John Brown- Terrorist or Freedom Fighter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

John Brown- Terrorist or Freedom Fighter - Essay Example Using one of the most famous accounts of such a confrontation in America, the author illustrates the impact of humanitarians’ calls for abolition linking John Brown’s Raid as a possible origin of the American Civil War. However, the noble intentions of the raid are usually taken out of context to associate its consequences with acts of terrorism. In spite of the dangerous approach adopted by John Brown and his associates in the Harpers Ferry episode, abolition campaign was like a time bomb that would have anyway exploded due to neglect and contempt of human rights issues. Flanked by this thesis statement, this essay will attempt to analyze the life of John Brown and the events at Harpers Ferry raid to pick a position on legality of his actions as reiterated in the accompanying conclusion. Inequality and slavery in the polarized American society concerned John Brown to the extent that he found an alternative to peaceful abolition campaign that had not delivered results. Besides his desire to have a successful campaign for a slave free country, he was angered by some abolition positions that did not advocate for equality to the marginalized slave community (Earle, 13). Terrible aggression had been observed against slaves who were also subjected to inhumane conditions, a matter that inspired John Brown to apply similar tactics on the perpetrators of the violence on slaves. Alternatively, there was an apparent division into two southern and northern factions along hard-line positions on the issue of slavery. John Brown was a northerner, the faction that largely advocated for peaceful resolution of the American humanitarian concerns. Despite the fact that religious input into the campaign quelled application of any hostility tactic, the emergence of certain abolition acti vists who were desperate for the continued suppression of slaves and minorities was on the rise. The hostile abolitionists had realized that however dangerous it appeared, hostility