{"id":519,"date":"2009-10-07T05:31:42","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T10:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/blog\/?p=519"},"modified":"2010-06-16T10:49:22","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T15:49:22","slug":"harpers-ferry-%e2%80%93-southern-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2009\/10\/07\/harpers-ferry-%e2%80%93-southern-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"Harpers Ferry \u2013 Southern Reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-518\" title=\"1859_11_28_salisbury_edited3\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/files\/2009\/10\/1859_11_28_salisbury_edited3.jpg\" alt=\"1859_11_28_salisbury_edited3\" width=\"250\" height=\"254\" \/>The South\u2019s reaction to John Brown\u2019s attack is often characterized as a violent one. \u201cThe shock and fear John Brown had instigated fueled widespread panic\u2026[that] fed into paranoia vented in aggressive acts,\u201d as historian David Reynolds explains. Yet not all southerners accepted violent actions. Protecting their communities remained a high priority, but these southerners argued that extralegal means should not be employed. Not only were existing laws more than sufficient, but violent actions impugned southern honor. Someone who \u201cwas tarred and feathered\u201d \u201cfor sympathsing [sic] with old Brown\u201d may have \u201crichly deserved his punishment,\u201d but the <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/28649\" target=\"_blank\">Greensboro Patriot argued <\/a>that the best solution was \u201cto let the law take its course.\u201d Other editors in North Carolina reached similar conclusions. \u201cThe laws are ample to protect the South,\u201d as the <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/28647\" target=\"_blank\">Fayetteville Observer explained <\/a>in November 1859. The Observer later <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/23288\" target=\"_blank\">implied <\/a>that southern honor was at stake: \u201cin some places the prejudice against Northern men has been carried to an extent at once injurious to the interests and disgraceful to the character of the South.\u201d Brown attacked Harpers Ferry 150 years ago, but as historian William Freehling observers, we still have much to learn about the \u201csubtleties of the southern\u00a0 response.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South\u2019s reaction to John Brown\u2019s attack is often characterized as a violent one. \u201cThe shock and fear John Brown had instigated fueled widespread panic\u2026[that] fed into paranoia vented in aggressive acts,\u201d as historian David Reynolds explains. Yet not all southerners accepted violent actions. Protecting their communities remained a high priority, but these southerners argued [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,171],"tags":[157],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antebellum-1840-1861","category-historic-periodicals","tag-slavery-abolition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2019,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}