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B |
efore the 1850s, most abolitionists were averse
to the use of violence. Opponents of slavery hoped to use moral suasion and
other peaceful means to end slavery. But during the 1850s, the Fugitive Slave
Law of 1850, the caning of Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate chamber, violence
in Kansas between pro-slavery "border ruffians" and free-soilers, and
the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision shook abolitionists' faith in
nonviolence. By the mid-1850s, a growing number of abolitionists, including
John Brown, had concluded that it was just as legitimate to use violence to
secure the freedom of slaves as it had been to establish the independence of
the American colonies.