In Octo­ber 1859, Edmund Ruf­fin despaired over his unsuc­cess­ful attempts to incite dis­union in Vir­ginia, exhaus­tive­ly advo­cat­ing for seces­sion and denounc­ing North­ern “tyran­ny.” Described as a “fiery agent of dis­union,” his phys­i­cal appear­ance matched his intense persona—shoulder-length white hair and a sharp demeanor. At six­ty-five, feel­ing ignored and regard­ed as a fanat­ic, he con­tem­plat­ed sui­cide amid per­son­al tragedies. His life felt weari­some, and his pas­sion for read­ing waned, lead­ing him to scrib­ble thoughts of the end in his diary.

How­ev­er, on Octo­ber 16, 1859, the unex­pect­ed news of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Fer­ry elec­tri­fied the South and rein­vig­o­rat­ed Ruf­fin. The raid—a failed attack intend­ed to incite a slave rebellion—was seen by many in the South as a seri­ous threat, ignit­ing calls for war. Ruf­fin inter­pret­ed this event as a cat­a­lyst for South­ern resolve. He hoped this act would awak­en the “slug­gish blood of the South,” believ­ing it proved the impend­ing dan­ger posed by North­ern abo­li­tion­ists.

Fol­low­ing the raid, the South­ern response was one of fear and aggres­sion. Com­mu­ni­ties mobi­lized, mili­tias swelled, and harsh mea­sures were enact­ed against sus­pect­ed abo­li­tion­ists. This height­ened vig­i­lance stemmed from per­ceived weak­ness­es in man­ag­ing enslaved pop­u­la­tions, which, Ruf­fin not­ed, had begun to express signs of inde­pen­dence. Notably, he observed how the enslaved had begun wear­ing fine cloth­ing and becom­ing more involved in pub­lic spaces, which incit­ed out­rage among whites in Charleston.

In polit­i­cal cir­cles, fear extend­ed to dis­cus­sions on seces­sion; Gov­er­nor William Gist declared that the North had “crossed the Rubi­con.” The leg­is­la­tion reflect­ed a pro­tec­tive stance, aimed at curb­ing out­side influ­ences and solid­i­fy­ing con­trol over enslaved pop­u­la­tions. Mean­while, Ruf­fin rev­eled in the chaos, see­ing it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain recog­ni­tion as a pro­po­nent for dis­union.

As Brown faced exe­cu­tion, Ruf­fin planned to attend, lever­ag­ing the event to increase his pro­file. Observ­ing Brown’s courage at the gal­lows, Ruf­fin per­ceived a kin­dred spir­it in con­vic­tion and resilience. He lat­er sought to dis­sem­i­nate the seized pikes from Brown’s raid to illus­trate the threats posed by abo­li­tion­ists. Cap­ti­vat­ed by the nation­al tur­moil, Ruf­fin began writ­ing a nov­el, “Antic­i­pa­tions of the Future,” aim­ing to gal­va­nize South­ern resis­tance and bol­ster seces­sion­ist sen­ti­ment through a nar­ra­tive that por­trayed slav­ery in a favor­able light, reflect­ing his con­vic­tions and the yearn­ing for South­ern inde­pen­dence .