It is noteworthy that Frederick Douglass, the ablest representative of the negro race and by all odds the ablest negro representative of abolitionism, disapproved and discouraged John Brown's enterprise. Especially Frederick Douglass advised against John Brown's policy of making war upon the United States. That was the second and the controlling cause of his failure. It seems to have been his thought that with the country in the tempestuous condition it was then in he might hopefully assail the National Government itself and that in such an assault he would have behind him the entire Northern people. How badly he misunderstood the signs of the times the events clearly show. On the 16th of October, 1859, he marched with eighteen men upon the undefended United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, broke down its doors and took forcible possession of the premises. This in itself was an easy thing to do for the reason that the Government, seeing no occasion to apprehend violence of such sort, had made no adequate provision for the defense of its arsenal. But John Brown's act was a direct, open, and flagrant levying of war against the United States and it was promptly treated as such by the Government at Washington. A force of marines was sent to Harper's Ferry to eject the intruder and to repossess the national arsenal. There was a little skirmish. Many of John Brown's men were killed and he and his surviving companions were promptly made prisoners, tried for treason, convicted and hanged. In the number of men engaged, in the amount of damage done, and in its immediate consequences this raid of John Brown's was a matter of no moment whatever. It was conspicuously a failure so far as its ulterior purpose of inducing slaves to flee from bondage and engage in insurrection was concerned. It was still more conspicuously a failure in so far as it meant war upon the United States. A single company of marines brought it to an end without the necessity of calling in any larger force. But the raid had a very important influence nevertheless, upon the future history of the country.