.

JOHN BROWN.
The crusade against slavery was based upon the assumption that slavery, like war, is an abnormal state of society.

As the tyrant produces the assassin, so on a larger scale slavery calls forth servile insurrection, or, as in the United States, an implacable struggle between free white persons and the defenders of slavery.
The propaganda of Southern and Western abolitionists had as a primary object the prevention of both servile insurrection and civil war.

It was as clear to Southern abolitionists in the thirties as it was to Seward and Lincoln in the fifties that, unless the newly aroused slave power should be effectively checked, a terrible civil war would ensue.

To forestall this dreaded calamity, they freely devoted their lives and fortunes.