A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin / Presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded. Together with corroborative statements verifying the truth of the work.

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Both these propositions were rejected. The following was adopted: “That slavery is fraught with many and great evils; that they deplore the workings of the whole system of slavery; that the holding of our fellow-men in the condition of slavery, except in those cases where it is unavoidable from the laws of the state, the obligations of guardianship, or the demands of humanity, is an offence, in the proper import of that term, as used in the Book of Discipline, and should be regarded and treated in the same manner as other offences; also referring this subject to sessions and presbyteries.” The vote stood eighty-four to sixteen, under a written protest of the minority, who were for no action in the present state of the country. Let the reader again compare this action with that of 1818, and he will see that the boat is still drifting,—especially as even this moderate testimony was not unanimous. Again, in this year of 1850, they avow themselves ready to meet, in a spirit of fraternal kindness and Christian love, any overtures for reünion which may be made to them by the Old School body.

In 1850 was passed the cruel fugitive slave law. What deeds were done then! Then to our free states were transported those scenes of fear and agony before acted only on slave soil. Churches were broken up. Trembling Christians fled. Husbands and wives were separated. Then to the poor African was fulfilled the dread doom denounced on the wandering Jew,—“Thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life.” Then all the world went one way,—all the wealth, all the power, all the fashion. Now, if ever, was a time for Christ’s church to stand up and speak for the poor.

The General Assembly met. She was earnestly memorialized to speak out. Never was a more glorious opportunity to show that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world. A protest then, from a body so numerous and respectable, might have saved the American church from the disgrace it now wears in the eyes of all nations. O that she had once spoken! What said the Presbyterian Church? She said nothing, and the thanks of political leaders were accorded to her. She had done all they desired.

Meanwhile, under this course of things, the number of presbyteries in slave-holding states had increased from three to twenty! and this church has now under its care from fifteen to twenty thousand members in slave states.

So much for the course of a decided anti-slavery body in union with a few slave-holding churches. So much for a most discreet, judicious, charitable, and brotherly attempt to test by experience the question, What communion hath light with darkness, and what concord hath Christ with Belial? The slave-system is darkness,—the slave-system is Belial! and every attempt to harmonize it with the profession of Christianity will be just like these. Let it be here recorded, however, that a small body of the most determined opponents of slavery in the Presbyterian Church seceded and formed the Free Presbyterian Church, whose terms of communion are, an entire withdrawal from slave-holding. Whether this principle be a correct one, or not, it is worthy of remark that it was adopted and carried out by the Quakers,—the only body of Christians involved in this evil who have ever succeeded in freeing themselves from it.

Whether church discipline and censure is an appropriate medium for correcting such immoralities and heresies in individuals, or not, it is enough for the case that this has been the established opinion and practice of the Presbyterian Church.

If the argument of Charles Sumner be contemplated, it will be seen that the history of this Presbyterian Church and the history of our United States have strong points of similarity. In both, at the outset, the strong influence was anti-slavery, even among slave-holders. In both there was no difference of opinion as to the desirableness of abolishing slavery ultimately; both made a concession, the smallest which could possibly be imagined; both made the concession in all good faith, contemplating the speedy removal and extinction of the evil; and the history of both is alike. The little point of concession spread, and absorbed, and acquired, from year to year, till the United States and the Presbyterian Church stand just where they do. Worse has been the history of the Methodist Church. The history of the Baptist Church shows the same principle; and, as to the Episcopal Church, it has never done anything but comply, either North or South. It differs from all the rest in that it has never had any resisting element, except now and then a protestant, like William Jay, a worthy son of him who signed the Declaration of Independence.

The slave power has been a united, consistent, steady, uncompromising principle. The resisting element has been, for many years, wavering, self-contradictory, compromising. There has been, it is true, a deep, and ever increasing hostility to slavery in a decided majority of ministers and church-members in free states, taken as individuals. Nevertheless, the sincere opponents of slavery have been unhappily divided among themselves as to principles and measures, the extreme principles and measures of some causing a hurtful reaction in others. Besides this, other great plans of benevolence have occupied their time and attention; and the result has been that they have formed altogether inadequate conceptions of the extent to which the cause of God on earth is imperilled by American slavery, and of the duty of Christians in such a crisis. They have never had such a conviction as has aroused, and called out, and united their energies, on this, as on other great causes. Meantime, great organic influences in church and state are, much against their wishes, neutralizing their influence against slavery,—sometimes even arraying it in its favor. The perfect inflexibility of the slave-system, and its absolute refusal to allow any discussion of the subject, has reduced all those who wish to have religious action in common with slave-holding churches to the alternative of either giving up the support of the South for that object, or giving up their protest against slavery.

This has held out a strong temptation to men who have had benevolent and laudable objects to carry, and who did not realize the full peril of the slave-system, nor appreciate the moral power of Christian protest against it. When, therefore, cases have arisen where the choice lay between sacrificing what they considered the interests of a good object, or giving up their right of protest, they have generally preferred the latter. The decision has always gone in this way: The slave power will not concede,—we must. The South says, “We will take no religious book that has anti-slavery principles in it.” The Sunday School Union drops Mr. Gallaudet’s History of Joseph. Why? Because they approve of slavery? Not at all. They look upon slavery with horror. What then? “The South will not read our books, if we do not do it. They will not give up, and we must. We can do more good by introducing gospel truth with this omission than we can by using our protestant power.” This, probably, was thought and said honestly. The argument is plausible, but the concession is none the less real. The slave power has got the victory, and got it by the very best of men from the very best of motives; and, so that it has the victory, it cares not how it gets it. And although it may be said that the amount in each case of these concessions is in itself but small, yet, when we come to add together all that have been made from time to time by every different denomination, and by every different benevolent organization, the aggregate is truly appalling; and, in consequence of all these united, what are we now reduced to?

Here we are, in this crisis,—here in this nineteenth century, when all the world is dissolving and reconstructing on principles of universal liberty,—we Americans, who are sending our Bibles and missionaries to Christianize Mahometan lands, are upholding, with all our might and all our influence, a system of worn-out heathenism which even the Bey of Tunis has repudiated!