In direct contrast to the other Rhode Island editors, Samuel S. Foss of the Woonsocket Patriot outwardly condemned the trial as being completely unfair. Concerning the sentence, Foss wrote, ``If it be possible that mercy shall override vengeance and that John Brown's sentence shall be commuted to imprisonment, it would be well -- well for the country and for Virginia.''

Despite the excitement being caused by the trial and sentence of John Brown, Rhode Islanders turned their attention to the state elections. The state had elected Republican candidates in the past two years. There was no doubt as to the control the Republican party exercised throughout the state. If it failed on occasion to elect its candidates for general state offices by majorities, the failure was due to a lingering remnant of the Know-Nothing party, which called itself the American Republican party. The American Republicans and the Republicans both nominated lieutenant-governor Turner for governor. Elisha R. Potter was the Democratic candidate. The results of the election of 1859 found Republican candidates not only winning the offices of governor and lieutenant-governor but also obtaining the two Congressional offices from the eastern and western sections of the state.

During the month of November hardly a day passed when there was not some mention of John Brown in the Rhode Island newspapers. On November 7, 1859, the Providence Daily Journal reprinted a letter sent to John Brown from ``E. B.,'' a Quaker lady in Newport. In reference to Brown's raid she wrote, ``though we are non-resistants and religiously believe it better to reform by moral and not by carnal weapons we know thee was anemated [sic] by the most generous and philanthropic motives.'' ``E. B.'' compared John Brown to Moses in that they were both acting to deliver millions from oppression. In contrast to ``E. B.,'' most Rhode Islanders hardly thought of John Brown as being another Moses. Most attempts to develop any sympathy for Brown and his actions found an unresponsive audience in Rhode Island.