The American Civil War was a horrible mistake. We should have eradicated slavery in a peaceful manner. The British paid off their slave owners—and we should have done the same thing. Unfortunately, Brown’s terrorist activities may have set the wheels in motion so that war was inevitable. Assassinations often seem to have life of their own. The person who commits the killing soon loses control of events. A number of them were unprepared for the eventual outcome. The childishly immature Gavirlo Princip was stunned that his shooting of Archduke Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie resulted in the horrors of WWI.

John Brown naively thought the slaves of Harper’s Ferry were going to revolt. He was also surprised that the men of the town came out to defend the armory. That possibility never crossed his mind. When everything is said and done, Brown hurt the slaves. They would have better off had he never been born. Peaceful evolution is almost always better than violent revolution. We are still paying an awful price for blundering into the Civil War.