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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star

and the American people.

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Up next, the story of one of America's most

divisive figures, both of his time and perhaps ours, due to the methods he employed to aid

in the destruction of slavery. We're, of course, talking about John Brown. Here to tell the story

is David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown abolitionist. Let's get into

the story. I don't agree with John Brown and what he did. There was a legal course in America for him to

follow. John Brown was a horse thief from Kansas. He stirred up trouble out there in the Kansas-Dabrasco Wars.

And all he did, and he wasn't in the majority, a majority of people maybe have the right to change the law,

but a majority of 21 does not.

A slave was property.

No man in this society today has a right to go into my house to steal my television set, to break my windows. No man in the 19th century had a right

to go and steal another person's property. That's exactly what Brown intended to do. What Brown stood

for was wrong. He was morally wrong. He killed. Slavery's wrong. I mean, we all know that.

How can you do anything else but to pull a John Brown? How can you do anything else to pull a John Brown? How can

you do anything else? Debradably realizing maybe that you're sinning or that you're doing something

wrong? Four million people, human beings, not numbers, not dates, not facts and figures, not words,

but human beings, they deserve to be free.

John Brown can be best explained by the adage,

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