The state’s then governor, William Gist, saw Brown’s raid as the logical culmination of the North’s growing antislavery agitation. The North, he said, had “crossed the Rubicon.” Alarm grew when evidence presented during Brown’s trial revealed maps of South Carolina with various targets identified. At stake was something existential: control of the entire Black race, as expressed by a Charleston grand jury in the wake of the raid. “It is proper,” the jury declared, “that the line of demarcation between the castes should be broad and distinct, more particularly at this time for reasons which
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