By at least one account Thomas Higginson remained in Boston “defying the government to arrest him.”
Instead of being arrested, he was rewarded with a commission in the Union Army as was co-conspirator George Stearns. Once in federal blue, they could openly attack southerners in ways John Brown could only dream.
True, Gerrit Smith self-committed to an asylum in a strategy later known as the Betty Ford Rehabilitation gambit.
Cross-border murder raids often provoke serious consequences, and rightfully so.
An entry on Wikipedia provides this example: “Following the September 11 attacks in 2001 on the U.S., which President George W. Bush blamed on Osama bin Laden who was living or hiding in Afghanistan, President Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda; bin Laden had already been wanted by the U.S. since 1998.[59] The Taliban declined to extradite him unless they were provided evidence of his involvement in the September 11 attacks and also declined demands to extradite others on the same grounds. The U.S. dismissed the request for evidence as a delaying tactic,[60] and on 7 October 2001 launched Operation Enduring Freedom with the United Kingdom.”
“Instead of being arrested, he was rewarded with a commission in the Union Army as was co-conspirator George Stearns. “
You’re treating events after the War had started with the days immediately after Brown’s failed revolution. If the Secret Six didn’t fear exposure for conspiracy they wouldn’t have been secret in the first place, and none of them would have fled the country nor had themselves committed.
In between Brown’s execution and the outbreak of the War the Boston literary elite, principally Emerson, had transformed Brown from a murderer into a saint. The Secret Six had no way of predicting that was going to happen.