I don't have much to add, but although there were many atrocities and crimes committed during "Bleeding Kansas," John Brown and his posse, massacring "innocent" Southerners in the night (the Pattawatomie Massacre) was particularly vilified and inspired a lot of fear among Southerners that they might fall to a similar fate if they were to acquiesce to Northern power. Harpers Ferry, also, symbolized the threat of slaves rising up under the Northern man to fight against their owners, and the prospect of armed former-slaves was particularly terrifying. John Brown was seen by some as an unchained destructive force of the North, willing to go to lengths beyond the law to achieve his goals. Both Bleeding Kansas as a whole, which Brown had a hand in instigating, and Harpers Ferry, which implied escalated military action, wobbled the proverbial balance of the nation.

He also inspired two of my favorite paintings, the first because of its pure delirium, and almost tabloid-esque excitability (the art equivalent of yellow journalism before yellow journalism?), and the second because of its tenderness in the face of the acts John Brown had committed. He did some terrible things, but he did what he thought was right and he was perhaps the most passionate, if not only the most active, abolitionist in the history of the nation--and this painting puts that into perspective for me. It's an utterly small human moment before a man is hanged, and I find it absolutely beautiful.