When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery in 1854, John Brown raised a band of followers to wage war against settlers; three years later, Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to arm slaves for a race war. Brown's violence pointed Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln toward a different solution to slavery: politics. But as the author of Heirs of the Founders explains, the time for moderation had passed, and Lincoln's belief that democracy could peacefully resolve its moral crises faced its ultimate test.