Which event demonstrated abolitionists were willing to use violence to end slavery?

• A. The Emancipation Proclamation
• B. The Dred Scott decision
• C. Kansas-Nebraska Act
• D. John Brown and Harpers Ferry

Answer: (D)

Focusing on whether abolitionists were willing to use violence to end slavery, the clearest example is John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Brown, an abolitionist, led a small group to seize the federal arsenal there in the hope of arming enslaved people and sparking an armed uprising to abolish slavery. This was a direct act of violence undertaken to advance the cause, even though the raid failed and Brown was captured and executed.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime executive order that declared enslaved people in Confederate-held areas to be free; it is a government action, not a demonstration of abolitionists using violence. The Dred Scott decision was a Supreme Court ruling that denied rights to enslaved people and upheld slavery—it's a legal decision, not an abolitionist act of violence. The Kansas-Nebraska Act set up how new territories would decide on slavery via popular sovereignty, which led to conflict but was a legislative measure, not an abolitionist violent action.