The raid itself was an act deemed a form of terrorism, a term not then used but one that has been applied to Brown since. In some ways, the term fits, for he attacked in order to provoke an incident and to create fear in order to generate support for a wider war. Like many terrorists, he had a strong moral conviction and a belief in the rightness of his actions, though that in itself does not mean they were right. For those who believe that Brown helped spur the Civil War, his actions might be considered justified, while for those who see his attack as an aberration that had little real effect on subsequent events, his crusade was misdirected and foolish. What is certainly clear is that assessments of Brown do not exist in a vacuum and that how one views the man may depend on how one views...
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