acks, he said, would have to pay a heavy price to win their freedom. "We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others." During the mid-1850s, John Brown was the leader of one of the Free Soil bands fighting the proslavery forces in Kansas. But Brown wanted to start a slave revolt in the South. In 1859, he decided to lead an attack on the northern Virginia town of Harpers Ferry, seize the weapons stored in the nearby federal armory, and hold the local citizens hostage while he rounded up slaves in the area. Gathering a small force of white and black volunteers, Brown rented a farm near Harpers Ferry and made his preparations for attack. From the farm, Brown wrote to Douglass, asking him to come to a meeting in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in August. There Brown announced his plans and urged Douglass to join in the attack. Douglass refused. He had agreed with Brown's earlier ideas, but he knew that an attack on federal property would enrage most Americans. This was the last time Douglass and Brown met. On October 16, 1589, Brown and his men seized Harpers Ferry. The next night, federal troops led by Colonel Robert E. Lee marched into the town and stormed the armory where Brown's band was stationed. Brown was captured, and two of his sons were killed in the fighting. In less than two months, Brown was tried for treason, found guilty, and hanged. Douglass was lecturing in Philadelphia when he received the news about Brown's raid, and he was warned that letters had been found that implicated him in the attack. The headlines for the newspapers' accounts of the incident featured his name prominently. Knowing that he stood little chance of a fair trial if he were captured and sent to Virginia, Douglass fled to Canada. While in Canada, Douglass wrote letters in his own defense, justifying both his flight and his refusal to help Brown. One of the men captured during the raid said that Dou...
