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From the Editor
Patriotic Gore Revisited
When Abraham Lincoln was introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe he is reported as saying “So you’re the little lady who started this big war.” The popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, of course, wasn’t the main cause of the Civil War. There is enough truth in Lincoln’s statement to justify our taking a fresh look at the novel, not just in the context of the past, but also in the light of the unprecedented challenges to democracy we are facing today.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin goes along as a novel to the last chapter, “Concluding Remarks,” when Harriet Beecher Stowe, with her fist clenched, emerges from behind the fictional curtain to directly confront the reader. “But, what can any individual do? Of that, any individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do,—they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or women who feels strongly, healthily, and justly on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race.”
Stowe claimed that she didn’t write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, that God dictated it to her. Consider that in the light of how proud she was in her letters to family of how much money she was able to make on everything else she wrote. In “Concluding Remarks” she goes on to say “A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian Church has a heavy account to answer. Not by combining together, to project injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved,—but by repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stranger law by which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God!” Before the popular success and subsequent trivialization of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, these words hit home with hundreds of thousands of people. Considering the political turmoil we are facing today, these inspired words ring prescient.
Max H. Peters
Publisher and Editor
Header photo by Skip Broom, HP Broom Housewright, Inc.