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Two Reviews of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Two Reviews of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The National Era (April 1852). Southern Quarterly Review (January 1853).

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Two Reviews of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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  1. Two Reviews of Uncle Tom’s Cabin The National Era (April 1852) Southern Quarterly Review (January 1853) We have not here the space in which to say all we think and feel regarding this wonderful work. It was a noble effort—it is a splendid success. The God of Freedom inspired the thought—the spirit of his love and wisdom guided the pen of the writer, so her words shall sink into the softened and repentant heart of the wrong-doer, and spring up into a harvest of good, for the poor and the oppressed. This beautiful new evangel of freedom—for so the book seems to us—does not suddenly flash the intolerable light of God's truth upon souls benighted in error, but softly drops veil after veil till they stand in mid-day brightness, wondering and remorseful. … So great and good a thing has Mrs. Stowe here accomplished for humanity, for freedom, for God, that we cannot refrain from applying to her sacred words, and exclaiming, "Blessed art thou among women!" The negro, left to himself, does not dream of liberty. He cannot indeed grasp a conception which belongs so naturally to the brain of the white man. In his natural condition, he is, by turns, tyrant and slave, but never the free man. You may talk to the blind man of light, until he fancies that he understands you, and begins to wish for that bright thing which you tell him he has not; but vainly he rolls his sightless orbs, unhappy that he cannot see the brightness of that beam, whose warmth before sufficed to make him happy. Thus it is with the moral sunbeam of the poor negro. He cannot see nor conceive the "liberty" which you would thrust upon him, and it is a cruel task to disturb him in the enjoyment of that life to which God has destined him. He basks in his sunshine, and is happy. Christian slavery, in its full development, free from the fretting annoyance and galling bitterness of abolition interference, is the brightest sunbeam which Omniscience has destined for his existence.

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