Don’t make Luigi Mangione into another John Brown

On Dec. 2, 1859, the Commonwealth of Virginia executed John Brown. Brown had been convicted of multiple murders, treason against Virginia, and inciting a slave revolt in relation to his raid on an armory in Harpers Ferry.

John Brown was an abolitionist who hated the injustice of slavery. He asserted human equality as a Christian principle to be followed by all who feared God. Brown also believed peaceful efforts at combating slavery had failed. He chose violence. It began before Harpers Ferry, including killing pro-slavery settlers in “Bleeding Kansas” in 1856.