On September 13 1858, slave catchers under the authority of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act kidnapped a young black man. The young man, John Price, was captured in the city of Oberlin, Oh, north in the state, some 30 miles west of Cleveland. When news of the kidnapping reached Oberlin, home to one of the nation’s first Colleges to admit African-Americans to study, over 40 members of the town raced to Wellington, OH where Price had been taken. After attempts to negotiate Price’s freedom failed, the men stormed the hotel where Price was being held, rescued him and whisked him off to safety back in Oberlin.
Two days after Price was captured, in Jonesboro Illinois, Abraham Lincoln would continue his ongoing debates with Senator Stephen Douglas for that November’s Senatorial election. Jonesboro was the 3rd of what would be 7 debates; the previous site of Freeport had produced Senator Douglas’ position that would become known as the “Freeport Doctrine” which would be a broad support for the concept of “popular sovereignty.” The Lincoln-Douglas debates would eventually end with Douglas holding his Senate seat, but would catapult Lincoln into the national conscious as a leading moderate voice in the growing tension about slavery.
Had you asked an average American about either event in the hot days of September, you would have gotten a blank stare or perhaps a shrug of the shoulders. While certainly many Americans were hearing more about national news than any other time in our short history at that point, the reaction by Ohioans to the Fugitive Slave Act would have been muted. Many Americans simply would not have even heard about the capture of Price, though later historians would consider this moment a critical one on the journey to the Civil War. By the same token, historians clearly see the Lincoln-Douglas Debates as a major moment, both for the young Republican Party and Lincoln, on the road to the Civil War.
What happens in events, though, is that things can and do become like dominoes impacting other things around it. Each year I have my students learn to discern “cause and effect” relationships between major events in history. They create something like a “Road to the Civil War” where they attempt to uncover what things transpired that took the country from the supposed high success of seeing Manifest Destiny supreme with the conclusion of the Mexican War to the scary reality of civil war. The war did not “just happen,” but rather emerged due to a series of events. It is the fact that these events can seemingly have little connection but ultimately impact one another that I want my students to see. That is what I want you to see. Being able to discern patterns among events can help you prepare for your own future.
Though no one would have known, the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue would be part of the motivation for a native Ohioan, John Brown. In the fall of 1857, John Brown was working his way through the abolitionist New England area trying to raise support and funds. Brown had gone to Kansas to aid some of his sons who had moved there as part of the “free-soilers” effort to create a slave-free Kansas.
A year after the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, John Brown would attack and seize the arsenal. He had an “army” of 21 men, including at least 3 men from Oberlin (two of them were “Rescuers” of Price). Brown’s hoped-for army of runaway slaves never materialized and ultimately, his effort ended in failure. Or did it? Brown would be tried and convicted of treason against the state of Virginia and hung. His death galvanized both the north and the south.
For southerners, this was the proof that abolitionists, and probably anyone associated with abolitionists, would stop at nothing to change was Southerners thought was their natural right and way of life. For northerners, the execution of Brown was more complicated. To abolitionists, this was proof that the South was not concerned about freeing the slaves while non-abolitionists northerners worried that Southerners were not interested in the long-term preservation of the nation as a whole, but only selfishly focused on their own state issues.
In any case, the road from Oberlin to Harpers Ferry was one that began in the shroud of obscurity and ended in the blinding light that the two sides of the country were entrenched in ways that could only end poorly. Brown was executed December 2, 1859 and wrote, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” Eleven months later on November 6, 1860, the loser of the Illinois Senatorial election, Abraham Lincoln would be elected President. Six weeks later on December 20, 1860, South Carolina would secede from the Union and the Civil War Conflict was assured.
So, why does any of this matter to you? The above is an excerpt from my newest book, one that I am very excited about—Tracking the Storm. Over the coming weeks, I will share from other chapters in the book. I am eager to get this into your hands, and you can download a pdf if you enjoy reading on your computer. I hope to have it available in ePub format for your Kindle or iPad soon. You can also purchase the full book in paperback form. In either case, my hope is that you read this material. 
Tracking the Storm provides powerful clues about what is coming, rapidly, to the United States. There is little doubt that a storm is approaching the country, the outer edges of the winds already swirling around us. What does that portend for the nation? Through the clues of history, we can find direction and steps to undertake to prepare. Many believe there won’t be a storm, or maybe that the worst is over. With history as a guide, I demonstrate that we haven’t yet even reached the Great Crisis.
Gripping and “a scary yet necessary read,” Tracking the Storm moves through the past 400 years of Anglo-American history to illustrate the various clues provided that show the steps to the coming crisis. I will tell the story of political instability, economic distress, rapid technological changes and a growing philosophical divide that challenged previous generations. At the end of each Great Crisis, the nation had been radically changed. Pick up your copy of Tracking the Storm today!