lding a
carbine in one hand, with one dead son by his side, while feeling the
pulse of another son, who had received a mortal wound, all the time
watching every movement for the defense and forbidding his men to
fire upon any one who was unarmed. The testimony is uniform that
Brown exercised special care to prevent his men from shooting unarmed
citizens, and this conduct was undoubtedly influential in securing
generous treatment for him and his men after the surrender.

For six weeks afterwards, until his execution on the 2d of December,
John Brown remained a conspicuous figure. He won universal admiration
for courage, coolness, and deliberation, and for his skill in parrying
all attempts to incriminate others. Probably less than a hundred people
knew beforehand anything about the enterprise, and less than a dozen
of these rendered aid and encouragement. It was emphatically a personal
exploit. On the part of both leader and followers, no occasion was
omitted to drive home the lesson that men were willing to imperil their
lives for the oppressed with no hope or desire for personal gain. Brown
especially served notice upon the South that the day of final reckoning
was at hand.

It is natural that the consequences of an event so spectacular as
the capture of Harper's Ferry should be greatly exaggerated.
Brown's contribution to Kansas history has been distorted beyond all
recognition. The Harper's Ferry affair, however, because it came on the
eve of the final election before the war, undoubtedly had considerable
influence. It sharpened the issue. It played into the hands of
extremists in both sections. On one side, Brown was at once made
a martyr and a hero; on the other, his acts were accepted as a
demonstration of Northern malignity and hatred, whose fitting expression
was seen in the incitement of slaves to massacre their masters.

The distinctive contribution of John Brown to American history does not
consist in the things which he did but rather in that which he has been
made to represent. He has been accepted as the personification of the
irrepressible conflict.

Of all the men of his generation John Brown is best fitted to exemplify
the most difficult lesson which history teaches: that slavery and
despotism are themselves forms of war, that the shedding of blood is
likely to continue so long as the rich, the strong, the educated, or the
efficient, strive to force their will upon the poor, the weak, and the
ignor