Editing Secret Six (section)

==Background==
The Secret Six were [[Thomas Wentworth Higginson]], [[Samuel Gridley Howe]], [[Theodore Parker]], [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn]], [[Gerrit Smith]], and [[George Luther Stearns]].  All six had been involved in the abolitionist cause prior to their meeting [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]], and had gradually become convinced that violence was necessary in order to end [[Slavery in the United States|American slavery]].

Of the six, only Smith and Stearns could be called wealthy. The others consisted of two Unitarian ministers (Parker and Higginson), a doctor (Howe) at a time when physicians were not well-to-do, and a teacher (Sanborn). Smith was one of the guarantors of a bail bond for [[Jefferson Davis]] after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]].

To the extent the group had a leader, it was Brown biographer Sanborn. "Some of the money and nearly all the correspondence relating to the contributions passed through my hands in 1858–9. ...[W]e all raised money to aid Brown in carrying this plan forward."<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Comment by a radical abolitionist
|first=F. B.
|last=Sanborn
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|journal=[[Century Magazine]]
|pages=411–415, at p. 412
|volume=26
|date=July 1883
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079630285}}</ref>