While a guest at Douglass’s home in Rochester, New York in February 1858, John Brown authored a constitution as he was planning his raid on Harper’s Ferry. It was adopted at a convention Brown held in Canada on May 8-10, 1858. Twenty months later, Brown led a small raiding party to seize the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to initiate a slave revolt in the area. U.S. Marines killed ten of the raiders, and another seven, including Brown, were tried and executed, while five escaped.
Responding to a query in 1874, Douglass wrote that Brown’s Constitution “is not for sale.”
