In view of the mighty influence which "Uncle Tom's Cabin" exercised upon public opinion, it is important to examine what were Mrs. Stowe's qualifications to speak as an authority on southern slavery. And in this investigation the same qualifications of all others who arraigned the system for what they alleged were its heinous moral wrongs to the slave are likewise involved. The statement of Professor Wendell, quoted above, that she was the only one of the abolitionists who had observed slavery "on the spot," can be corroborated by overwhelming proofs. If it be made to appear, as I think will be the case, that she was from first to last under a delusion which metamorphosed the negro into a Caucasian, and further that she had no real opportunities of learning the facts of slavery, then the case of the root-and-branch abolitionists must fall with the testimony of the only eye-witness whom they have called. Whether she was biased or not we will let her own words decide. Here they are: "I was a child in 1820 [she was then nine years old] when the Missouri question was agitated; and one of the strongest and deepest impressions on my mind was that made by my father's sermons and prayers, and the anguish of his soul for the poor slave at that time. I remember his preaching drawing tears down the hardest faces of the old farmers in his congregation. I well remember his prayers morning and evening in the family for 'poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa,' that the time of her deliverance might come; prayers offered with strong crying and tears, and which indelibly impressed my heart, and made me what I am from my very soul, the enemy of all slavery. Every brother that I have has been in his sphere a leading anti-slavery man. As for myself and husband, we have for the last seventeen years lived on the border of a slave State, and we have never shrunk from the fugitives, and we have helped them with all we had to give. I have received the children of liberated slaves into a family school, and taught them with my own children, and it has been the influence that we found in the church and by the altar that has made us do all this."[90] No comment is needed. The passage shows that her strongly excited feelings unavoidably shaped all her perceptions and formed all her judgments as to everything in slavery.