they attack, and as a result of antetum, which is seven miles from the kennedy farm, lincoln issues the emancipation proclamation. so, you know, this incredible journey in our history all occurs in this very tight geographic area. i mean, it really is quite stunning. this is the irony while i was sort of bashing lincoln but suggesting that he wasn't the great emancipator initially that people imagined. he actually was on the conservative end of the anti-slavery spectrum, and this comes through again very much in his attitude towards brown, the great irony is that he eventually comes around to brown's position and that slavery -- this must become a war against slavery and ends up, you know, taking the south that begins to fulfill brown's mission but like brown becomes a martyr through the cause. here's a final strange twist in their connection. one of the odd things about the harper's ferry story is it's almost a casting call for the confederate see. they lead the troops in a counterattack against john brown, stonewall jackson turns up there. it's almost a prequel to "gods and generals."

falls bluff, antetum in chancellor'sville and comes out of that experience. went into the war as one of the maybe, relatively few, abolitionists, officers, and comes out of the war convinced his moral passions, moral passions of the colleagues were foolish mistakes. so, it frames our moral modesty. >> the passion itself was the problem. >> that's right. it frames the passionate social projects that people have engaged in ever since. so the civil rights movement, borrows on the language of the abolitionists. the woman's right movement, borrows and we have all the social movements that organize themselves around the models of abolition as the one great, you know, relatively, relatively pure. example of, extraordinary social reform in our country. but also we're called on to beep modest at the same time by the same events. >> i want to make an argument as to why savory is a little different. i think it's a particular kind of violence when you talk about the selling of people. the selling of people's children. the division of families. i think that's a little dif