shown in the comment of a part of the Tory
press in Canada, _The Leader_ declaring that Brown's attack on
Harper's Ferry was an "insane raid" and predicting that the South
would sacrifice the union before submitting to such spoliation.[11]
The viewpoint of _The Leader_ and its readers may be further
illustrated by its declaration that the election campaign of 1860 was
dominated by a "small section of ultra-abolitionists who make
anti-slavery the beginning, middle and end of their creed." As for
Lincoln he was characterized as "a mediocre man and a fourth-rate
lawyer,"[12] but then some of the prominent American newspapers made
quite as mistaken an estimate of Lincoln at that time.

The collapse of John Brown's great adventure at Harper's Ferry
furnished complete proof to the South of Canada's relation to that
event. The seizure of his papers and all that they told, the evidence
at the trial at Charlestown and the evidence secured by the Senatorial
Committee which investigated the affair, all confirmed the suspicion
that in the British provinces to the north there was extensive
plotting against the slavery system. The Senatorial Committee declared
in its findings that the proceedings at Chatham had had as their
object "to subvert the government of one or more of the States, and,
of course, to that extent the government of the United States."[13]
Questions were asked of the witnesses before the investigating
committee which showed that in the minds of the members of that
committee there was a distinctly Canadian end to the Harper's Ferry
tragedy.[14] Their suspicions may have been further confirmed by the
fact that Brown's New England confederates, Sanborn, Stearns and Howe,
all fled to Canada immediately after the raid.

In the actual events at Harper's Ferry the assistance given by Canada
was small. Of the men who marched out with Brown on that fateful
October night only one could in any way be described as a Canadian.
This was Osborn Perry Anderson, a Negro born free in Pennsylvania. He
was working as a printer in Chatham at the time of the convention and
threw in his lot with Brown. He was one of those who escaped at
Harper's Ferry. He later wrote an account of the affair, served during
the latter part of the Civil War in the northern army and died at
Washington in 1871. He is described by Hinton as "well educated, a man
of natural dignity, modest, simple in character and manners."[15]

There naturally arises the