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Page 16
[2] I had read but a few pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin, when the
following sentences were written. Before I had passed through the
work, my opinions underwent a change as to the merit of the work
and the designs of the writer in bringing it before the public.
The present chapter contains my first reflections on the subject
of slavery, after I determined to write on the subject.
It is a dire calamity that this class of writers have taken hold of
the subject of slavery. It is a misfortune that slavery should be
presented in a fictitious garb. I fear the consequences. It portends
no good to the nation. Slavery is among us, it is a solemn reality,
and if we expect to get rid of it, we must look it full in the face;
see it as it is, and treat it as a matter of fact business. We know
that it is an evil--a deplorable evil; but what shall we do with it?
The plague is on us--about us--in our midst. Where? Oh! where, shall
we find a remedy? The great work is before us; who is competent to the
task? Statesmen as wise and patriotic as any the world ever produced,
have shrunk from the task, confounded and abashed. Where is Clay!
Where is Webster? All that was earthly of them, is no more. Long did
they grapple with the monster slavery, and by their wise councils,
through many a dark and stormy period, did they safely conduct the
ship of State. But they are gone, and shall we now confide the
interests of this great nation, to the keeping of a few sickly
sentimentalists? No, heaven forbid that we should be led blindfold to
ruin! I entreat you, my fellow countrymen, to open your eyes and look
around you, and be not deceived. Your all is at stake. Arise in your
strength and crush the monster abolitionism, that threatens your
blood-bought liberties.
Mrs. Stowe tells us that the object of her book is to awaken sympathy
for the African race. If that, and that alone was her object, she
probably had better not have written on the subject. Sympathy for the
African race is right and proper, provided that it is properly
directed; but blindfold sympathy in the North, is not likely to result
in any good to the slaves of the South. The kindest and best feelings
of the human heart, unless they are directed and controlled by
prudence and discretion, frequently result in no good to the
possessor, and too often in positive injury to the object of his
solicitude. An excess of sympathy some times dethrones the judgment.
Sympathy for the slave may prompt us to act in the right direction;
but unless judgment and justice illumine our paths, and direct our
steps, all our efforts to ameliorate his condition, will prove worse
than useless. The slaves of the South are proper objects of our
sympathy, and so are their masters, and so is every living and
sensitive being in God's creation. Everything that lives and breathes
upon the face of the earth, has demands upon our sympathies; and it
would be well for us to provide ourselves with a large stock of it;
but we should be careful in meting it out, to give every one his due.
It is a gross error in the dispensation of our sympathies, to direct
our attention solely to some one object, regardless of the wants and
rights of others.
In order to accomplish anything for the benefit of the slave, we must
have a Southern audience; to them we must speak, and for them we must
write. With them we must reason, as brother holding familiar converse
with brother. Mrs. Stowe's book is not likely to be generally read in
the South; and provided it should be, it can excite no other than
feelings of indignation and defiance in Southern minds. Hence the work
can result in no good, and may possibly, unless its baneful influence
is counteracted, originate much evil.
If we take the institution of slavery in the United States, as a
whole, and view it correctly, Uncle Tom's Cabin is a gross
misrepresentation. The book has placed the people of this country in a
false position; in a ridiculous attitude before the world. There may
be some truth in her statements--barely enough to give them
plausibility among the thoughtless, inconsiderate and uninformed; and
those whose minds are warped by prejudice. Horrid and revolting
occurrences, such as are detailed in her book, have sometimes occurred
among slaveholders, but they have been rare, and are now more rare
than formerly. They are but exceptions to general rules; why then
present them to the world under circumstances, and in a style and
manner, that will make an impression on the minds of a majority of
uninformed readers, that they are every day occurrences; that a large
portion, if not a majority of the slaveholders are involved in the
charges specified. How does such a procedure, on the part of Mrs.
Stowe, comport with the great principles of truth and justice; which
should have been her guide while writing on so grave a subject!
Wherever man possesses power over his fellow man, throughout the
length and breadth of the habitable globe, there are occasional
instances of brutality and barbarism, too shocking for recital; and
that deeds dark, dolorous and infamous, should sometimes be
perpetrated by American slaveholders, is nothing strange. But is it
just, is it right, for her to present slaveholders in the United
States, _en masse_, to the whole civilized world, as a set of
God-forsaken, heaven-daring, hell-deserving barbarians? That Uncle
Tom's Cabin will make this impression on the minds of most of its
readers, who are uninformed as to the institution of slavery in this
country, is obvious to any one who will carefully read it. I resided
in the slave States forty-four years, and can testify that few,
comparatively very few, were guilty of separating wives and husbands,
parents and children, and that a majority--yes a very large majority
of slaves were treated kindly; and generally there existed between
slaves and their possessors kind feelings, and strong attachments. It
is this attachment of slaves to their masters, that has frequently
frustrated the evil designs set on foot by intermeddling,
philanthropic cut-throats, _alias_ abolitionists.
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