Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  thinks you had better be careful in your conversation, and not

  let her know what prices are, or else she will get spoiled, and go

  to raising her price--these sewing-women are so selfish. When

  Marie St. Clare has the misfortune to live in a free State, there

  is no end to her troubles. Her cook is always going off for

  better wages and more comfortable quarters; her chambermaid,

  strangely enough, won't agree to be chambermaid and seam-

  stress both for half wages, and so she deserts. Marie's kitchen-

  cabinet, therefore, is always in a state of revolution; and she

  often declares, with affected earnestness, that servants are the

  torment of her life. If her husband endeavour to remonstrate,

  or suggest another mode of treatment, he is a hard-hearted, un-

  feeling man; “he doesn't love her, and she always knew he

  didn't;” and so he is disposed of.

  But when Marie comes under a system of laws which gives

  her absolute control over her dependants, which enables her

  to separate them, at her pleasure, from their dearest family

  connexions, or to inflict upon them the most disgraceful and

  violent punishments, without even the restraint which seeing

  the execution might possibly produce--then it is that the

  character arrives at full maturity. Human nature is no worse

  at the South than at the North; but law at the South distinctly

  provides for and protects the worst abuses to which that nature

  is liable.

  It is often supposed that domestic servitude in slave-states

  is a kind of paradise; that house-servants are invariably pets;

  that young mistresses are always fond of their “mammies,” and

  young masters always handsome, good-natured, and indulgent.

  Let anyone in Old England or New England look about

  among their immediate acquaintances, and ask how many there

  are who would use absolute despotic power amiably in a family,

  especially over a class degraded by servitude, ignorant, indolent,

  deceitful, provoking, as slaves almost necessarily are, and always

  must be.

  Let them look into their own hearts, and ask themselves

  if they would dare to be trusted with such a power. Do they

  not find in themselves temptations to be unjust to those who

  are inferiors and dependants? Do they not find themselves

  tempted to be irritable and provoked, when the service of their

  families is negligently performed? And if they had the power

  to inflict cruel punishments, or to have them inflicted by

  sending the servant out to some place of correction, would they

  not be tempted to use that liberty?

  With regard to those degrading punishments to which females

  are subjected, by being sent to professional whippers, or by

  having such functionaries sent for to the house--as John

  Caphart testifies that he has often been in Baltimore--what

  can be said of their influence both on the superior and on the

  inferior class? It is very painful indeed to contemplate this

  subject. The mind instinctively shrinks from it; but still it

  is a very serious question whether it be not our duty to

  encounter this pain, that our sympathies may be quickened

  into more active exercise. For this reason we give here the

  testimony of a gentleman whose accuracy will not be doubted,

  and who subjected himself to the pain of being an eye-witness

  to a scene of this kind in the calaboose in New Orleans. As

  the reader will perceive from the account, it was a scene of such

  every-day occurrence as not to excite any particular remark, or

  any expression of sympathy from those of the same condition

  and colour with the sufferer.

  When our missionaries first went to India, it was esteemed a

  duty among Christian nations to make themselves acquainted

  with the cruelties and atrocities of idolatrous worship, as a means

  of quickening our zeal to send them the gospel.

  If it be said that we in the free States have no such interest

  in slavery, as we do not support it, and have no power to prevent

  it, it is replied that slavery does exist in the district of Columbia,

  which belongs to the whole United States; and that the free

  States are, before God, guilty of the crime of continuing it there,

  unless they will honestly do what in them lies for its extermi-

  nation.

  The subjoined account was written by the benevolent Dr.

  Howe, whose labours in behalf of the blind have rendered his

  name dear to humanity, and was sent in a letter to the Hon.

  Charles Summer. If anyone think it too painful to be perused,

  let him ask himself if God will hold those guiltless who suffer a

  system to continue, the details of which they cannot even read.

  That this describes a common scene in the calaboose we shall by

  and by produce other witnesses to show.

  I have passed ten days in New Orleans, not unprofitably, I trust, in examining

  the public institutions--the schools, asylums, hospitals, prisons, &c. With the

  exception of the first, there is little hope of amelioration. I know not how much

  merit there may be in their system; but I do know that, in the administration of

  the penal code, there are abominations which should bring down the fate of

  Sodom upon the city. If Howard or Mrs. Fry ever discovered so ill-administered

  a den of thieves as the New Orleans prison, they never described it. In the

  negroes' apartment I saw much which made me blush that I was a white man,

  and which, for a moment, stirred up an evil spirit in my animal nature. Entering

  a large paved court-yard, around which ran galleries filled with slaves of all ages,

  sexes, and colours, I heard the snap of a whip, every stroke of which sounded

  like the sharp crack of a pistol. I turned my head, and beheld a sight which

  absolutely chilled me to the marrow of my bones, and gave me, for the first time

  in my life, the sensation of my hair stiffening at the roots. There lay a black

  girl flat upon her face, on a board, her two thumbs tied, and fastened to one end, her

  feet tied and drawn tightly to the other end, while a strap passed over the small

  of her back, and, fastened around the board, compressed her closely to it. Below

  the strap she was entirely naked. By her side, and six feet off, stood a huge

  negro, with a long whip, which he applied with dreadful power and wonderful

  precision. Every stroke brought away a strip of skin, which clung to the lash, or

  fell quivering on the pavement, while the blood followed after it. The poor crea-

  ture writhed and shrieked, and, in a voice which showed alike her fear of death

  and her dreadful agony, screamed to her master who stood at her head, “Oh, spare

  my life! don't cut my soul out!” But still fell the horrid lash; till strip after

  strip peeled off from the skin; gash after gash was cut in her living flesh, until it

  became a livid and bloody mass of raw and quivering muscle. It was with the

  greatest difficulty I refrained from springing upon the torturer, and arresting his

  lash; but, alas! what could I do, but turn aside to hide my tears for the sufferer,

  and my blushes for humanity? This was in a public and regularly-organised

/>   prison; the punishment was one recognised and authorised by the law. But think

  you the poor wretch had committed a heinous offence, and had been convicted

  thereof, and sentenced to the lash? Not at all. She was brought by her master

  to be whipped by the common executioner, without trial, judge or jury, just at his

  beck or nod, for some real or supposed offence, or to gratify his own whim or

  malice. And he may bring he, after day, without cause assigned, and inflict

  any number of lashes he pleases, short of twenty-five, provided only he pays the

  fee. Or, if he choose, he may have a private whipping-board on his own pre-

  mises, and brutalise himself there. A shocking part of this horrid punishment

  was its publicity, as I have said; it was in a court-yard surrounded by galleries,

  which were filled with coloured persons of all sexes--runaways, slaves committed

  for some crime, or slaves up for sale. You would naturally suppose they crowded

  forward, and gazed, horror-stricken, at the brutal spectacle below; but they did

  not; many of them hardly noticed it, and many were entirely indifferent to it.

  They went on in their childish pursuits, and some were laughing outright in the

  distant parts of the galleries; so low can man, created in God's image, be sunk in

  brutality.

  CHAPTER IX.

  ST. CLARE.

  It is with pleasure that we turn from the dark picture just

  presented, to the character of the generous and noble-hearted

  St. Clare, wherein the fairest picture of our Southern brother is

  presented.

  It has been the writer's object to separate carefully, as far as

  possible, the system from the men. It is her sincere belief that,

  while the irresponsible power of slavery is such that no human

  being ought ever to possess it, probably that power was never

  exercised more leniently than in many cases in the Southern

  States. She has been astonished to see how, under all the dis-

  advantages which attend the early possession of arbitrary power,

  all the temptations which every reflecting mind must see will

  arise from the possession of this power in various forms, there are

  often developed such fine and interesting traits of character. To

  say that these cases are common, alas! is not in our power. Men

  know human nature too well to believe us if we should. But

  the more dreadful the evil to be assailed, the more careful should

  we be to be just in our apprehensions, and to balance the horror

  which certain abuses must necessarily excite, by a consideration

  of those excellent and redeeming traits which are often found in

  individuals connected with the system.

  The twin brothers, Alfred and Augustine St. Clare, represent

  two classes of men which are to be found in all countries. They

  are the radically aristocratic and democratic men. The aristocrat

  by position is not always the aristocrat by nature, and vice versâ; but the aristocrat by nature, whether he be in a higher or lower

  position in society, is he who, though he may be just, generous,

  and humane, to those whom he considers his equals, is entirely

  insensible to the wants and sufferings, and common humanity of

  those whom he considers the lower orders. The sufferings of a

  countess would make him weep, the sufferings of a seamstress

  are quite another matter.

  On the other hand, the democrat is often found in the highest

  position of life. To this man, superiority to his brother is a

  thing which he can never boldly and nakedly assert without a

  secret pain. In the lowest and humblest walk of life, he ac-

  knowledges the sacredness of a common humanity; and however

  degraded by the opinions and institutions of society any par-

  ticular class may be, there is an instinctive feeling in his soul

  which teaches him that they are men of like passions with him-

  self. Such men have a penetration which at once sees through

  all the false shows of outward custom which make one man so

  dissimilar to another, to those great generic capabilities, sorrows,

  wants, and weaknesses, wherein all men and women are alike;

  and there is no such thing as making them realize that one order

  of human beings have any prescriptive right over another order,

  or that the tears and sufferings of one are not just as good as

  those of another order.

  That such men are to be found at the South in the relation of

  slave-masters, that when so found they cannot and will not be

  deluded by any of the shams and sophistry wherewith slavery

  has been defended, that they look upon it as a relic of a barbarous

  age, and utterly scorn and contemn all its apologists, we can

  abundantly show. Many of the most illustrious Southern men

  of the Revolution were of this class, and many men of distin-

  guished position of later day have entertained the same sentiments.

  Witness the following letter of Patrick Henry, the sentiments

  of which are so much an echo of those of St. Clare that the

  reader might suppose one to be a copy of the other:--

  Hanover, January 18th, 1773.

  Dear Sir,--I take this opportunity to acknowledge the recepit of Anthony

  Benezet's book against the slave-trade; I thank you for it. Is it not a little

  surprising that the professors of Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in

  softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should

  encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and

  wrong? What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable practice has been

  introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that seem to have pretensions

  to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have

  brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and

  tyranny which our more rude and barbarous but more honest ancestors detested.

  Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and

  understood with precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty--that in

  such an age and in such a country we find men professing a religion the most

  mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopting such a principle, as repugnant to

  humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to liberty? Every

  thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation. How free in practice from con-

  scientious motives!

  Would anyone believe that I am master of slaves of my own purchase? I am

  drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I

  will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay

  my devoir to Virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and

  lament my want of conformity to them.

  I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this

  lamentable evil. Everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our

  day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity

  for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this

  wished-for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity.

  It is the furthest advance we can make towards justice. It is a de
bt we owe to

  the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law which

  warrants slavery.

  I know not when to stop. I could say many things on the subject, a serious

  view of which gives a gloomy prospect to future times!

  What a sorrowful thing it is that such men live an inglorious

  life, drawn along by the general current of society, when they

  ought to be its regenerators! Has God endowed them with

  such nobleness of soul, such clearness of perception, for

  nothing? Should they, to whom he has given superior powers

  of insight and feeling, live as all the world live?

  Southern men of this class have often risen up to reprove the

  men of the North, when they are drawn in to apologize for the

  system of slavery. Thus, on one occasion, a representative

  from one of the Northern States, a gentleman now occupying

  the very highest rank of distinction and official station, used in

  Congress the following language:--

  The great relation of servitude, in some form or other, with greater or less

  departure from the theoretic equality of men, is inseparable from our nature.

  Domestic slavery is not, in my judgment, to be set down as an immoral or

  irreligious relation. The slaves of this country are better clothed and fed than

  the peasantry of some of the most prosperous states of Europe.

  He was answered by Mr. Mitchell, of Tennessee, in these

  words:--

  Sir, I do not go the length of the gentleman from Massachusetts, and hold

  that the existence of slavery in this country is almost a blessing. On the

  contrary, I am firmly settled in the opinion that it is a great curse--one of the

  greatest that could have been interwoven in our system. I, Mr. Chairman, am

  one of those whom these poor wretches call masters. I do not task them; I

  feed and clothe them well; but yet, alas! they are slaves, and slavery is a curse

  in any shape. It is no doubt true that there are persons in Europe far more

  degraded than our slaves--worse fed, worse clothed, &c.; but, sir, this is far from

  proving that negroes ought to be slaves.

  The celebrated John Randolph, of Roanoke, said in Congress,

  on one occasion:--

  Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the North who

  rises here to defend slavery on principle.