Scholarship
David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, rev. ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), 23.
Into this unusual family atmosphere of fervent Calvinism and equally fervent Abolitionism, John Brown was born on May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut. Had he appeared at a different historical moment, it is quite possible that Harpers Ferry would not have happened - if so, the Civil War might have been delayed, and slavery might not have been abolished in America as soon as it was.