December 2, 1859
Having been found guilty of murder, treason, and inciting slave insurrection, abolitionist John Brown is hanged in Charlestown, Virginia. Frederick Douglass said of John Brown: “His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine – it was as the burning sun to my taper light – mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.”