I'm asking that you consider a question arguably as old as the...

I'm asking that you consider a question arguably as old as the human experience: under what circumstances is violence justified in pursuing the liberation of a people? John Brown and Nat Turner are two of American history's most controversial figures. Both resorted to violent measures to challenge the institution of slavery, failed in their immediate objectives and were tried and executed for their "crimes" by the state of Virginia. Placing the actions of Turner and Brown in their immediate historical context -- in the early antebellum south, within the fully mature institution of slavery and, in the case of Brown, within the explosive sectional conflict surrounding expansion of the peculiar institution during the 1850s -- I want you to respond to the following assertion as fully as you can:

" While others temporized, postured and moralized, Nat Turner and John Brown righteously took up the rifle to advance the liberation of a people. Their resort to armed struggle was as legitimate as that undertaken by the men who made the American Revolution."

Of course you can answer in the affirmative or in opposition to the statement. However, you must offer some historically grounded rationale for your position, assessing/considering the immediate historical context within which each undertook his actions. I don't want any simplistic "violence is never justified" moralizing; at very least your exposure to American history this term has clearly demonstrated the extent to which violence has shaped the American experience. Indeed, some might argue that violence IS the American way of life.... If a self-interested lot of powdered self-satisfied colonial elites could rationalize a violent break with England over the hardly onerous levying of minimal taxes, perhaps violence in the causes of resistance to or liberation from enslavement has something to be said for it....