Of the four candidates, not one was able to command a national following, and the campaign evolved into a choice between Lincoln and Douglas in the North, Breckenridge and Bell in the South. Once consequence of these separate campaigns was that each section gained a false impression of one another. The South never learned to distinguish Lincoln from the radicals; the North failed to gauge the force of southern intransigence--and in this Lincoln was among the worst.

The fanatical abolitionist John Brown plotted a large slave insurrection at Harpers Ferry in western Virginia.  Purchasing arms with about $3,000 provided by sympathetic Northern abolitionists, he launched his abortive enterprise with a score of men, including two of his own sons.  Wounded and captured, after the loss of several innocent lives, he was given every opportunity to pose as a martyr while being tried.  he was found guilty of three capital offenses: conspiracy with slaves, murder, and treason.  Most of the abolitionists who had financed his enterprise ran fo