Why was John Brown's Raid significant?

John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, VA in 1859 is
significant because it helped to bring on the Civil War.  In fact, the link below goes
so far as to say that Brown's attempt

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to liberate and arm Virginia slaves makes civil
war inevitable.

The reason
for this is that the raid and its aftermath inflamed the South's suspicion of the North
and made it much less likely that the South would ever trust the North
again.

The South saw Brown's raid as a major evil given
that it was meant to make slaves rebel and kill their masters (and probably many other
people as well).  It is not surprising that the South would resent an effort to cause
many of its citizens to be killed.

A vocal minority of
Northerners saw Brown as a martyr after he was executed.  This enraged the South.  They
felt that this attitude was common in the North.  They felt the North was celebrating
someone who was trying to incite others to kill them.  (Think about how Americans feel
about those who see Osama Bin Laden as a hero...)

Because
of this, the South came to distrust the North even more and there was just about zero
chance of reconciling the two regions.