Document B: Last Meeting Between Frederick Douglass and John Brown (Modified)
About three weeks before the raid on Harper's Ferry, John Brown wrote to me, informing me that before going forward he wanted to see me ...
We sat down and talked over his plan to take over Harper's Ferry. I at once opposed the measure with all the arguments at my command. To me such a measure would be fatal to the work of the helping slaves escape (Underground Railroad]. It would be an attack upon the Federal government, and would turn the whole country against us.
Captain John Brown did not at all object to upsetting the nation; it seemed to him that something shocking was just what the nation needed. He thought that the capture of Harper's Ferry would serve as notice to the slaves that their friends had come, and as a trumpet to rally them.
Of course I was no match for him, but I told him, and these were my words, that all his arguments, and all his descriptions of the place, convinced me that he was going into a perfect steel-trap, and that once in he would never get out alive.
Source: In this passage, Frederick Douglass describes his last meeting with John Brown, about three weeks before the raid on Harper's Ferry. Douglass published this account in 1881 in The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

1. What are two reasons why Douglass opposed John Brown’s plan to raid Harper’s Ferry? Provide specific examples from Doc B to support your response.

2. Douglass’s account is written in 1881, twenty-two years after the raid. Do you trust his account? Why or why not? Provide specific examples from Doc B to support your response.

3. Using evidence from either both documents A and B, answer the question: What role did John Brown play in dividing the nation over slavery-- provide specific examples from both the primary and secondary information to support your response?

4. Based on either document, do you think John Brown was a “misguided fanatic”? Why or why not-- provide specific examples to support your response?