The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  such services:--

  Dollars.

  For each day employed in hunting or trailing 2 50c.

  For catching each slave 10 For going over ten miles and catching slaves 20

  If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The subscriber resides

  one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.

  B. Black.

  Dadaville, Sept. 1, 1852. 1-tf.

  The reader will see by the printer's sign at the bottom that it

  is a season advertisement, and, therefore, would meet the eye of

  the child week after week. The paper from which we have cut

  this contains among its extracts passages from Dickens's “House-

  hold Words,” from Professor Felton's article in the “Christian

  Examiner” on the relation of the sexes, and a most beautiful and

  chivalrous appeal from the eloquent senator Soule on the legal

  rights of women. Let us now ask, since this paper is devoted

  to education, what sort of an educational influence such ad-

  vertisements have? And, of course, such an establishment is

  not kept up without patronage. Where there are negro-hunters

  advertising in a paper, there are also negro-hunts, and there are

  dogs being trained to hunt; and all this process goes on before

  the eyes of children; and what sort of an education is it?

  The writer has received an account of the way in which dogs

  are trained for this business. The information has been com-

  municated to the gentleman who writes it by a negro man, who,

  having been always accustomed to see it done, described it with

  as little sense of there being anything out of the way in it as if

  the dogs had been trained to catch raccoons. It came to the

  writer in a recent letter from the South:--

  The way to train 'em (says the man) is to take these yer pups--any kind

  o' pups will do--fox-hounds, bull-dogs, most any; but take the pups, and keep

  'em shut up, and don't let 'em never see a nigger till they get big enough to be

  larned. When the pups gits old enough to be set on to things, then make 'em

  run after a nigger; and when they cotches him, give 'em meat. Tell the nigger

  to run as hard as he can, and git up in a tree, so as to larn the dogs to tree 'em;

  then take the shoe of a nigger, and larn 'em to find the nigger it belongs to; then

  a rag of his clothes; and so on. Allers be carful to tree the nigger, and teach

  the dog to wait and bark under the tree till you come up and give him his meat.

  See also the following advertisement from the Ouachita

  Register, a newspaper dated “Monroe, La., Tuesday evening,

  June 1, 1852.”

  [title]NEGRO DOGS.

  The undersigned would respectfully inform the citizens of Ouachita and

  adjacent parishes, that he has located about 2½ miles east of John White's, on

  the road leading from Monroe to Bastrop, and that he has a fine pack of Dogs

  for catching negroes. Persons wishing negroes caught will do well to gave him

  a call. He can always be found at his stand when not engaged in hunting,

  and even then information of his whereabouts can always be had of some one on

  the premises.

  Terms.--Five dollars per day and found, when there is no track pointed out.

  When the track is shown, twenty-five dollars will be charged for catching the

  negro.

  M. C. Goff.

  Monroe, Feb. 17, 1852. 15-3m.

  Now, do not all the scenes likely to be enacted under this

  head form a fine education for the children of a Christian

  nation? and can we wonder if children so formed see no cruelty

  in slavery? Can children realise that creatures who are thus

  hunted are the children of one heavenly Father with them-

  selves?

  But suppose the boy grows up to be a man, and attends the

  courts of justice, and hears intelligent, learned men declaring

  from the bench that “the mere beating of a slave, unac-

  companied by any circumstances of cruelty, or an attempt to

  kill, is no breach of the peace of the State.” Suppose he hears

  it decided in the same place that no insult or outrage upon any

  slave is considered worthy of legal redress, unless it impairs his

  property value. Suppose he hears, as he would in Virginia,

  that it is the policy of the law to protect the master even in

  inflicting cruel, malicious, and excessive punishment upon the

  slave. Suppose a slave is murdered and he hears the lawyers

  arguing that it cannot be considered a murder, because the

  slave, in law, is not considered a human being; and then sup-

  pose the case is appealed to a superior court, and he hears the

  judge expending his forces on a long and eloquent dissertation

  to prove that the slave is a human being; at least, that he is as

  much so as a lunatic, an idiot, or an unborn child, and that,

  therefore, he can be murdered. (See Judge Clarke's speech, on

  p. 175.) Suppose he sees that all the administration of law

  with regard to the slave proceeds on the idea that he is abso-

  lutely nothing more than a bale of merchandise. Suppose he

  hears such language as this, which occurs in the reasonings of

  the Brazealle case, and which is a fair sample of the manner in

  which such subjects are ordinarily discussed. “The slave has

  no more political capacity, no more right to purchase, hold, or

  transfer property, than the mule in his plough; he is in himself

  but a mere chattel--the subject of absolute ownership.” Sup-

  pose he sees on the statute-book such sentences as these, from

  the civil code of Louisiana:--

  Art. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and animals are divided into two

  classes--vices of body, and vices of character.

  Art. 2501. The vices of body are distinguished into absolute and relative.

  Art. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are leprosy, madness, and epilepsy.

  Art. 2503. The absolute vices of horses and mules, are short wind, glanders,

  and founder.

  The influence of this language is made all the stronger on

  the young mind from the fact that it is not the language of

  contempt, or of passion, but of calm, matter-of-fact, legal

  statement.

  What effect must be produced on the mind of the young man

  when he comes to see that, however atrocious and however well-

  proved be the murder of a slave, the murderer uniformly escapes;

  and that, though the cases where the slave has fallen a victim

  to passions of the white are so multiplied, yet the fact of an

  execution for such a crime is yet almost unknown in the

  country? Does not all this tend to produce exactly that

  estimate of the value of negro life and happiness which

  Frederic Douglass says was expressed by a common proverb

  among the white boys where he was brought up: “It's worth

  sixpence to kill a nigger, and sixpence more to bury him?”

  We see the public sentiment which has been formed by this

  kind of education exhibited by the following paragraph from

  the Cambridge Democrat, Md., Oct. 27, 1852. That paper

  quotes the following from the Woodville Republican, of Missis-

  sippi. It seems a Mr. Joshua Johns had killed a slave, and

  had been sentenced therefore to the penitent
iary for two years.

  The Republican thus laments his hard lot:--

  This cause resulted in the conviction of Johns, and his sentence to the Peni-

  tentiary for two years. Although every member of the jury, together with the

  bar, and the public generally, signed a petition to the governor for young Johns'

  pardon, yet there was no fault to find with the verdict of the jury. The extreme

  youth of Johns, and the circumstances in which the killing occurred, enlisted

  universal sympathy in his favour. There is no doubt that the negro had pro-

  voked him to the deed by the use of insolent language; but how often must it be

  told that words are no justification for blows? There are many persons--and we

  regret to say it--who think they have the same right to shoot a negro, if he insults

  them, or even runs from them, that they have to shoot down a dog but there are

  laws for the protection of the slave as well as the master, and the sooner the

  error above alluded to is removed, the better will it be for both parties.

  The unfortunate youth who has now entailed upon himself the penalty of the

  law, we doubt not, had no idea that there existed such penalty; and even if he

  was aware of the fact, the repeated insults and taunts of the negro go far to

  mitigate the crime. Johns was defended by I. D. Gildart, Esq., who probably

  did all that could have been effected in his defence.

  The Democrat adds:

  We learn from Mr. Curry, deputy sheriff, of Wilkinson County, that Johns has

  been pardoned by the governor. We are gratified to hear it.

  This error above alluded to, of thinking it is as innocent to

  shoot down a negro as a dog, is one, we fairly admit, for which

  young Johns ought not to be very severely blamed. He has

  been educated in a system of things of which this opinion is

  the inevitable result; and he, individually, is far less guilty

  for it than are those men who support the system of laws, and

  keep up the educational influences, which lead young Southern

  men directly to this conclusion. Johns may be, for aught we

  know, as generous-hearted and as just naturally as any young

  man living; but the horrible system under which he has been

  educated has rendered him incapable of distinguishing what

  either generosity or justice is, as applied to the negro.

  The public sentiment of the slave-states is the sentiment of

  men who have been thus educated, and in all that concerns the

  negro it is utterly blunted and paralysed. What would seem

  to them injustice and horrible wrong in the case of white

  persons, is the coolest matter of course in relation to slaves.

  As this educational influence descends from generation to

  generation, the moral sense becomes more and more blunted, and

  the power of discriminating right from wrong, in what relates

  to the subject race, more and more enfeebled.

  Thus, if we read the writings of distinguished men who were

  slave-holders about the time of our American revolution, what

  clear views do we find expressed of the injustice of slavery, what

  strong language of reprobation do we find applied to it!

  Nothing more forcible could possibly be said in relation to its

  evils than by quoting the language of such men as Washington,

  Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. In those days there were no men

  of that high class of mind who thought of such a thing as

  defending slavery on principle; now there are an abundance

  of the most distinguished men, North and South, statesmen,

  civilians, men of letters, even clergymen, who, in various degrees,

  palliate it, apologise for or openly defend it. And what is the

  cause of this, except that educational influences have corrupted

  public sentiment, and deprived them of the power of just judg-

  ment? The public opinion even of free America, with regard to

  slavery, is behind that of all other civilised nations.

  When the holders of slaves assert that they are, as a general

  thing, humanely treated, what do they mean? Not that they

  would consider such treatment humane if given to themselves

  and their children--no, indeed!--but it is humane for slaves.

  They do, in effect, place the negro below the range of humanity,

  and on a level with brutes, and then graduate all their ideas of

  humanity accordingly.

  They would not needlessly kick or abuse a dog or a negro.

  They may pet a dog, and they often do a negro. Men have been

  found who fancied having their horses elegantly lodged in marble

  stables, and to eat out of sculptured managers, but they thought

  them horses still; and, with all the indulgences with which

  good-natured masters sometimes surround the slave, he is to

  them but a negro still, and not a man.

  In what has been said in this chapter, and in what appears

  incidentally in all the facts cited throughout this volume, there

  is abundant proof that, notwithstanding there be frequent and

  most noble instances of generosity towards the negro, and

  although the sentiment of honourable men and the voice of

  Christian charity does everywhere protest against what it feels to

  be inhumanity, yet the popular sentiment engendered by the

  system must necessarily fall deplorably short of giving anything

  like sufficient protection to the rights of the slave. It will

  appear in the succeeding chapters, as it must already have

  appeared to reflecting minds, that the whole course of educa-

  tional influence upon the mind of the slave-master is such as to

  deaden his mind to those appeals which come from the negro as

  a fellow-man and a brother.

  CHAPTER III.

  SEPARATION OF FAMILIES.

  “What must the difference be,” said Dr. Worthington, with startling energy,

  “between Isabel and her servants? To her it is loss of position, fortune, the fair

  hopes of life, perhaps even health; for she must inevitably break down under the

  unaecustomed labour and privations she will have to undergo. But to them it is

  merely a change of masters!”

  “Yes, for the neighbours won't allow any of the families to be separated.”

  “Of course not. We read of such things in novels sometimes. But I have yet

  to see it in real life, except in rare cases, or where the slave has been guilty of

  some misdemeanour, or crime, for which, in the North, he would have been impri-

  soned, perhaps for life.”

  -- by J. Thornton Randolph, p. 39. * * * * * * *

  “But they're going to sell us all to Georgia, I say. How are we to escape

  that?”

  “Spec dare some mistake in dat,” replied Uncle Peter stoutly. “I nebber

  knew of sich a ting in dese parts, 'cept where some niggar 'd been berry bad.”

  By such graphic touches as the above does Mr. Thornton

  Randolph represent to us the patriarchal stability and secu-

  rity of the slave population in the Old Dominion. Such a thing

  as a slave being sold out of the State has never been heard of by

  Dr. S. Worthington, except in rare case for some crime; and

  old Uncle Peter never heard of such a thing in his life.

  Are these representations true?

  The worst abuse of the system of slavery is it
s outrage upon

  the family; and, as the writer views the subject, it is one which

  is more notorious and undeniable than any other.

  Yet it is upon this point that the most stringent and earnest

  denial has been made to the representations of “Uncle Tom's

  Cabin,” either indirectly, as by the romance-writer above, or

  more directly in the assertions of newspapers, both at the North

  and at the South. When made at the North, they indicate, to

  say the least, very great ignorance of the subject; when made

  at the South, they certainly do very great injustice to the

  general character of the Southerner for truth and honesty. All

  sections of country have faults peculiar to themselves. The

  fault of the South, as a general thing, has not been cowardly

  evasion and deception. It was with utter surprise that the

  author read the following sentences in an article in Fraser's

  Magazine, professing to come from a South Carolinian:--

  Mrs. Stowe's favourite illustration of the master's power to the injury of the

  slave is the separation of families. We are told of infants of ten months old being

  sold from the arms of their mothers, and of men whose habit it is to raise children,

  to sell away from their mother as soon as they are old enough to be separated.

  Were our views of this feature of slavery derived from Mrs. Stowe's book, we

  should regard the families of slaves as utterly unsettled and vagrant.

  And again--

  We feel confident that, if statistics could be had to throw light upon this sub-

  ject, we should find that there is less separation of families among the negroes than

  occurs with almost any other class of persons.

  As the author of the article, however, is evidently a man of

  honour, and expresses many most noble and praiseworthy senti-

  ments, it cannot be supposed that these statements were put

  forth with any view to misrepresent or to deceive. They are

  only to be regarded as evidences of the facility with which a

  sanguine mind often overlooks the most glaring facts that make

  against a favourite idea or theory, or which are unfavourable in

  their bearings on one's own country or family. Thus the citi-