NOTES

ON

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.

NOTE 1.-OBJECT OF UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.

THIS shall be given in the author's own words: “The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race, as they exist among us; to show their wrongs and sorrows, under a system so necessarily cruel and unjust as to defeat and do away the good effects of all that can be attempted for them, by their best friends, under it." (Preface, p. 6.) Such is the author's declaration of her object, and we are bound to believe it; but had she avowed her object to be to awaken in the North antipathy to the Southern people, as a people, to show their cold-blooded indifference to, nay, positive sanction of, a system of heartless and mercenary oppression, we should have said the whole internal evidence of the book was in accordance with such an avowal.

But let us take her declaration as we have it, and let us examine into it a little. Had it occurred as an incidental observation in some exciting part of the narrative, we might have considered it as rhetorical exaggeration; but standing, as it does, in the preface, (which is expected to be a plain, unvarnished, matter-of-fact sort of thing,) and being, as it is, a declaration of the author's object, where, if anywhere, we should expect that she would weigh her words, I see not how I can give it any other than a literal interpretation.

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And yet, in doing this, I am puzzled by the very next paragraph, in which the author tells us that she "can sincerely disclaim any invidious feeling towards those individuals who, often without any fault of their own, are involved in the trials and embarrassments of the legal relations of slavery. Experience has shown her that some of the noblest of minds and hearts are often thus involved;" for how of the noblest of minds and hearts can often be,” (i. e. continue, for that is the meaning here of the verb "be,") involved in "a system so necessarily cruel and unjust as to defeat and do away the good effects of all that can be attempted for them," (the negroes,) "by their best friends, under it," passes my comprehension. They cannot thus continue, ignorantly, for if the system be, what it is here represented to be, a system of necessary cruelty and injustice, always and everywhere, without one redeeming trait, so that, in point of fact, they have never, in any instance in which they have attempted it, succeeded in doing any good to any of their slaves, but have, always, and under all circumstances, done them evil and only evil, (for such is the literal meaning of the author's language); I say, if all this be so, they cannot but know it, and knowing it, and still continuing connected with the system, they can be neither "noble minds," nor "noble hearts."

Before God, as I am a Christian, nay, as I am a man, if I believed the system were what, in the literal meaning of the language, it is here represented to be, I would renounce, at once and forever, all social intercourse with the people of the South; nay, I would not even preach the gospel to them, for the gospel is for men, and not devils, and none but a devil incarnate could uphold such a system, or have anything to do with it, except to execrate it, and to spurn it from God's earth, which it pollutes and dishonours.

But, as I said, I am in doubt about the meaning of the

paragraph. If it stood by itself, I should have no difficulty with it; but, as it is, I know not whether it is to be taken as a literal statement of fact, or as a rhetorical exaggeration. One or the other it must be. I would be glad if our author would tell us which.

If she says it is to be taken as a literal statement of fact, then she ought to expunge the two paragraphs that follow it. Nay, more, she ought to join at once the crusade of Garrison, and Philips, and Wright, against the slaveholder, as a monster to be hunted from the face of the earth. (See Appendix, A.)

If, on the other hand, she says that it is to be taken as rhetorical exaggeration, then all I have to say is, if such be the exaggeration of the sober preface, what are we to look. for in the body of the work? What but a tissue of exaggeration from beginning to end? And such (so far as the evils of slavery are concerned,) we shall actually find it to be when we get to it.

NOTE 2.-BLEEDING AFRICA.

But I have not yet done with the preface. Here is another rhetorical specimen: "In this general movement, unhappy Africa at last is remembered; Africa, who began the race of civilization and human progress in the dim, gray dawn of early time, but who, for centuries, has lain bound. and bleeding at the foot of civilized and Christianized humanity, imploring compassion in vain." (p. 6.)

Now if this means anything to the purpose, it means that that Africa, which "began the race of civilization and human progress in the dim, gray dawn of early time," "has for centuries lain bound and bleeding at the foot of civilized and Christianized humanity." But history tells us that that

Africa is Northern and Eastern Africa; and the same history tells us that that Africa has "for centuries lain" (whether "bound and bleeding," or otherwise,) at the foot, not of "civilized and Christianized humanity," but of fanatical, Mussulman barbarism. And the same history tells us further, that the only Africa that has anything to do with Uncle Tom's Cabin is that Africa which for the last three or four centuries has furnished America with slaves, and that that Africa, so far from having been reduced to its present degraded condition by European and American Christendom, (which is what the author means, if she means. anything to the purpose,) is, to say the least, no lower in the scale of degradation now, than when discovered by the Portuguese four centuries ago.

But perhaps the Africa of our author is, not the Africa beyond the ocean, but the African race here; for she tells us (vol. 2, p. 302,) that they "have more (the italics are her own) than the rights of common men" here; that they "have the claim of an injured race for reparation." And again (p. 318,) she puts the question, "Does not every American Christian owe to the African race some effort at reparation for the wrongs that the American nation has brought upon them?" And again, she says, (p. 321,) “If this persecuted race," &c.

Well, let it be so. But, observe, it is Africa, not here and there an African,-it is "this persecuted race," not here and there a persecuted individual; for one hundred, or one thousand, or even ten thousand, bleeding negroes, do not make "bleeding Africa," any more than one swallow makes a summer.

According to our author, then, the African has been deteriorated by his bondage here. She means this, or her language is mere declamation.

But is this so? Let us look into it a little. Are there

any Uncle Tom's in Africa, or even any Black Sam's? Are there any B's, (see vol. 2, p. 320,) or C's, or K's, or G -'s, or G's, or W-'s, or G. D's, there? Nay, rather, are not ninety-nine in every one hundred of the negroes here, ages in advance of ninety-nine in every one hundred there, in the onward march of humanity. (See Appendix, B.)

And to what is all this owing? To what but to American. slavery, and to the humanizing influences with which, as a race, they have been brought into contact under it? But for American slavery, they had been now as degraded as "the African in his native ranges," or had not been at all.

Say I this of myself? Nay, our author says the very same. "When an enlightened and Christianized community shall have, on the shores of Africa, laws, language and literature, drawn from among us, may then the scenes of the house of bondage be to them like the remembrance of Egypt to the Israelite,-a motive of thankfulness to Him who hath redeemed them!" (Preface, p. 8.)

This is genuine good sense, and it is refreshing to meet with it; but then it puzzles me about the other paragraph, for it follows from it that the Africa of the preface is not the African race here. What, then, in the name of wonder, is Reader, can you? Nay, can the author herself? And this, too, is in the sober preface!

it? I cannot tell.

NOTE. 3.-THE SLAVE-TRADE.

But I have not yet done with the preface. Here is another choice bit of rhetoric: "Thanks be to God, the world has at last outlived the slave-trade."

I would to God that this thanksgiving were not premature; but when I see, by almost every arrival from the African coast, that the accursed traffic is still carried on, as