Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  counsel, and exhibited by them in court. When brought to the bar it is said

  that “his demeanour was calm, dignified, and manly.” His mother sat by his

  side. The prosecuting attorney waived his plea, and left the ground clear for

  Richard's counsel. Their defence was eloquent and pathetic. After they closed,

  Richard rose, and in a calm and dignified manner spoke extemporaneously as

  follows:--

  “By the kind permission of the court, for which I am sincerely thankful, I

  avail myself of the privilege of adding a few words to the remarks already made

  by my counsel. And although I stand, by my own confession, as a criminal in

  the eyes of your violated laws, yet I feel confident that I am addressing those

  who have hearts to feel; and in meting out the punishment that I am about to

  suffer, I hope you will be lenient; for it is a new situation in which I am placed.

  Never before, in the whole course of my life, have I been charged with a dis-

  honest act. And from my childhood, kind parents, whose names I deeply reve-

  rence, have instilled into my mind a desire to be virtuous and honourable; and it

  has ever been my aim so to conduct myself as to merit the confidence and esteem of

  my fellow-men. But, gentlemen, I have violated your laws. This offence I did

  commit; and I now stand before you, to my sorrow and regret, as a criminal.

  But I was prompted to it by feelings of humanity. It has been suspected, as I

  was informed, that I am leagued with a fraternity who are combined for the pur-

  pose of committing such offences as the one with which I am charged. But

  gentlemen, the impression is false. I alone am guilty--I alone committed the

  offence--and I alone must suffer the penalty. My parents, my friends, my rela-

  tives, are as innocent of any participation in or knowledge of my offence as the

  babe unborn. My parents are still living,* though advanced in years, and, in the

  course of nature, a few more years will terminate their earthly existence. In

  their old age and infirmity they will need a stay and protection; and, if you can,

  consistently with your ideas of justice, make my term of imprisonment a short

  one, you will receive the lasting gratitude of a son who reverences his parents,

  and the prayers and blessings of an aged father and mother who love their child.”

  A great deal of sensation now appeared in the court-room, and most of the

  jury are said to have wept. They retired for a few moments, and refurned a

  verdict for three years' imprisonment in the Penitentiary.

  The Nashville Daily Gazette of April 13, 1849, contains following notice:--

  “Richard Dillingham, who was arrested on the 5th day of September last,

  having in his possession three slaves, whom he intended to convey with him

  to a free State, was arraigned yestérday and tried in the Criminal Court. The

  prisoner confessed his guilt, and made a short speech in palliation of his offence.

  He avowed that the act was undertaken by himself without instigation from any

  source, and he alone was responsible for the error into which his education had

  led him. He had, he said, no other motive than the good of the slaves, and did

  not expect to claim any advantage by freeing them. He was sentenced to three

  years' imprisonment in the Penitentiary, the least time the law allows for the

  offence committed. Mr. Dillingham is a Quaker from Ohio, and has been a teacher

  in that State. He belongs to a respectable family, and he is not without the sym-

  pathy of those who attended the trial. It was a fool-hardy enterprise in which he

  embarked, and dearly has he paid for his rashness.”

  His mother, before leaving Nashville, visited the governor, and had an inter-

  view with him in regard to pardoning her son. He gave her some encourage-

  ment, but thought she had better postpone her petition for the present. After the

  lapse of several months, she wrote to him about it; but he seemed to have changed

  his mind, as the following letter will show:--

  Nashville, August 29, 1849

  “Dear Madam,--Your letter of the 6th of the 7th mo. was received, and

  would have been noticed earlier but for my absence from home. Your solicitude

  for your son is natural, and it would be gratifying to be able to reward it by

  releasing him, if it were in my power. But the offence for which he is suffering

  was clearly made out, and its tendency here is very hurtful to our rights, and our

  peace as a people. He is doomed to the shortest period known to our statute.

  And, at all events, I could not interfere with his case for some time to come; and,

  to be frank with you, I do not see how his time can be lessened at all. But my

  term of office will expire soon, and the Governor elect, Gen. William Trousdale,

  will take my place. To him you will make any future appeal.

  “Yours, &c.,

  “N. L. Brown.”

  The warden of the Penitentiary, John McIntosh, was much prejudiced against

  him. He thought the sentence was too light, and, being of a stern bearing,

  Richard had not much to expect from his kindness. But the same sterling in-

  egrity and ingenuousness which had ever, under all circumstances, marked his con-

  duct, soon wrought a change in the minds of his keepers, and of his enemies gene-

  rally. He became a favourite with McIntosh and some of the guard. According

  to the rules of the prison, he was not allowed to write oftener than once in three

  months, and what he wrote had, of course, to be inspected by the warden.

  He was at first put to sawing and scrubbing rock; but, as

  the delicacy of his frame unfitted him for such labours, and the

  spotless sanctity of his life won the reverence of his jailors, he

  was soon promoted to be steward of the prison hospital. In a

  letter to a friend he thus announces this change in his situation:

  I suppose thou art, ere this time, informed of the change in my situation,

  having been placed in the hospital of the Penitentiary as steward..... I feel

  but poorly qualified to fill the situation they have assigned me, but will try to do

  the best I can..... I enjoy the comforts of a good fire and a warm room, and

  am allowed to sit up evenings and read, which I prize as a great privilege.....

  I have now been here nearly nine months, and have twenty-seven more to stay.

  It seems to me a long time in prospect. I try to be as patient as I can, but

  sometimes I get low-spirited. I throw off the thoughts of home and friends as

  much as possible; for, when indulged in, they only increase my melancholy

  feelings. And what wounds my feelings most is the reflection of what you

  all suffer of grief and anxiety for me. Cease to grieve for me, for I am unworthy

  of it; and it only causes pain for you, without availing aught for me..... As

  ever, thine in the bonds of affection,

  R. D.

  He had been in prison little more than a year when the

  cholera invaded Nashville, and broke out among the inmates;

  Richard was up day and night in attendance on the sick, his

  disinterested and sympathetic nature leading him to labours to

  which his delicate constitution, impaired by confinement, was

  altogether inadequate.

  Beside the bed where parting life was laid,

  And sorrow, grief, and pain, by
turns dismayed,

  The youthful champion stood: at his control

  Despair and anguish fled the trembling soul,

  Comfort came down the dying wretch to raise,

  And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

  Worn with these labours, the gentle, patient lover of God and

  of his brother sank at last overwearied, and passed peacefully

  away to a world where all are lovely and loving.

  Though his correspondence with her he most loved was in-

  terrupted, from his unwillingness to subject his letters to the

  surveillance of the warden, yet a note reached her, conveyed

  through the hands of a prisoner whose time was out. In this

  letter, the last which any earthly friend ever received, he says:--

  I oft-times, yea, all times, think of thee; if I did not, I should cease to exist.

  What must that system be which makes it necessary to

  imprison with convicted felons a man like this, because he

  loves his brother man, “not wisely but too well?”

  On his death Whittier wrote the following:--

  “Si crucem libenter portes, te portabit.”

  -- “The Cross, if freely borne, shall be

  No burthen, but support, to thee.”

  So, moved of old time for our sake,

  The holy man of Kempen spake.

  Thou brave and true one, upon whom

  Was laid the Cross of Martyrdom,

  How didst thou, in thy faithful youth,

  Bear witness to this blessed truth!

  Thy cross of suffering and of shame

  A staff within thy hands became,

  In paths where Faith alone could see

  The Master's steps upholding thee.

  Thine was the seed-time: God alone

  Beholds the end of what is sown;

  Beyond our vision, weak and dim,

  The harvest-time is hid with Him.

  Yet, unforgotten where it lies,

  That seed of generous sacrifice,

  Though seeming on the desert cast,

  Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last.

  J. G. Whittier.

  Second mo. 18th, 1852. * R. D.'s father survived him only a few months.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  THE SPIRIT OF ST. CLARE.

  The general tone of the press and of the community in the

  slave States, so far as it has been made known at the North,

  has been loudly condemnatory of the representations of “Uncle

  Tom's Cabin.” Still, it would be unjust to the character of the

  South to refust to acknowledge that she has many sons with

  candour enough to perceive, and courage enough to avow, the

  evils of her “peculiar institutions.” The manly independence

  exhibited by these men, in communities where popular sentiment

  rules despotically, either by law or in spite of law, should be

  duly honoured. The sympathy of such minds as these is a

  high encouragement to philanthropic effort.

  The author inserts a few testimonials from Southern men,

  not without some pride in being thus kindly judged by those

  who might have been naturally expected to read her book with

  prejudice against it.

  The Jefferson Inquirer, published at Jefferson City, Missouri,

  October 23, 1852, contains the following communication:--

  I have lately read this celebrated book, which, perhaps, has gone through

  more editions, and been sold in greater numbers, than any work from the

  American press, in the same length of time. It is a work of high literary finish,

  and its several characters are drawn with great power and truthfulness, although,

  like the characters in most novels and works of fiction, in some instances too

  highly coloured. There is no attack on slave-holders as such, but, on the

  contrary, many of them are represented as highly noble, generous, humane, and

  benevolent. Nor is there any attack upon them as a class. It set's forth many

  of the evils of slavery, as an institution established by law, but without charging

  these evils on those who hold the slaves, and seems fully to appreciate the

  difficulties in finding a remedy. Its effect upon the slave-holder is to make him

  a kinder and better master; to which none can object. This is said without any

  intention to indorse everything contained in the book, or, indeed, in any novel

  or work of fiction. But, if I mistake not, there are few, excepting those who are

  greatly prejudiced, that will rise from a perusal of the book without being a truer

  and better Christian, and a more humane and benevolent man. As a slave-holder, I

  do not feel the least aggrieved. How Mrs. Stowe, the authoress, has obtained

  her extremely accurate knowledge of the negroes, their character, dialect,

  habits, &c., is beyond my comprehension, as she never resided--as appears from

  the preface--in a slave State, or among slaves or negroes. But they are cer-

  tainly admirably delineated. The book is highly interesting and amusing, and

  will afford a rich treat to its reader.

  Thomas Jefferson. The opinion of the editor himself is given in these words:--

  Well, like a good portion of “the world and the rest of mankind,” we have

  read the book of Mrs. Stowe bearing the above title.

  From numerous statements, newspaper paragraphs and rumours, we supposed

  the book was all that fanaticism and heresy could invent, and were, therefore,

  greatly prejudiced against it. But, on reading it, we cannot refrain from saying

  that it is a work of more than ordinary moral worth, and is entitled to considera-

  tion. We do not regard it as a “corruption of moral sentiment,” and a gross

  “libel on a portion of our people.” The authoress seems disposed to treat the

  subject fairly, though, in some particulars, the scenes are too highly coloured, and

  too strongly drawn from the imagination. The book, however, may lead its

  readers at a distance to misapprehend some of the general and better features of

  “Southern life as it is” (which, by the way, we, as an individual, prefer to Northern

  life); yet it is a perfect mirror of several classes of people we have in our mind's

  eye, who are not free from “all the ills that flesh is heir to.” It has been feared

  that the book would result in injury to the slaveholding interests of the country;

  but we apprehend no such thing, and hesitate not to recommend it to the persual

  of our friends and the public generally.

  Mrs. Stowe has exhibited a knowledge of many peculiarities of Southern society

  which is really wonderful when we consider that she is a Northern lady by birth

  and residence.

  We hope, then, before our friends form any harsh opinions of the merits of

  “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” and make up any judgment against us for pronouncing in

  its favour (barring some objections to it), that they will give it a careful perusal;

  and, in so speaking, we may say that we yield to no man in his devotion to

  Southern rights and interests.

  The editor of the St. Louis (Missouri) Battery pronounces the

  following judgment:--

  We took up this work, a few evenings since, with just such prejudices against

  it as we presume many others have, and commenced reading it. We have been so

  much in contact with ultra abolitionists--have had so much evidence that their

  benevolence was much more hatred for the master than love for the slave, accom-


  panied with a profound ignorance of the circumstances surrounding both, and a

  most consummate, supreme disgust for the whole negro race--that we had about

  concluded that anything but rant and nonsense was out of the question from a

  Northern writer on the subject of slavery.

  Mrs. Stowe, in these delineations of life among the lowly, has convinced us to

  the contrary.

  She brings to the discussion of her subject a perfectly cool, calculating judgment,

  a wide, all-comprehending intellectual vision, and a deep, warm, sea-like woman's

  soul, over all of which is flung a perfect iris-like imagination, which makes the

  light of her pictures stronger and more beautiful, as their shades are darker and

  terror-striking.

  We do not wonder that the copy before us is of the seventieth thousand. And

  seventy thousand more will not supply the demand, or we mistake the appreciation

  of the American people of the real merits of literary productions. Mrs. Stowe has,

  in “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” set up for herself a monument more enduring than

  marble. It will stand amid the wastes of slavery as the Memnon stands amid the

  sands of the African desert, telling both the white man and the negro of the ap-

  proach of morning. The book is not an abolitionist work, in the offensive sense of

  the word. It is, as we have intimated, free from everything like fanaticism, no

  matter what amount of enthusiasm vivifies every page, and runs like electricity

  along every thread of the story. It presents at one view the excellences and the

  evils of the system of slavery, and breathes the true spirit of Christian benevolence

  for the slave, and charity for the master.

  The next witness gives his testimony in a letter to the New

  York Evening Post:--

  The subjoined communication comes to us post-marked New Orleans, June 19,

  1852.

  “I have just been reading `Uncle Tom's Cabin, or, Scenes in Lowly Life,' by

  Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. It found its way to me through the channel of a

  young student, who purchased it at the North, to read on his homeward passage