After
returning to slave territory, he sued his master on the grounds
that residence in a non-slave territory had made him free. The
court said that the Missouri Compromise which had established
slave-free territories was unconstitutional, and it went on to
state that blacks were not citizens of the United States and
therefore could not bring a suit in court. In one single decision the
court had lashed out at the Afro-American with two blows.
Besides justifying slavery, it had openly supported the spread
of the peculiar institution into the West. Then, it castrated
the freedmen by denying any political rights to them. They were
left with four alternatives: slavery, a freedom rooted in poverty and
prejudice, emigration abroad, or revolution.
Suddenly, the terms of the equation were dramatically altered by
an obscure white man named John Brown. After beginning his
public career in New England as a participant in the abolitionist
struggle, Brown became absolutely outraged by the apparent
success that the South was having in spreading slavery into the
new territories. He became one of the most active leaders in
Kansas and rallied support to prevent that state from falling
into the hands of proslavery factions.
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