Book Title: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Format: hardcover (637 pages)

This edition: Modern Library       

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe

First published: 1852

Initial sales: 300,000 copies the first year

 

 

Its time to play catch-up on my reading, and so I am picking up some books from my Modern Library series on the Civil War, including, "Lincoln," by Gore Vidal, "The Confessions of Nat Turner," by William Styron, and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Harriet Beecher Stowe. When push comes to shove the political polarization we see today aint got nothing on the events leading up to the Civil War. It wasn't just a case of whether slavery should be allowed, or if it was a necessary evil, but also whether slavery should be allowed in the newly formed territories of the West, and to solve these issues people were going to war with each other long before war was declared. Shootings and murder were often commonplace. In the 1850s, for example, Kansas was known as  "Bleeding Kansas." Pro slavery men were burning buildings, and kidnapping and killing people. In retaliation, a man by the name of John Brown captured some pro slavery men and hacked them to death. Those men opposing slavery were provided rifles by abolitionist minister, Henry Ward Beecher.   Printing presses were destroyed, and owners of the presses were sometimes physically discouraged from expressing their views. It is interesting to note that long after the dust has settled, those names strongly associated with being against slavery are the ones we remember today. Of course, this is not an entirely positive thing. John Brown was an extremist, who hoped to organize a massive slave uprising. In his words, the issue of slavery could only be settled by blood. And it was. Still, think about this. How many prominent members of the Civil War era can you name who stand out as being actively pro slavery? They are forgotten completely. History has not judged them kindly.  By comparison, the big names of the anti slavery movement include publisher William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglas, John Brown, and the Beechers--Henry Ward Beecher, and his daughter Harriet.

 

It was daughter Harriet Beecher who is remembered more today than her father, mostly for the book she wrote, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and so great was the book's influence that when Civil War President Lincoln met her, he apparently referred to her as the lady who started all the trouble. Even the black characters of Uncle Tom and Jim Crow are from this book. Selling 300,000 copies its first year, the book stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy. So much so, that Harriet Beecher Stow wrote a second book, "A Key To Uncle Tom's Cabin" that documented what she had written.

 

It may seem hard for us today to understand the controversy. No one in his right mind today would attempt to justify slavery, but back in the days of the Civil War, slavery made good business sense to many people, even those living in the North. It made just as much sense to buy and sell slaves as it does for businessmen to open their doors all day Sunday. And seen as the descendents of Cain in the Bible, the whole issue of slavery had divine approval, so it was Biblical, and who were the slave traders that they should fight God? It is these attitudes that makes "Uncle Tom's Cabin" stand out. Its not necessarily great literature by today's standards, but between the story line, and her preaching in the book, Stowe confronts the issue of slavery and the reasons for its existence. And I suspect that is where the controversy lies. She hits the nail on the head, and many people had to go into defense mode to justify their behavior. If nothing else, the book justifies the comparison between slavery and abortion that has so often been made. People just don't want to know that both the black man and the unborn child are indeed human and worth of basic rights. The parallels of political correctness in both eras are astonishing. Let me give you some examples from the book.

 

(Stowe preaching:) "Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow—the shadow of law. So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master,—so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil...."

 

"I’m sorry you feel so about it,—indeed I am,” said Mr. Shelby; “and I respect your feelings, too, though I don’t pretend to share them to their full extent; but I tell you now, solemnly, it’s of no use—I can’t help myself. I didn’t mean to tell you this Emily; but, in plain words, there is no choice between selling these two and selling everything. Either they must go, or all must. Haley has come into possession of a mortgage, which, if I don’t clear off with him directly, will take everything before it. I’ve raked, and scraped, and borrowed, and all but begged,—and the price of these two was needed to make up the balance, and I had to give them up."

 

(Stowe preaching:) "If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?"

 

And this not too subtle sarcastic comment on the spiritually and politically correct slavery positions of the day: "Tom had watched the whole transaction from first to last, and had a perfect understanding of its results. To him, it looked like something unutterably horrible and cruel, because, poor, ignorant black soul! he had not learned to generalize, and to take enlarged views. If he had only been instructed by certain ministers of Christianity, he might have thought better of it, and seen in it an every-day incident of a lawful trade; a trade which is the vital support of an institution which an American divine arMenu3[9] = '³3 Dr. Joel Parker of Philadelphia. [Mrs. Stowe’s note.] Presbyterian clergyman (1799-1873), a friend of the Beecher family. Mrs. Stowe attempted unsuccessfully to have this identifying note removed from the stereotype-plate of the first edition.'; ³tells us has “no evils but such as are inseparable from any other relations in social and domestic life.” But Tom, as we see, being a poor, ignorant fellow, whose reading had been confined entirely to the New Testament, could not comfort and solace himself with views like these. His very soul bled within him for what seemed to him the wrongs of the poor suffering thing that lay like a crushed reed on the boxes; the feeling, living, bleeding, yet immortal thing, which American state law coolly classes with the bundles, and bales, and boxes, among which she is lying."

 

Stowe goes on to describe how the masters so cooly understand how angry and upset a black mother might get when she watches the last of her children being sold and taken away from her, yet these same masters know full well that given time the mother will get over it, so its OK. Did I hear anyone say, "blob of tissue?"

 

For a book that defines and captures the social issue of the day, the preaching is dead on, and the arguments and reasonings she uses stand the test of time. We can easily see those same justifications she comments on being used today to OK abortion. And now, as then, people are hell bent and determined not face up to what they are doing, but instead strive in some way to mineralize the killing and abuse.

 

If there is anything which makes the book less readable for today, its the expected non standard English given to the blacks and slave owners as standard dialogue. I am not sure why this is a distraction, as just today I heard someone say, "that don't look very good, do it." Maybe I have read too many books that do this, and maybe as true as it is or was, I am tired of trying to translate words like, "Mas'r" for Master, and "sartin" for, well, I am not really sure. Every book on slavery is like this, except in the movies like "Roots" everybody speaks college English.

 

Perhaps its good to re read outdated books like this once in a while to remind us of where we've been. Sometimes its not that far off from where we are.

There is another interesting aspect to the book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that is worth mentioning. The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, does not resort to using Biblical and Christian cliches to make her point. In fact, she attacks slave owning Christians and Northern hypocrisy as much as she does the basic Southern attitude. And in an interesting portion, as is so often the case in real life, she lifts up a man whom much of society dismisses as a skeptic, and written him off as an ungodly person simply because the man does not go to church and does not fit into the expected Christian norms of the day.

 

But as this man is telling his story, we learn that his parents were divided on the slavery issue, with his mother pushing for freedom, while the father saw slavery as the natural order of things. Unfortunately, the man lost his mother at an early age, and while her influence on him was greater than the father, there was no one to reinforce her beliefs firmly into his heart. But there was enough to make this character find slavery repulsive. And then with some bitterness the character notes the bottom line attitude of his father toward slavery. No matter how good, noble, honest, and trustworthy a slave may be, the law and the order of things caused hardness, and that is the way of it. The good slaves must suffer along with the bad slaves. A slave is, after all a slave. And with such final pronouncements this character's father would then put his feet up and take a nap, as if he had just solved a major business crisis. Its like the problem of slavery did not even concern him, because he himself was not a slave. He was not of the lower class.

 

This whole idea of being in the right class was a very dominant idea of society for centuries. If you are rich, you matter and are important, and if you are poor, then you deserve whatever fortunes come your way. This idea was still dominant and easily on display during the sinking of the Titanic, where in an age of women and children first, more first class men survived than did third class women and children.

 

And this leads to the question, "what does God have to do to get our attention?" when some premise that we base our very lives around  turns out to be made of sand? When all of society is doing something, and you are submerged in that way of thinking, so that doing things any other way cannot even be imagined, what does God have to do to get our attention? How does God get the attention of the slave to make him realize, after decades of being belittled and kept in his place, that he is the equal of the master, and that the only thing that separates one from the other is that the master has a whip, and the slave does not.

 

If "Uncle Tom's Cabin" were written today, it would have to be about abortion and pro choice. It would have to be titled something along the lines of "Uncle Tom's Abortion Clinic." In the same fashion, it would expose all the arguments, lies, and hypocrisy on both sides of the issue, not pulling any punches, but with a razor sharp knife separate the meat from the bone. No doubt it would stir up just as much controversy.

 

While the original Uncle Tom's Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the US during its first year, I have been told that it sold seven times that amount in Britain--over two million copies. Since Britain had already outlawed slavery, this book may have been a major force in getting Britain not to side with slave owning rebels. This is what can happen when people, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, don't pull any punches.