A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded. Together with corroborative statements verifying the truth of the work.Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded. Together with corroborative statements verifying the truth of the work.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Enslaved persons -- United States -- Social conditions; Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Political fiction -- Sources; Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896. Uncle Tom's cabin -- Sources; Uncle Tom (Fictitious character)
That there is much already for Christians to do in enlightening the
moral sense of the community on this subject, will appear if we consider
that even so well-educated and gentlemanly a man as Frederick Douglass
was recently obliged to pass the night on the deck of a steamer, when in
delicate health, because this senseless prejudice deprived him of a
place in the cabin; and that that very laborious and useful minister,
Dr. Pennington, of New York, has, during the last season, been often
obliged seriously to endanger his health, by walking to his pastoral
labors, over his very extended parish, under a burning sun, because he
could not be allowed the common privilege of the omnibus, which conveys
every class of white men, from the most refined to the lowest and most
disgusting.
Let us consider now the number of professors of the religion of Christ
in New York, and consider also that, by the very fact of their
profession, they consider Dr. Pennington the brother of their Lord, and
a member with them of the body of Christ.
Now, these Christians are influential, rich and powerful; they can
control public sentiment on any subject that they think of any
particular importance, and they profess, by their religion, that “if one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it.”
It is a serious question, whether such a marked indignity offered to
Christ and his ministry, in the person of a colored brother, without any
remonstrance on their part, will not lead to a general feeling that all
that the Bible says about the union of Christians is a mere hollow
sound, and means nothing.
Those who are anxious to do something directly to improve the condition
of the slave, can do it in no way so directly as by elevating the
condition of the free colored people around them, and taking every pains
to give them equal rights and privileges.
This unchristian prejudice has doubtless stood in the way of the
emancipation of hundreds of slaves. The slave-holder, feeling and
acknowledging the evils of slavery, has come to the North, and seen
evidences of this unkindly and unchristian state of feeling towards the
slave, and has thus reflected within himself:
“If I keep my slave at the South, he is, it is true, under the dominion
of a very severe law; but then he enjoys the advantage of my friendship
and assistance, and derives, through his connection with me and my
family, some kind of a position in the community. As my servant he is
allowed a seat in the car and a place at the table. But if I emancipate
and send him North, he will encounter substantially all the
disadvantages of slavery, with no master to protect him.”
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