The Execution of John Brown: A Discourse Delivered at Chicago, December 4th, 1859, in the First Congregational Church
By Rev. William W. Patton
(Virginia Historical Society, Call no. E451 .P28)

One of the many speakers in the North who eulogized John Brown immediately after the hanging was the prominent theologian W.W. Patton. He took a moderate position. Patton would not condone a slave revolt because it "would not benefit the slave" who would be "slaughtered by thousands," and it would be "a hell on earth to the whites." However, no man had ever expressed "nobler sentiments' than Brown who was "a genuine Christian." Therefore, Patton concluded, Brown was "[not] severely responsible" for what he did.