John Brown

Prior to 1859, there were many distinctions between the North and the South. In the wake of John Brown’s raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry and his following execution, comparing North and South seemed to be the equivalent of comparing black and white. The effects of John Brown’s death pried the gap between North and South open even further. The North came to see John Brown as a hero and a martyr. …

…It is impossible to deny the existence of differences between the North and South before John Brown. It was some of those differences that led to Brown’s raid on the federal armory. However, John Brown’s raid and the events that followed turned those differences against each other and greatly assisted in the eventual clash between North and South. John Brown caused the split of the North and South into two distinctly different entities.