Why is John Brown so significant to the Civil War?

John Brown was an ardent abolitionist who felt that it was his sacred duty to end slavery.

John Brown was perhaps the most important individual that contributed to the onset of the American Civil War. He both alarmed and radicalized the South as a result of his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry. John Brown was essentially “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

The country was essentially polarized over the issue of slavery, and particularly from the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 and onward, there was an increasing interest and division of opinion both North and South over slavery, as well as the rights of the states to determine the future of the institution in new territories and states.

John Brown’s actions in “Bleeding Kansas” are a case in point. He, along with his sons, used machetes and broad swords to murder pro-slavery men to death at Pottowattami Creek. John Brown had a more ambitious plan to seize the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, and incite the slaves themselves to revolt and bring about the abolition of slavery by force. His plan failed, he was captured and hanged.

John Brown’s words speak in support of the above conclusion:

At a church service in Hudson, Ohio John Brown said: “Here, before God, I, John Brown in the presence of these witnesses I consecrate myself to the destruction of slavery”.

Before his execution, he prophesied: “ I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood.”