e and sympathy where he had roused
antagonism. Against pharisaical religion it uses effective
satire,--which was intensified in its successor, _Dred_,--but the
Christianity of faith and life is its animating spirit. No book is
richer in the gospel of love to man and trust in God. Its rank is high
in the new literature which has stimulated and led the great modern
movement for the uplifting of the poor and oppressed. Its place is with
Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_ and Tolstoi's _War and Peace_.

The motive of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was an appeal to the heart of the
American people. There was no reference to political action, far less
any suggestion of servile insurrection, and there was no discussion of
methods of emancipation. The book set forth an organized, monstrous
wrong, which it was in the power of the American nation, and above all,
of the Southern people, to remove. The effect at the North was
immeasurably to widen and deepen the conviction of the wrong of slavery,
and the desire to remove it. But the way to practical action did not
open; and strangely enough there was at first no visible effect on
politics. The political logic of the situation led straight, as a first
step, to the support of the Free Soil party. But though _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_ appeared (as a book) in April, 1852, and its popularity was
instant, the Presidential election seven months later showed a Free Soil
vote less by 100,000 than four years before. The political effect of the
book was to appear only when public events two years later gave a sudden
spur to the hesitating North.

The South turned a deaf ear to the appeal. It shut the book out from its
borders as far as it could, and one who inquired for it in a Southern
bookstore would probably be offered _Aunt Phillis's Cabin_ or some
other mild literary anti-toxin. The South protested that the book's
picture of slavery was untrue and unjust. It was monstrous, so they
said, that their labor system should be shown as having its natural
result in the whipping to death of a saintly negro for his virtuous
conduct. Another reply was: "If the book is true, it is really a eulogy
of slavery, for it depicts slavery as producing in Uncle Tom a perfect
character."

To the objections to the fidelity of her portraiture Mrs. Stowe replied
with _A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_,--a formidable array of proved facts,
as to the laws of the slave States, and specific incidents which
paralleled or exceeded all she ha