I found this while perusing through old Golden Ages at the New York Public Library. It is so patently ridiculous and offensive, I thought I'd just post the thing without comment.
*** g27 11/30 pp. 140-143 The Story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ***
From a recently published book, "Trumpets of Jubilee," and from other sources in the Library of Congress I gleaned the following information respecting the origin and effect of the story which caused the Civil War:
"The false impression of the condition of the Southern slave created by 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' encouraged Brown to believe that . . . the negroes would rise and massacre their masters; and he laid a plan to arouse them to take this step. . . . The negroes, however did not join the conspirators, as had been expected.'
The same writer says further that the book was "a misleading but strongly-written story," and was "one of the most powerful agents in arousing against slavery the passions of the North. . . It was condemned in the South and by the conservative element of the North, yet a great many Northern people professed to believe that the book gave a true picture of Southern life. . . . It is probable that this book did more than anything else to increase the feeling of the North against slavery."
Let us remember that the world had not only entered the time of the end, and had been in it for half a century [i.e. since 1799, the beginning of the time of the end], at the time the volume was given to the masses, but we were also in the midst of increasing spirit activity, as predicted by the apostle. --Eph. 6:10-13, 2 Thess. 2:9.
In harmony with this, the Fox sisters had startled New England by their "table rappings" in 1848; Horace Greely gave ample space to their writings on spirit phenomena in his Tribune; and the Davenport brothers were astonishing the people with their strange exhibitions. Thousands were falling a prey to these deceptions, and the word "medium" was rapidly becoming a household word. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of Mrs. Stowe's temperment should come under the same evil influence; and that is exactly what happened, as is abundantly proven by what follows.
Mrs. Stowe was the sister of Henry Ward Beecher, the noted preacher. Among other things, she says of herself that "thought, intense, emotional thought" was with her "a disease"; and that she was "the slave of morbid feeling and unreasonable prejudice." She "felt and though with such absorbing intensity that her mind was exhausted and she seemed sinking into a deadness." "About half of my time I am scarcely alive," she once declared.
Miss Beecher married Calvin Stowe, who "entertained phantoms, as he called them". ... Through her husband, Mrs. Stowe undoubtedly was strongly influenced by these wicked spirits; and this was doubtless Satan's object in effecting their union in marriage.
The author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" received a thorough training from her husband in the art of coloring her narrative, we are told, "writing in the midst of gingerbread and baked beans in the kitchen, and a baby at her feet"; for she was a writer of some note before she attempted this work.
We read that she was impulsive in her literary efforts, caring little for facts, and never taking time to even cursorily investigate her chosen subject. She was rash and bent upon making her point at all hazards, usually writing from the standpoint of a preconceived opinion. ... Once her husband and her brother assisted an escaping slave along the "underground railway," and on another occasion she visited for a few hours a plantation in Kentucky. But, save for stories told her by colored women who often helped her with her work in the household, this was the extent of her contact with the institution....
In 1857 the Stowes moved to Brunswick, Me.; and shortly thereafter she was "stirred by letters from Mrs. Edward Beecher, of Boston, urging her to write something on the subject: "She began without plan or premonition, breaking into ecstasies and tears as she wrote." Her hasty installments appeared in The National Era. She "judged the whole by a piece," and the story was overcolored to the last degree. It was merely a sweeping indictment and a hysterical outcry against the institution [of slavery].
The country was set on fire when the story later appeared in book form. It was the time when men gave loose rein to their emotions, thought intensely, and talked with a reckless abandon. Then came "The Key", another volume of hearsay, without documentary proofs. It unlocked nothing.
We know that the days of divine inspiration are over. They ended when John gave to the church a record of the wonderful visions on Patmos. But Satan has at intervals thrust upon the world during the centuries following works claiming divine origin. A good modern example is Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health, with Key to the Scripture". Not a single book of the Bible was written by a woman... Of course, God permitted the work to be written, and has or will overrule it for ultimate good, as part of the general permission of evil; but He was not the author of it, because He is "not the author of confusion, but of peace," and tempts no man to do evil.
The volume was issued at a time when conditions were ripe for its reception. It was the "psychological moment" for Satan to accomplish his long-cherished design to disrupt the Union, his ultimate purpose being to throttle liberty in America and frustrate an important part of God's plan.
Centuries before, anticipating the settlement of North America by a liberty-loving people, and the founding of a government favorable to enlightenment, Satan had sought to forestall it through the voyages of Columbus and the resultant effort to people it with Spaniards and other backward races under the influence of Rome. This undertaking failed.
Grandly God's plan went forward, and in time the nucleus of a new nation appeared on the North Atlantic coast. Satan was dismayed, and inspired a tyrannical ruler to cruelly oppress the colonies, in the hope that the torch of freedom, then burning so brightly, would be extinguished.
Again, failure attended his efforts; the colonies revolted, and he tried the harsher means of subjugation by war. But Jehovah raised up a Washington, through whose instrumentality He overruled the anger of men and devils for good, and "brought forth on this continent a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal".
God's plan provided that America should be, in a peculiar sense, the workshop and experimental laboratory of the time of the end; and accordingly, from this central source He has distributed His chief blessings of the millenial dawn period. Hence, His favor has rested upon this country from the first in a very special sense. It has been, indeed, "the land shadowed with wings," providential protection. This, therefore, accounts for the repeated attempts of Satan to destroy its institutions.
Nothing daunted by his defeat, Satan tried to mislead the framers of the Constitution by suggesting through his agents the formation of three republics, or one with three presidents; but wiser counsel prevailed, and he was disappointed. Finally, he achieved a triumph when slavery was made constitutional; and from that time forward he lost no opportunity to stir up sectional hostility and create crises in Congress.
Satan's first chance came in 1820, when Missouri applied for admission into the Union. Previously, the states had been admitted "somewhat in pairs; first, one from the South, and then one from the North" in order to prevent trouble; but a dangerous crisis was precipitated when Satan endeavored to have two Southern states received in succession. Alabama had been admitted when Missouri knocked at the door with a constitution legalizing slavery. This angered the North, and war seemed imminent. It was only averted by the "Missouri Compromise" introduced by Henry Clay, and the final struggle was deferred for three decades. Again Satan was foiled. A Clay had been provided for the emergency. Thenceforward he became known as "the Great Pacificator".
In 1832 a tariff bill inimical to Southern interests was passed, and South Carolina threatened secession. If Buchanan had been president, a "Southern Confederacy" would have resulted; but the Lord permitted Jackson to occupy the office at this juncture, and the influence of Calhoun and Hayne was offset by Clay and Webster. The president made known his determination to use armed force to preserve the Union, and Clay secured the passage of a "Compromise Tariff". South Carolina then repealed the "Nullification Ordinance". Satan was again defeated.
Encouraged by his near success, the Devil instituted a double program, that of slavery agitation through the Abolition societies, churches, clergy, newspapers, etc., and by harassing Congress with petitions and documents from all quarters. Crisis after crisis resulted. Satan well knew that if Congress could be induced to abolish slavery, war would result. Therefore the body was flooded with abolition petitions.
In order to settle the matter, six resolutions affirming the constitutionality of slavery and the "inability of Congress to abolish" it, were passed in 1838. The Liberator, published by Garrison, demanded "immediate emancipation"; and the Constitution was denounced as "an agreement with death and a covenant with hell". Negro insurrections occurred, and many white people were murdered. Calhoun sought to stop the agitation in 1836 with "the Gag Law", forbidding the reception of the petitions; but the measure was killed in the Senate.
Matters were further complicated by the annexation of Texas in 1836 and by the Mexican War in 1846. The sentiment against slavery was stronger than ever. More than two thousand newspapers carried information everywhere; and the greatest word-battle in history was in progress.
Crude, slow-moving trains crawled through the land, in fulfillment of prophecy. Stormy and prolonged debates occupied both houses of Congress, and Clay and Webster pleaded for peace and harmony. The admission of California as a free state was hotly contested. With the passage of the "Omnibus Bill" the work of Clay and Webster was ended, and they died. There was, therefore, no Clay to introduce compromises and no Webster to raise his voice against secession when the hour struck.
In 1854 Congress passed the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill", which permitted these territories to decide for themselves the question of "slavery or no slavery". This transferred the struggle from Congress to the people, and civil strife at once resulted. The fighting lasted several years, but the anti-slavery faction finally won.
The Dred Scott decision widened the breach, and the two sections now glared at each other like tigers. The clouds of war were rapidly gathering; fitful lightning flashes and the roll of thunder gave warning of the great storm which was soon to break in all its terrible fury.
Providence permitted a split in the Democratic ranks, which insured the election of Lincoln, God's chosen instrument in saving the Union. Secession resulted, and the war came. After repeated failures, the Devil had finally accomplished his purpose through the agency of a well-meaning, but misguided woman.
After the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" war was inevitable. It soon came in a torrential downpour; and its author immediately became a world figure, for a time overshadowing that of Lincoln. She was received in Europe by crowned heads, and her foreign tour became a pageant. She was idolized by the women of Europe, and presented with a monster petition of twenty-six folio volumes, urging abolition.
She meddled in everything, issued scores of pamphlets, entered into the thick of the Kansas-Nebraska discussion, consulted mediums and freely dipped into spirit writings.... Lincoln was sorely beset by many evangels; but he received her gravely, with the significant remark, "So you're the little woman who made this great war." Although very talkative and versatile, she left no record of the conversation which followed! Evidently, she was no match for the great Emancipator.