The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  the great controversy for liberty of conscience?

  Do foreign governments exclude their population from the

  reading of the Bible? The slave of America is excluded by

  the most effectual means possible. Do we say, “Ah! but we

  read the Bible to our slaves, and present the gospel orally?”

  This is precisely what religious despotism in Italy says. Do

  we say that we have no objection to our slaves reading the

  Bible, if they will stop there; but that with this there will

  come in a flood of general intelligence, which will upset the

  existing state of things? This is precisely what is said in

  Italy.

  Do we say we should be willing that the slave should read

  his Bible, but that he, in his ignorance, will draw false and

  erroneous conclusions from it, and for that reason we prefer to

  impart its truths to him orally? This, also, is precisely what

  the religious despotism of Europe says.

  Do we say in our vainglory that despotic government dreads

  the coming in of anything calculated to elevate and educate the

  people? And is there not the same dread through all the

  despotic slave governments of America?

  On which side, then, does the American nation stand, in

  the great, last question of the age?

  PART III.

  CHAPTER I.

  DOES PUBLIC OPINON PROTECT THE SLAVE?

  The utter inefficiency of the law to protect the slave in any

  respect has been shown.

  But it is claimed that, precisely because the law affords the

  slave no protection, therefore public opinion is the more strenuous

  in his behalf.

  Nothing more frequently strikes the eye, in running over

  judicial proceedings in the Courts of slave States, than announce-

  ments of the utter inutility of the law to rectify some glaring

  injustice towards this unhappy race, coupled with congratulatory

  remarks on that beneficent state of public sentiment which is to

  supply entirely this acknowledged deficiency of the law.

  On this point it may, perhaps, be sufficient to ask the reader,

  whether North or South, to review in his own mind the judicial

  documents which we have presented, and ask himself what in-

  ference is to be drawn, as to the state of public sentiment, from

  the cases there presented--from the pleas of lawyers, the deci-

  sions of judges, the facts sworn to by witnesses, and the general

  style and spirit of the whole proceedings.

  In order to appreciate this more fully, let us compare a trial

  in a free State with a trial in a slave State.

  In the free State of Massachusetts, a man of standing, learning,

  and high connexions, murdered another man. He did not

  torture him, but with one blow sent him in a moment from life.

  The murderer had every advantage of position, of friends; it

  may be said, indeed, that he had the sympathy of the whole

  United States; yet how calmly, with what unmoved and awful

  composure, did the judicial examination proceed! The mur-

  derer was condemned to die. What a sensation shook the

  country! Even sovereign States assumed the attitude of peti-

  tioners for him.

  There was a voice of entreaty, from Maine to New Orleans.

  There were remonstrances, and there were threats; but still,

  with what passionless calmness retributive justice held on her

  way! Though the men who were her instruments were men of

  merciful and bleeding hearts, yet they bowed in silence to her

  sublime will. In spite of all that influence, and wealth, and

  power could do, a cultivated and intelligent man, from the first

  rank of society, suffered the same penalty that would fall on any

  other man who violated the sanctity of human life.

  Now, compare this with a trial in a slave State. In Virginia,

  Souther also murdered a man; but he did not murder him by

  one merciful blow, but by twelve hours of torture so horrible

  that few readers could bear even the description of it. It was

  a mode of death which, to use the language that Cicero in his

  day applied to crucifixion, “ought to be for ever removed from

  the sight, hearing, and from the very thoughts of mankind.”

  And to this horrible scene two white men were witnesses!

  Observe the mode in which these two cases were tried, and

  the general sensation they produced. Hear the lawyers, in this

  case of Souther, coolly debating whether it can be considered any

  crime at all. Hear the decision of the inferior Court, that it is

  murder in the second degree, and apportioning as its reward five

  years of imprisonment. See the horrible butcher coming up to

  the superior Court in the attitude of an injured man! See the

  case recorded as that of Souther versus The Commonwealth, and

  let us ask any intelligent man, North or South, what sort of

  public sentiment does this show?

  Does it show a belief that the negro is a man? Does it not

  show decidedly that he is not considered as a man? Consider

  further the horrible principle which, re-affirmed in the case, is

  the law of the land in Virginia. It is the policy of the law, in

  respect to the relation of master and slave, and for the sake of

  securing proper subordination on the part of the slave, to protect

  the master from prosecution in all such cases, even if the whipping

  and punishment be malicious, cruel, and excessive!

  When the most cultivated and intelligent men in the State

  formally, calmly, and without any apparent perception of saying

  anything inhuman, utter such an astounding decision as this,

  what can be thought of it? If they do not consider this cruel,

  what is cruel? And, if their feelings are so blunted as to see no

  cruelty in such a decision, what hope is there of any protection

  to the slave?

  This law is a plain and distinct permission to such wretches

  as Souther to inflict upon the helpless slave any torture they may

  choose, without any accusation or impeachment of crime. It

  distinctly tells Souther, and the white witnesses who saw his

  deed, and every other low, unprincipled man in the Court, that

  it is the policy of the law to protect him in malicious, cruel, and

  excessive punishments.

  What sort of an education is this for the intelligent and

  cultivated men of a State to communicate to the lower and less-

  educated class? Suppose it to be solemnly announced in

  Massachusetts, with respect to free labourers or apprentices, that

  it is the policy of the law, for the sake of producing subordina-

  tion, to protect the master in inflicting any punishment, however

  cruel, malicious, and excessive, short of death. We cannot

  imagine such a principle declared, without a rebellion and a

  storm of popular excitement to which that of Bunker Hill was

  calmness itself; but, supposing the State of Massachusetts were

  so “twice dead and plucked up by the roots” as to allow such a

  decision to pass without comment concerning her working classes

  --suppose it did pass, and become an active, operative reality,

  what kind of an educational influence would it exert upon the<
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  commonwealth? What kind of an estimate of the working

  classes would it show in the minds of those who make and

  execute the law?

  What an immediate development of villany and brutality

  would be brought out by such a law, avowedly made to protect

  men in cruelty! Cannot men be cruel enough, without all the

  majesty of law being brought into operation to sanction it, and

  make it reputable?

  And suppose it were said, in vindication of such a law, “Oh,

  of course, no respectable, humane man would ever think of taking

  advantage of it!” Should we not think the old State of Massa-

  chusetts sunk very low, to have on her legal records direct

  assurances of protection to deeds which no decent man would

  ever do?

  And, when this shocking permission is brought in review at

  the judgment-seat of Christ, and the awful Judge shall say to its

  makers, aiders, and abettors, Where is thy brother?--when all the

  souls that have called from under the alter, “How long, O Lord,

  dost thou not judge and avenge our blood,” shall arise around

  the judgment-seat as a great cloud of witnesses, and the judg-

  ment is set and the books are opened--what answer will be made

  for such laws and decisions as these?

  Will they tell the great Judge that it was necessary to preserve

  the slave system--that it could not be preserved without them?

  Will they dare look upon those eyes, which are as a flame of

  fire, with any such avowal?

  Will he not answer, as with a voice of thunder, “Ye have

  killed the poor and needy, and ye have forgotten that the Lord

  was his helper?”

  The deadly sin of slavery is its denial of humanity to man.

  This has been the sin of oppression, in every age. To tread

  down, to vilify and crush the image of God, in the person of the

  poor and lowly, has been the great sin of man since the creation

  of the world. Against this sin all the prophets of ancient times

  poured forth their thunders. A still stronger witness was borne

  against this sin, when God in Jesus Christ took human nature,

  and made each human being a brother of the Lord. But the

  last and most sublime witness shall be borne when a Man shall

  judge the whole earth--a Man who shall acknowledge for His

  brother the meanest slave, equally with the proudest master.

  In most singular and affecting terms it is asserted in the Bible

  that the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, because

  he is the Son of Man. That human nature, which, in the

  person of the poor slave, has been despised and rejected, scoffed

  and scorned, scourged and tortured, shall in that day be glorified;

  and it shall appear the most fearful of sins to have made light

  of the sacredness of humanity, as these laws and institutions of

  slavery have done. The fact is, that the whole system of slave-

  law, and the whole practice of the slave-system, and the public

  sentiment that is formed by it, are alike based on the greatest of

  all heresies, a denial of equal human brotherhood. A whole race

  has been thrown out of the range of human existence, their im-

  mortality disregarded, their dignity as children of God scoffed

  at, their brotherhood with Christ treated as a fable, and all the

  law and public sentiment and practice with regard to them such

  as could be justified only on supposition that they were a race of

  inferior animals.

  It is because the negro is considered an inferior animal, and

  not worthy of any better treatment, that the system which relates

  to him and the treatment which falls to him are considered

  humane

  Take any class of white men, however uneducated, and place

  them under the same system of laws, and make their civil con-

  dition in all respects like that of the negro, and would it not be

  considered the most outrageous cruelty?

  Suppose the slave-law were enacted with regard to all the

  Irish in our country, and they were parcelled off as the property

  of any man who had money enough to buy them. Suppose

  their right to vote, their right to bring suit in any case, their

  right to bear testimony in courts of justice, their right to con-

  tract a legal marriage, their right to hold property or to make

  contracts of any sort, were all by one stroke of law blotted out.

  Furthermore, suppose it was forbidden to teach them to read

  and write, and that their children to all ages were “doomed to

  live without knowledge.” Suppose that, in judicial proceedings,

  it were solemnly declared, with regard to them, that the mere

  heating of an Irishman, “apart from any circumstances of cruelty,

  or any attempt to kill,” was no offence against the peace of the

  State. Suppose that it were declared that, for the better preser-

  vation of subjection among them, the law would protect the

  master in any kind of punishment inflicted, even if it should

  appear to be malicious, cruel, and excessive; and suppose that

  monsters like Souther, in availing themselves of this permission,

  should occasionally torture Irishmen to death, but still this cir-

  cumstance should not be deemed of sufficient importance to call

  for any restriction on the part of the master. Suppose it should

  be coolly said, “Oh, yes, Irishmen are occasionally tortured to

  death, we know; but it is not by any means a general occur-

  rence; in fact, no men of position in society would do it; and

  when cases of the kind do occur, they are indignantly frowned

  upon.”

  Suppose it should be stated that the reason that the law re-

  straining the power of the master cannot be made any more

  stringent is, that the general system cannot be maintained with-

  out allowing this extent of power to the master.

  Suppose that, having got all the Irishmen in the country down

  into this condition, they should maintain that such was the

  public sentiment of humanity with regard to them as abundantly

  to supply the want of all legal rights, and to make their condi-

  tion, on the whole, happier than if they were free. Should we

  not say that a public sentiment which saw no cruelty in thus

  depriving a whole race of every right dear to manhood could see

  no cruelty in anything, and had proved itself wholly unfit to

  judge upon the subject? What man would not rather see his

  children in the grave than see them slaves? What man, who,

  should he wake to-morrow morning in the condition of an

  American slave, would not wish himself in the grave? And

  yet all the defenders of slavery start from the point that this

  legal condition is not of itself a cruelty! They would hold it

  the last excess of cruelty with regard to themselves, or any white

  man; why do they call it no cruelty at all with regard to the

  negro?

  The writer in defence of slavery in Fraser's Magazine justifies

  this depriving of a whole class of any legal rights, by urging that

  “the good there is in human nature will supply the deficiencies

  of human legislation.” This remark is one most significant,


  powerful index of the state of public sentiment, produced even in

  a generous mind, by the slave-system. This writer thinks the

  good there is in human nature will supply the absence of all legal

  rights to thousands and millions of human beings. He thinks

  it right to risk their bodies and their souls on the good there is

  in human nature; yet this very man would not send a fifty-dollar

  bill through the post-office, in an unsealed letter, trusting to

  “the good there is in human nature.”

  Would this man dare to place his children in the position of

  slaves, and trust them to “the good in human nature?”

  Would he buy an estate from the most honourable man of his

  acquaintance, and have no legal record of the deed, trusting to

  “the good in human nature?” And if “the good in human

  nature” will not suffice for him and his children, how will it

  suffice for his brother and his brother's children? Is his happi-

  ness of any more importance in God's sight than his brother's

  happiness, that his must be secured by legal bolts, and bonds,

  and bars, and his brother's left to “the good there is in human

  nature?” Never are we so impressed with the utter deadness of

  public sentiment to protect the slave, as when we see such

  opinions as these uttered by men of a naturally generous and

  noble character.

  The most striking and the most painful examples of the per-

  version of public sentiment, with regard to the negro race, are

  often given in the writings of men of humanity, amiableness,

  and piety.

  That devoted labourer for the slave, the Rev. Charles C. Jones,

  thus expresses his sense of the importance of one African soul:--

  Were it now revealed to us that the most extensive system of instruction which

  we could devise, requiring a vast amount of labour and protracted through ages,

  would result in the tender mercy of our God in the salvation of the soul of one

  poor African, we should eel warranted in cheerfully entering upon our work, with

  all its costs and sacrifices.

  What a noble, what a sublime spirit, is here breathed! Does

  it not show a mind capable of the very highest impulses?

  And yet, if we look over his whole writings, we shall see

  painfully how the moral sense of the finest mind may be per-