Page:A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853).djvu/66

60 is entitled to consideration. 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 colored, 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 flesh is heir to." It has been feared that the book would result in injury to the slave-holding interests of the country; but we apprehend no such thing, and hesitate not to recommend it to the perusal 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 favor (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 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, accompanied 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 upon 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 approach 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 postmarked 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 to New Orleans. He was entirely unacquainted with its character; he was attracted by its title, supposing it might amuse him while travelling. Through his family it was shown to me, as something that I would probably like. I looked at the author's name, and said, 'O, yes; anything from that lady I will read;' otherwise I should have disregarded a work of fiction without such a title.

"The remarks from persons present were, that it was a most amusing work, and the scenes most admirably drawn to life. I accepted the offer of a perusal of it, and brought it home with me. Although I have not read every sentence, I have looked over the whole of it, and I now wish to bear my testimony to its just delineation of the position that the slave occupies. Colorings in the work there are, but no colorings of the actual and real position of the slave worse than really exist. Whippings to death do occur; I know it to be so. Painful separations of master and slave, under circumstances creditable to the master's feelings of humanity, do also occur. I know that, too. Many families, after having brought up their children in entire dependence on slaves to do everything for them, and after having been indulged in elegances and luxuries, have exhausted all their means; and the black people only being left, whom they must sell, for further support. Running away, everybody knows, is the worst crime a slave can commit, in the eyes of his master, except it be a humane master; and from such few slaves care to run away.

"I am a slave-holder myself. I have long been dissatisfied with the system; particularly since I have made the Bible my criterion for judging of it. I am convinced, from what I read there slavery is not in accordance with what God delights to honor in his creatures. I am altogether opposed to the system; and I intend always to use whatever influence I may have against it. I feel very bold in speaking against it, though living in the midst of it, because I am backed by a powerful arm, that can overturn and overrule the strongest efforts that the determined friends of slavery are now making for its continuance.

"I sincerely hope that more of Mrs. Stowes may be found, to show up the reality of slavery. It needs master minds to show it as it is, that it may rest upon its own merits.

"Like Mrs. Stowe, I feel that, since so many and good people, too, at the North, have quietly consented to leave the slave to his fate, by acquiescing in and approving the late measures of government, those who do feel differently should bestir themselves. Christian effort must do the work; and soon it would be done, if Christians would unite, not to destroy the Union states, but honestly to speak out, and speak freely, against