Whittier offered up "thanks for the fugitive slave law; for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'" Mrs.Harriet Beecher Stowe had been mistress of a station on the Underground Railroad at Cincinnati, the storm-center of the West, and out of her experience she has transmitted to the world a knowledge of the elemental and tragic human experiences of the slaves which would otherwise have been restricted to a select few.The mistress of a similar station in eastern Indiana, though she held novel reading a deadly sin, said: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is not a novel, it is a record of facts.I myself have listened to the same stories." The reading public in all lands soon became sympathetic participants in the labors of those who, in defiance of law, were lending a hand to the aspirants for liberty.At the time of the publication of the story in book form in March, 1852, America was being profoundly stirred by the stories of fugitives who had escaped from European despotism.Mrs.Stowe refers to these incidents in her question: "When despairing Hungarian fugitives make their way, against all the search-warrants and authorities of their lawful governments to America, press and political cabinet ring with applause and welcome.When despairing African fugitives do the same thing--it is--what IS it?" Little did she think that when the eloquence of the Hungarian refugee had been forgotten, the story of Eliza and Uncle Tom would ring throughout the world.
The book did far more than vindicate the conduct of those who rendered assistance to the fugitive from slavery; it let in daylight upon the essential nature of slavery.Humane and just masters are shown to be forced into participation in acts which result in intolerable cruelty.Full justice is done to the noble and admirable character of Southern slave-owners.The author had been a guest in the home of the "Shelbys," in Kentucky.She had taken great pains to understand the Southern point of view on the subject of slavery; she had entered into the real trials and difficulties involved in any plan of emancipation.St.Clair, speaking to Miss Ophelia, his New England cousin, says:
"If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How many families of your town would take in a negro man or woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted to teach him a trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there in the Northern States that would take them in? How many families that would board them? And yet they are as white as many a woman north or south.You see, cousin, I want justice done us.We are in a bad position.We are the more obvious oppressors of the negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equally severe."Throughout the book the idea is elaborated in many ways.Miss Ophelia is introduced for the purpose of contrasting Northern ignorance and New England prejudice with the patience and forbearance of the better class of slave-owners of the South.The genuine affection of an unspoiled child for negro friends is made especially emphatic.Miss Ophelia objected to Eva's expressions of devotion to Uncle Tom.Her father insists that his daughter shall not be robbed of the free utterance of her high regard, observing that "the child is the only true democrat." There is only one Simon Legree in the book, and he is of New England extraction.The story is as distinctly intended to inform Northern ignorance and to remove Northern prejudice as it is to justify the conduct of abolitionists.
What was the effect of the publication? In European countries far removed from local partizan prejudice, it was immediately received as a great revelation of the spirit of liberty.It was translated into twenty-three different languages.So devoted were the Italians to the reading of the story that there was earnest effort to suppress its circulation.As a drama it proved a great success, not only in America and England but in France and other countries as well.More than a million copies of the story were sold in the British Empire.Lord Palmerston avers that he had not read a novel for thirty years, yet he read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times and commended the book for the statesmanship displayed in it.
What is in the story to call forth such commendation from the cold-blooded English statesman? The book revealed, in a way fitted to carry conviction to every unprejudiced reader, the impossibility of uniting slavery with freedom under the same Government.Either all must be free or the mass subject to the few--or there is actual war.This principle is finely brought out in the predicament of the Quaker confronted by a fugitive with wife and child who had seen a sister sold and conveyed to a life of shame on a Southern plantation."Am I going to stand by and see them take my wife and sell her?" exclaimed the negro."No, God help me! I'll fight to the last breath before they shall take my wife and son.Can you blame me?" To which the Quaker replied:
"Mortal man cannot blame thee, George.Flesh and blood could not do otherwise.'Woe unto the world because of offences but woe unto them through whom the offence cometh.'" "Would not even you, sir, do the same, in my place?" "I pray that I be not tried." And in the ensuing events the Quaker played an important part.
