John Brown's Legacy

John Brown was born in Connecticut in the year 1800,
and later became one of the most controversial

and polarizing American figures to impact the Civil War. From childhood, Brown was exposed to two major events that shifted his views towards pro-abolition. During one incident, he witnessed the beating of a black slave at age 12. Later, he dedicated himself to the abolition of slavery following the death of Elijah P. Lovejoy.
His first streak of notoriety occurred following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, where, in an effort to shift the tide of the mixed state of Kansas, he shot five pro-slavery civilians. Later, still seeking to make violence change, Brown engaged in the Raid of Harpers Ferry, an extremely polarizing event that contributed to the start of the civil war. Massively underequipped, the raid was a complete failure and Robert E. Lee eventually defeated and captured Brown.
During his trial after defeat, Brown was immediately called to court without the aid of a lawyer or proper recovery from his injuries. In his address, while still bandaged and wounded, he said, "The Governor of the State of Virginia tendered me his assurance that I should have a fair trial [...] If you seek my blood, you can have it at any moment, without this mockery of a trial." This moment sparked and incited questions over, not whether what Brown did was correct or wrong, but whether the Southern government acted fairly in conducting a trial against a strong abolitionist. Northern movements then vilified the actions of the South, where one said, "We defy an instance to be shown in a civilized community where a prisoner has been forced to trial for his life." Despite the reaction of both sides to the trial as the agreement of dishonest and hurtful action, the North and South were still pitted against one another regarding the constitutional fairness of the trial. Furthermore, later newspapers published on the topic, with Northern reporters calling the attacks, "the work of a madman" and, misguided, wild and apparently, insane." Despite the obvious condemning of the attacks cast by the North, the South still related this as a Northern action, when a newspaper claimed the attack to have, "advanced the cause of Disunion more than any other event." Brown was soon later tried and sent to death by hanging.
Following his death, Brown became an even greater political agitator, many in the North resonating with his belief and message while those in the South condemned the actions of the North. A northern New York mayor claimed that the South had, "temper[ed] ‘justice with Mercy'" while a Richmond resident proclaimed, "yet old Brown will be hung".
Brown's influence also manifested during the Civil War, where Union soldiers would sing a song titled, "John Brown's Body", honoring the martyr that had died for abolition. Even during the civil war, the fort of Harpers Ferry, in the seceded Virginia, was held by the Union until the Confederacy began surrounding the fort. Not wanting the fort to fall to the South, the Captain holding it dictated the fort be burned, still showing the inherent difference between North and South, and the hate between them.
https://www.biography.com/activist/john-brown
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/john-brown-6683.php
https://www.americanheritage.com/trial-john-brown
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/songs/john_brown.html