Posted on 12/16/2003 1:15:09 PM PST by PeaRidge
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Gail Jarvis by Gail Jarvis
People who disagree with me often claim that my historical views do not conform with "modern" interpretations. For my enlightenment, they recommend "modern" history books, books written after the 1960s. However, one correspondent took the opposite approach insisting that I needed to read a book from the past, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Of course, like most of you, I read the book years ago when I was younger. And, although I thought I remembered it, I decided to read it again; this time slowly and analytically.
Its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe was the daughter, sister, and wife of ministers and fervent Abolitionists who used New England pulpits to passionately proselytize against slavery. So it is not surprising that she became an Abolitionist and wrote her influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although the book is the most famous of all anti-slavery polemics, I suspect most people are not aware of many of the opinions held by its author.
In rereading her book, I was first struck by Mrs. Stowe insistence that slavery in the South was no worse than slavery in the North had been. Furthermore, Stowe did not condemn Southern plantation owners but rather placed the onus of slavery on the slave system itself; especially New England slave traders, New York bankers, and other Northern entrepreneurs who profited from slave commerce.
Writer and Civil Rights activist James Baldwin was incensed by her position, stating: "It was her object to show that the evils of slavery were the inherent evils of a bad system, and not always the fault of those who had become involved in it and were its actual administrators." To Baldwin this opinion was racist and abdicated slave owners of personal responsibility.
Civil rights activists were also irritated by Mrs. Stowe’s support of the American Colonization Society’s belief that slaves should be returned to Africa, support she shared with Abraham Lincoln.
Although an Abolitionist, Stowe belonged to the "gradual emancipation" school. She believed that slaves must receive at least a basic education before being freed. And she insisted that they be converted to Christianity. After these two conditions were met, they should be recolonized to Africa.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published two years after the Compromises of 1850. During a hectic two-month period, Congress enacted several laws designed to placate both pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. The law that especially rankled Mrs. Stowe was the Fugitive Slave Act, which required that all run-away slaves be returned to their owners. She thought it was hypocrisy for Northern congressmen, who publicly condemned slavery, to enact the Compromises of 1850.
Harriet Beecher Stowe decided that she could make her point more dramatically by using a fiction format. Her goal was not to write the great American novel, but, like Charles Dickens, create sympathy for members of an underclass of society, slaves.
The character "Uncle Tom" grew up on the plantation of his first master, Mr. Shelby, a Southerner who was kindly disposed toward his slaves. In the course of events, Mr. Shelby incurs such large debts that he must either sell Tom, his most valuable slave, or sell all the others. This dilemma allows Mrs. Stowe to demonstrate how the economic realities of the slave system itself often precluded humanitarian considerations.
Uncle Tom’s second master, Mr. St. Clare, was also a Southerner and a compassionate slave owner. Mrs. Stowe uses St. Clare’s Vermont cousin, Miss Ophelia, to illustrate the Northern view of slavery. Miss Ophelia chastises St. Clare: "It’s a perfect abomination for you to defend such a system – you all do – all you southerners." But, annoyed by the slipshod manner in which the house servants conduct themselves; she calls them "shiftless." Miss Ophelia is also offended by the close companionship of St. Clare’s daughter, Little Eva, with Tom and the other slaves, which she deems inappropriate.
Uncle Tom’s third and final master is perhaps the most famous villain in American literature – Simon Legree: a New England Yankee. Legree amasses enough money pirating to purchase a plantation in Louisiana. As a plantation owner, he regularly beats, curses and abuses his slaves. In one of his beatings of Tom, Legree's rage boils over and he accidentally kills the noble slave.
Toward the end of the book, an escaped slave, George Harris, realizes he can now achieve his dream of joining the colony in Liberia: "Let me go to form part of a nation, which shall have a voice in the councils of nations, and then we can speak. We have the claim of an injured race for reparation. But, then, I do not want it. I want a country, a nation, of my own."
In a postscript to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe catalogues the evils of the slavery system and then addresses Southerners:
"The author hopes she has done justice to that nobility, generosity, and humanity which in many cases characterizes individuals at the South. Such instances save us from utter despair of our kind. To you, generous, noble-minded men and women of the South – you, whose virtue, and magnanimity, and purity of character are the greater for the severer trial it has encountered – to you is her appeal."
Next she turns her attention to Northerners:
"Do you say that the people of the free states have nothing to do with it? The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in Northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South? Northern men, Northern mothers, Northern Christians, have something more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look to the evil among themselves."
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published almost ten years before the War Between the States. Harriet Beecher Stowe did as much as anyone to encourage "gradual emancipation" of the New England sort..
December 16, 2003
Gail Jarvis [send him mail], a CPA living in Beaufort, SC, is an advocate of the voluntary union of states established by the founders.
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And what issue was most prominent in the southern rebellion? Slavery.
Which wars have not been fought over economics?
There have been many, depending on who you listen to. But economics played a big part in the southern rebellion as well. The southern economy was dependent on plantation agriculture. It was the be all and end all of their prosperity. And plantation agriculture was totally dependent on slave labor.
How can I acknowledge that which I know to be false? The south was the agressor. The south fired on Sumter, not the other way around. Sumter was the property of the federal government and the army had every right to resupply the troops there.
...and that the denial of states' rights, regardless of the policy in question, was the issue.
What states right was being denied?
Southern rebellion? Even the terminology is biased.
It's a pretty fair description of the southern actions.
Why did the South depend on slave labor? Because they couldn't get a decent price for their goods without shelling out to the North (who depended on slave labor, too!)? Because profit margins were so low that they had to have huge operations or run at subsistance levels? Like farming today, large operations have grown of the need to make money on volume, rather than just profit margin. The more efficient operations end up absorbing the remnants of the less efficient ones. You end up with 10,000 acre wheat farms that way, only now, you would buy mechanical devices to do the work. Ultimately, this is cheaper to operate, you only have to feed them when they are working.
Manumission was gaining ground in the South, it is far cheaper to hire someone and let them fend for themselves than to be the owner and have to provide housing, clothing, food, medical care, etc.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a NOVEL! Just because it has been made into a Yankee Mein Kampf by historical revisionists seeking to banish the culture that, by and large wrote the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and The Declaration of Independance, does not make it true, or a balanced assesment of the issues of the day.
right here. post 14
4CJ- Careful, you'll tick off the "Saint" Lincoln crowd.
That sounds like some [a priori] name-calling to me, especially since your side brought Lincoln up in the first place.
Between the WBTS, animal rights, homeschooling, and drug war threads, you've pretty much captured 99% of the controversy on FR.
That's offense Non.
This is true. It amazes me that some people just want to let that slide.
Writing that such statements might attract those that venerate Lincoln and consider him a saint is name calling? I can think of a lot worse ;o)
Hmm, and what culture would that be Joe? The tidewater arisotcrats who owned all the slaves perhaps?
Taking a look at who actually signed the Declaration of Independence, you don't find a lot of southern back country yeomen do you?
My turn to warn you! Now this thread is doomed for sure.
Lol! I'm not kidding, I'm series. This is hugh!
Adams and Pearston apparently can't believe that many people once strongly supported slavery and considered it a necessary pillar of Southern society. A lot of people have trouble understanding or accepting that. So they construct a model in which slavery didn't matter, had no strong support, and was bound somehow to disappear on its own. From such a starting point, they don't have trouble concluding that slavery was a minor factor in bringing on secession and war, but their model is flawed, in so far as there definitely was support for preserving, protecting, and extending slavery and a panic about how a Republican President could damage slaveholders' interests.
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