John Brown's Trial and Its Impact on the Civil War

Today’s great political trial concerns the prosecution and execution of John Brown in 1859 for his raid on Harper’s Ferry in the attempt to free America’s slaves, an event that helped precipitate the American Civil War. It was also a trial that produced three of the greatest speeches in American history: by Brown himself, by Henry Thoreau and by Frederick Douglass, which between them constitute an indictment of slavery for the ages. How did one man’s unilateral declaration of war convulse an entire nation? And how did his trial confirm what was becoming increasingly clear: that a house divided against itself cannot stand?

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Next time in Politics on Trial: The Haymarket Eight vs the Police

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