Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly • Paragraph 48
Stage 1 of 6

Read it through once

Here is an array of English testimony that cannot fail to convince every one that slavery exists to the present moment in the English dominions, in a form far more aggravated than African slavery in the United States. How is it then, that she has been, and is to the present time, making ceaseless and untiring efforts to exaggerate the sufferings and the disabilities of the African race in our midst, while there is so much suffering and oppression among her own subjects? Is it not an, extraordinary circumstance, that a nation who has expended so much blood and treasure in invading the rights of others--a nation that to the present hour tolerates and legalizes slavery in its worst possible forms--or rather, in every possible form; should affect so much solicitude about its extinction in a foreign government? In view of all these facts, is it not a humiliating circumstance; or rather, is it not an outrageous insult to the American people, that Madam Stowe, after having basely caricatured, slandered and misrepresented her own country, to flatter and please the English people, and their Northern allies in the United States; should with her ill-gotten gains fly across the ocean, to join the slanderers, denunciators and libelers of our beloved country? The world can't produce another instance of such insulting, arrogant, bare-faced knavery and hypocrisy! A thousand reflections force themselves on my mind, and had I a voice as seven-fold thunder, and could I congregate around me in one solid phalanx, every man, woman and child, on the North American portion of this continent; I would warn them of their danger. I would direct their attention to the history of nations wrecked, torn to pieces, and almost obliterated from the face of the earth by internal feuds and dissentions--by envy, jealousy and hatred; and that not unfrequently instigated by foreign powers. I would point to the catalogue of crimes--the commotions, the dissentions, the tumults, the strife--the envy, the jealousy, the hatred--the wars, the butcheries and bloodsheds, that have been incited by visionary, bigoted, fanatical religionists. I would inculcate the fear and love of God; the love of our country, and the love of our neighbor as paramount virtues; and meekness, gentleness and patience, as Christian graces of the first importance; and resignation to the will of God, and obedience and submission to civil authorities, as the duty of all good citizens. And to the ladies I would say, return home ladies, and love your husbands, nurse your babies, attend to your household affairs; and recollect, that nothing adorns your sex so much, as the ornament of a meek, a quiet spirit. I would also advise you to read your Bibles and other good books, and never again to read or write another novel. And, dear ladies, if you have hitherto worn either bloomers or breeches, lay them aside. I must return from this digression to the subject under discussion.