Who Pointed the Way to John Brown?
...The Virginians are consternated at the audacity of John Brown’s scheme for running off negroes to the free States; they insist that he has levied war upon the Old Dominion, and that the upshots of his scheme, if carried into effect, would be anarchy and civil war. We do not believe that John Brown had any such objects in view. As an ardent sympathizer with the slaves, he desired their emancipation, but the method in which he proposed to bring it about was by a general stampede along the frontier, and not by a bloody insurrection….
[Editors Note: The majority of this article has been omitted from our transcription except for the portions directly mentioning the term "slave stampedes" or some variant.]
"Who Pointed the Way to John Brown?," Chicago (IL) Press and Tribune, November 29, 1859, p. 3.