The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Do we think the slave-system such a happy, desirable thing for

  our brothers and sisters at the South? Can we look at our

  common schools, our neat, thriving towns and villages, our dig-

  nified, intelligent, self-respecting farmers and mechanics, all con-

  comitants of free labour, and think slavery any blessing to our

  Southern brethren? That system which beggars all the lower

  class of whites, which curses the very soil, which eats up every-

  thing before it, like the palmer-worm, canker, and locust--which

  makes common schools an impossibility, and the preaching of

  the gospel almost as much so--this system a blessing! Does

  brotherly love require us to help the South preserve it?

  Consider the educational influences under which such children

  as Eva and Henrique must grow up there! We are speaking of

  what many a Southern mother feels, of what makes many a

  Southern father's heart sore. Slavery has been spoken of in its

  influence on the family of the slave. There are those who never

  speak, who could tell, if they would, its influence on the family

  of the master. It makes one's heart ache to see generation after

  generation of lovely, noble children exposed to such influences.

  What a country the South might be, could she develope herself

  without this curse! If the Southern character, even under all

  these disadvantages, retains so much that is noble, and is fasci-

  nating even in its faults, what might it do with free institutions?

  Who is the real, who is the true and noble lover of the

  South?--they who love her with all these faults and encum-

  brances, or they who fix their eyes on the bright ideal of what

  she might be, and say that these faults are no proper part of her?

  Is it true love to a friend to accept the ravings of insanity as a

  true specimen of his mind? Is it true love to accept the dis-

  figurement of sickness as a specimen of his best condition? Is

  it not truer love to say, “This curse is no part of our brother;

  it dishonours him; it does him injustice; it misrepresents him

  in the eyes of all nations. We love his better self, and we will

  have no fellowship with his betrayer.” This is the part of true,

  generous Christian love.

  But will it be said, “The abolition enterprise was begun in a

  wrong spirit, by reckless, meddling, impudent fanatics?” Well,

  supposing that this were true, how came it to be so? If the

  Church of Christ had begun it right, these so-called fanatics

  would not have begun it wrong. In a deadly pestilence, if the

  right physicians do not prescribe, everybody will prescribe--

  men, women, and children will prescribe; because something

  must be done. If the Presbyterian Church, in 1818, had pur-

  sued the course the Quakers did, there never would have been

  any fanaticism. The Quakers did all by brotherly love. They

  melted the chains of Mammon only in the fires of a divine

  charity. When Christ came into Jerusalem, after all the mighty

  works that he had done, while all the so-called better classes

  were non-committal or opposed, the multitude cut down branches

  of palm-trees, and cried Hosanna! There was a most indecorous

  tumult. The very children caught the enthusiasm, and were

  crying Hosannas in the temple. This was contradictory to all

  ecclesiastical rules. It was a highly improper state of things.

  The chief priests and scribes said unto Jesus, “Master, speak

  unto these that they hold their peace.” That gentle eye flashed

  as he answered, “I tell you, if these should hold their peace, the

  very stones would cry out.”

  Suppose a fire bursts out in the streets of Boston while the

  regular conservators of the city, who have the keys of the fire-

  engines and the regulation of fire-companies, are sitting together

  in some distant part of the city, consulting for the public good.

  The cry of fire reaches them, but they think it a false alarm.

  The fire is no less real for all that. It burns, and rages, and

  roars, till everybody in the neighbourhood sees that something

  must be done. A few stout leaders break open the doors of the

  engine-houses, drag out the engines, and begin, regularly or

  irregularly, playing on the fire. But the destroyer still advances.

  Messengers come in hot haste to the hall of these deliberators,

  and, in the unselect language of fear and terror, revile them for

  not coming out.

  “Bless me!” says a decorous leader of the body, “what

  horrible language these men use!”

  “They show a very bad spirit,” remarks another; “we can't

  possibly join them in such a state of things.”

  Here the more energetic members of the body rush out, to

  see if the thing be really so; and in a few minutes come back, if

  possible more earnest than the others.

  “Oh! there is a fire!--a horrible, dreadful fire! The city is

  burning--men, women, and children, all burning, perishing!

  Come out, come out! As the Lord liveth, there is but a step

  between us and death!”

  “I am not going out; everybody that goes gets crazy,” says

  one.

  “I've noticed,” says another, “that as soon as anybody goes

  out to look, he gets just so excited; I won't look.”

  But by this time the angry fire has burned into their very

  neighbourhood. The red demon glares into their windows.

  And now, fairly aroused, they get up and begin to look out.

  “Well, there is a fire, and no mistake!” says one.

  “Something ought to be done,” says another.

  “Yes,” says a third; “if it wasn't for being mixed up with

  such a crowd and rabble of folks, I'd go out.”

  “Upon my word,” says another, “there are women in the

  ranks, carrying pails of water! There, one woman is going up

  a ladder to get those children out. What an indecorum! If

  they'd manage this matter properly, we would join them.”

  And now comes lumbering over from Charlestown the engines

  and fire-companies.

  “What impudence of Charlestown,” say these men, “to be

  sending over here--just as if we could not put our own fires

  out! They have fires over there, as much as we do.”

  And now the flames roar and burn, and shake hands across

  the streets. They leap over the steeples, and glare demoniacally

  out of the church-windows.

  “For Heaven's sake, do something!” is the cry. “Pull

  down the houses! Blow up those blocks of stores with gun-

  powder! Anything to stop it.”

  “See, now, what ultra radical measures they are going at!”

  says one of these spectators.

  Brave men, who have rushed into the thickest of the fire,

  come out, and fall dead in the street.

  “They are impracticable enthusiasts. They have thrown

  their lives away in foolhardiness,” says another.

  So, Church of Christ, burns that awful fire! Evermore

  burning, burning, burning, over church and altar; burning over

  senate-house and forum; burning up liberty, burning up reli-

  gion! No earthly hands kindled that fire. From its sheetedr />
  flame and wreaths of sulphureous smoke glares out upon thee

  the eye of that enemy who was a murderer from the beginning.

  It is a fire that burns to the lowest hell!

  Church of Christ, there was an hour when this fire might

  have been extinguished by thee. Now, thou standest like a

  mighty man astonished--like a mighty man that cannot save.

  But the Hope of Israel is not dead. The Saviour thereof in

  time of trouble is yet alive.

  If every church in our land were hung with mourning--if

  every Christian should put on sack-cloth--if “the priest should

  weep between the porch and the altar,” and say, “Spare thy

  people, O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach!”--that

  were not too great a mourning for such a time as this.

  O Church of Jesus! consider what hath been said in the

  midst of thee. What a heresy hast thou tolerated in thy

  bosom! Thy God the defender of slavery!--thy God the

  patron of slave-law! Thou hast suffered the character of thy

  God to be slandered. Thou hast suffered false witness against

  thy Redeemer and thy Sanctifier. The Holy Trinity of heaven

  has been foully traduced in the midst of thee; and that God,

  whose throne is awful in justice, has been made the patron and

  leader of oppression.

  This is a sin against every Christian on the globe.

  Why do we love and adore, beyond all things, our God?

  Why do we say to him from our inmost souls, “Whom have I

  in heaven but thee? and there is none on earth I desire beside

  thee?” Is this a bought-up worship?--is it a cringing and

  hollow subserviency, because he is great, and rich, and powerful,

  and we dare not do otherwise? His eyes are a flame of fire;

  he reads the inmost soul, and will accept no such service. From

  our souls we adore and love him, because he is holy, and just,

  and good, and will not at all acquit the wicked. We love him

  because he is the father of the fatherless, the judge of the

  widow; because he lifteth all who fall, and raiseth them that

  are bowed down. We love Jesus Christ, because he is the Lamb

  without spot, the one altogether lovely. We love the Holy Com-

  forter, because he comes to convince the world of sin, and of

  righteousness, and of judgment. O holy Church, universal

  throughout all countries and nations! O ye great cloud of

  witnesses, of all people, and languages, and tongues! differing

  in many doctrines, but united in crying Worthy is the Lamb

  that was slain, for he hath redeemed us from all iniquity!

  awake! arise up! be not silent! Testify against this heresy of

  the latter day, which, if it were possible, is deceiving the very

  elect. Your God, your glory is slandered. Answer with the

  voice of many waters and mighty thunderings! Answer with

  the innumerable multitude in heaven, who cry, day and night,

  Holy, holy, holy, just and true are thy ways, O King of saints!

  * This resolution is given in Birney's pamphlet.

  *

  * Speech of W. Phillips, Boston.

  * Minutes of the New-School Assembly, p. 188.

  † These two resolutions are given on the authority of Goodel's History. I do

  not find them in the Minutes.

  CHAPTER III.

  MARTYRDOM.

  At the time when the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches

  passed the anti-slavery resolutions which we have recorded, the

  system of slavery could probably have been extirpated by the

  Church with comparatively little trouble. Such was the expe-

  rience of the Quakers, who tried the experiment at that time,

  and succeeded. The course they pursued was the simplest

  possible. They districted their Church, and appointed regular

  committees, whose business it was to go from house to house,

  and urge the rules of the Church individually on each slave-

  holder, one by one. This was done in a spirit of such sim-

  plicity and brotherly love, that very few resisted the appeal.

  They quietly yielded up, in obedience to their own consciences,

  and the influence of their brethren. This mode of operation,

  though gentle, was as efficient as the calm sun of summer, which,

  by a few hours of patient shining, dissolves the ice-blocks against

  which all the storms of winter have beat in vain. Oh, that so

  happy a course had been thought of and pursued by all the other

  denominations! but the day is past when this monstrous evil

  would so quietly yield to gentle and persuasive measures.

  At the time that the Quakers made their attempt, this levia-

  than in the reeds and rushes of America was young and callow,

  and had not learned his strength. Then he might have been

  “drawn out with a hook;” then they might have “made a

  covenant with him, and taken him for a servant for ever;” but

  now Leviathan is full-grown. “Behold, the hope of him is vain.

  Shall not men be cast down even at the sight of him? None is

  so fierce that dare stir him up. His scales are his pride, shut

  up together as with a close seal; one is so near to another that

  no air can come between them. The flakes of his flesh are

  joined together. They are firm in themselves, they cannot be

  moved. His heart is as firm as a stone, yea, as hard as a nether

  millstone. The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold.

  He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. Arrows

  cannot make him flee; sling-stones are turned with him into

  stubble. He laugheth at the shaking of a spear. Upon the

  earth there is not his like: he is king over all the children of

  pride.”

  There are those who yet retain the delusion that, somehow or

  other, without any very particular effort or opposition, by a soft,

  genteel, rather apologetic style of operation, Leviathan is to be

  converted, baptised, and Christianised. They can try it. Such

  a style answers admirably as long as it is understood to mean

  nothing. But just the moment that Leviathan finds they are in

  earnest, then they will see the consequences. The debates of all

  the synods in the United States, as to whether he is an evil per

  se, will not wake him. In fact, they are rather a pleasant hum-

  drum. Nor will any resolutions that they “behold him with

  regret” give him especial concern; neither will he be much

  annoyed by the expressed expectation that he is to die some-

  where about the millennium. Notwithstanding all the recommen-

  dations of synods and conferences, Leviathan himself has but

  an indifferent opinion of his own Christianity, and an impression

  that he would not be considered quite in keeping with the uni-

  versal reign of Christ on earth; but he doesn't much concern

  himself about the prospect of giving up the ghost at so very

  remote a period.

  But let anyone, either North or South, take the sword of the

  Spirit and make one pass under his scales that he shall feel,

  and then he will know what sort of a conflict Christian had

  with Apollyon. Let no one, either North or South, undertake

  this warfare, to whom fame, or ease, or wealth, or anything that

  this world
has to give, are too dear to be sacrificed. Let no

  one undertake it who is not prepared to hate his own good

  name, and, if need be, his life also. For this reason, we will

  give here the example of one martyr who died for this cause;

  for it has been well said that “the blood of the martyr is the

  seed of the Church.”

  The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was the son of a Maine woman,

  a native of that State which, barren in all things else, is fruitful

  in noble sentiments and heroic deeds. Of his early days we

  say nothing. Probably they were like those of other Maine

  boys. We take up his history where we find him a clergyman

  in St. Louis, Mo., editing a religious newspaper. Though pro-

  fessing not to be a technical abolitionist, he took an open and

  decided stand against slavery. This aroused great indignation,

  and called forth threats of violence. Soon after, a mob, com-

  posed of the most respectable individuals of the place, burned

  alive a negro man in the streets of St. Louis, for stabbing the

  officers who came to arrest him. This scene of protracted

  torture lasted till the deed was completed, and the shrieks of

  the victim for a more merciful death were disregarded. In his

  charge to the grand jury, Judge Lawless decided that no legal

  redress could be had for this outrage, because, being the act of

  an infuriated multitude, it was above the law. Elijah Lovejoy

  expressed, in determined language, his horror of the transaction

  and of the decision. For these causes, his office was torn down

  and destroyed by the mob. Happening to be in St. Charles, a

  mob of such men as only slavery could raise attacked the house

  to take his life. His distracted wife kept guard at his door,

  struggling with men armed with bludgeons and bowie-knives,

  who swore that they would have his heart's blood. A woman's

  last despair, and the aid of friends, repelled the first assault;

  but when the mob again returned, he made his escape. Love-

  joy came to Alton, Illinois, and there set up his paper. The

  mob followed him. His press was twice destroyed, and he was

  daily threatened with assassination.

  Before his press was destroyed the third time, a call was

  issued in his paper for a convention of the enemies of slavery and

  friends of free inquiry in Illinois, for the purpose of considering

  and recommending measures adapted to meet the existing crisis.