I don't know how it would have gone if not for John Brown but there's so many other 'little' things that make me wonder if it wasn't a trainwreck waiting to happen. As you well know, I'm no expert on the political climate or the chain of events but I am trying to piece things together from these articles and other sources. In most respects, I've been rather lax in my real reading on the political climate and the technical stuff because it boggled my brain. I'm finding more patience now and it's getting easier to understand some of the things that 747'd me before but I'll never be as well informed as others who post here.

We know most of the Confederate States had taken posession of the arsenals in their state before Sumter but it was after Brown was molding in the grave. Would that one event, Browns terrorist attack, have been the catalyst? I just don't see it. I am truly trying to keep it 'on topic' but with the current case of those in power ignoring those who voted them into power I'm getting a whole new perspective. I can see how just plain fed up some were and with them being not all that far removed from the birth of this nation, they may have believed they could pull it off. Browns trial and sentence were handled at a Federal level so there had to be more to it to cause so many men who had gone to West Point then were together in the Mexican campaign to give up all they had worked toward. Maybe it was Sumter for some of them but there were others who were either on the fence or had decided to go with the South before that. It just seems to me there was more than one issue.

Pam