A Disease in the Public Mind

By the time he was hung for his crimesat Harpers Ferry, abolitionists had made John Brown a holy martyr in the fightagainst Southern slave owners. But Northern hatred for Southerners had beenlong in the making. Northerners believed that New England, whose spokesmen hadbegun the American Revolution, should have led the new nation. Instead, they weredisplaced by Southern slavocrats like Thomas Jefferson. Northern envy onlyexacerbated the Souths greatest fear: race war. For decades extremists inboth regions flung insults and threats, creating intractable enmities. By 1861 only the tragedy of a bloody civil war could save the Union.