morons like you with a radical secular progressive agenda to shove down our throats. These stupid people, or useful idiots as Lenin called them, have made the South out to be evil when it is NOT. A large portion of our military consists of the descendants of the Confederate Army, that the left has contempt for. Why? ….... because many leftists are true cowards hiding behind the ACLU and other clowns.

The South....... legally......... DID have a right to succeed from the union, because in reality, with the exception of issues like the War on Terrorism, federal crime violations or national/international commerce and relations, the states have the power not DC....but oligarchic thugs in the Supreme Court have decided over the years to place the power in their elitist hands, not in the hands of the people of the states where it belongs. It’s amazing how many idiots can be kept ignorant and manipulated by just a few. They say “We, the People” but they mean “they, the government”.

You fall into that category.

The so called ‘Reconstruction’ period following the war was a shameful travesty in our history. It is highly unlikely that the United States has ever treated a defeated foreign enemy as badly as it did the South following the war.


55 posted on 10/16/2010 2:45:45 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: mojitojoe
Do you honestly believe all that crap? Really? What am I saying? Of course you do! You would bring back your confederacy in a moment if you could, because you have a vision of the confederacy in your little, 9-volt brain that never existed. Your actual confederacy was a big government, statist monster. A socialistic, centralized economy dedicated to keeping power in the hands of a few, freedom from a significant percentage of it's population, and citizenship in the hands of white men only, white Christian men for a preference. Led by men whose views on the races made Lincoln look like Martin Luther King by comparison. That's what your forefathers established, and that's what got it's rebellious ass kicked 145 years ago.

On the other hand, maybe that is exactly the confederacy you want to return to.

56 posted on 10/16/2010 2:46:05 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Hey mo-joe! Here's another one for your collection.)
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To: Non-Sequitur

You’re nothing but a self-loathing, South-hating bigot troll.

______________________
At least you didn’t even TRY to deny it Pansy dear.


57 posted on 10/16/2010 2:46:33 PM PDT by mojitojoe (Caractacus..or Bob if a boy & Boudicca if a girl....such hard decisions for dearie Snidely)
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To: mojitojoe
Oh such a witty comeback Mary dear.

The truth is always the best reply.

58 posted on 10/16/2010 2:46:53 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Hey mo-joe! Here's another one for your collection.)
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To: mojitojoe
Tons of facts about the South that have been forcefully buried over the years by left wing degenerate PC morons like you with a radical secular progressive agenda to shove down our throats.

If there are tons of facts to support your claims why do you rely on myths in your posts?

59 posted on 10/16/2010 2:48:59 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Hey mo-joe! Here's another one for your collection.)
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To: mojitojoe
...or useful idiots as Lenin called them...

Even Lenin would have recognized you as a useless idiot.

60 posted on 10/16/2010 2:50:03 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Hey mo-joe! Here's another one for your collection.)
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