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

So perfect was the identification of Christ with the individual Christian in the primitive church, that it was a familiar form of expression to speak of an injury done to the meanest Christian as an injury done to Christ. So St. Paul says, “When ye sin so against the weak brethren, and wound their weak consciences, ye sin against Christ.” He says of himself, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

See, also, the following extracts from a letter by Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, to some poor Numidian churches, who had applied to him to redeem some of their members from slavery among bordering savage tribes. (Neander Denkw. I. 340.)

We could view the captivity of our brethren no otherwise than as our own, since we belong to one body, and not only love, but religion, excites us to redeem in our brethren the members of our own body. We must, even if affection were not sufficient to induce us to keep our brethren,—we must reflect that the temples of God are in captivity, and these temples of God ought not, by our neglect, long to remain in bondage. * * *

Since the apostle says “as many of you as are baptized have put on Christ,” so in our captive brethren we must see before us Christ, who hath ransomed us from the danger of captivity, who hath redeemed us from the danger of death; Him who hath freed us from the abyss of Satan, and who now remains and dwells in us, to free Him from the hands of barbarians! With a small sum of money to ransom Him who hath ransomed us by his cross and blood; and who hath permitted this to take place that our faith may be proved thereby!

Now, because the Greek word doulos may mean a slave, and because it is evident that there were men in the Christian church who were called douloi, will anybody say, in the whole face and genius of this beautiful institution, that these men were held actually as slaves in the sense of Roman and American law? Of all dry, dull, hopeless stupidities, this is the most stupid. Suppose Christian masters did have servants who were called douloi, as is plain enough they did, is it not evident that the word douloi had become significant of something very different in the Christian church from what it meant in Roman law? It was not the business of the apostles to make new dictionaries; they did not change words,—they changed things. The baptized, regenerated, new-created doulos, of one body and one spirit with his master, made one with his master, even as Christ is one with the Father, a member with him of that church which is the fulness of Him who filleth all in all,—was his relation to his Christian master like that of an American slave to his master? Would he who regarded his weakest brother as being one with Christ hold his brother as a chattel personal? Could he hold Christ as a chattel personal? Could he sell Christ for money? Could he hold the temple of the Holy Ghost as his property, and gravely defend his right to sell, lease, mortgage or hire the same, at his convenience, as that right has been argued in the slave-holding pulpits of America?

What would have been said at such a doctrine announced in the Christian church? Every member would have stopped his ears, and cried out, “Judas!” If he was pronounced accursed who thought that the gift of the Holy Ghost might be purchased with money, what would have been said of him who held that the very temple of the Holy Ghost might be bought and sold, and Christ the Lord become an article of merchandise? Such an idea never was thought of. It could not have been refuted, for it never existed. It was an unheard-of and unsupposable work of the devil, which Paul never contemplated as even possible, that one Christian could claim a right to hold another Christian as merchandise, and to trade in the “member of the body, flesh and bones” of Christ. Such a horrible doctrine never polluted the innocence of the Christian church even in thought.

The directions which Paul gives to Christian masters and servants sufficiently show what a redeeming change had passed over the institution. In 1st Timothy, St. Paul gives the following directions, first to those who have heathen masters, second, to those who have Christian masters. That concerning heathen masters is thus expressed: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.” In the next verse the direction is given to the servants of Christian masters: “They that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.” Notice, now, the contrast between these directions. The servant of the heathen master is said to be under the yoke, and it is evidently implied that the servant of the Christian master was not under the yoke. The servant of the heathen master was under the severe Roman law; the servant of the Christian master is an equal, and a brother. In these circumstances, the servant of the heathen master is commanded to obey for the sake of recommending the Christian religion. The servant of the Christian master, on the other hand, is commanded not to despise his master because he is his brother; but he is to do him service because his master is faithful and beloved, a partaker of the same glorious hopes with himself. Let us suppose, now, a clergyman, employed as a chaplain on a cotton plantation, where most of the members on the plantation, as we are informed is sometimes the case, are members of the same Christian church as their master, should assemble the hands around him and say, “Now, boys, I would not have you despise your master because he is your brother. It is true you are all one in Christ Jesus; there is no distinction here; there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither negro nor white man, neither bond nor free, but ye are all brethren,—all alike members of Christ, and heirs of the same kingdom; but you must not despise your master on this account. You must love him as a brother, and be willing to do all you can to serve him; because you see he is a partaker of the same benefit with you, and the Lord loves him as much as he does you.” Would not such an address create a certain degree of astonishment both with master and servants; and does not the fact that it seems absurd show that the relation of the slave to his master in American law is a very different one from what it was in the Christian church? But again, let us quote another passage, which slave-owners are much more fond of. In Colossians 4:22 and 5:1,—“Servants, obey, in all things, your masters, according to the flesh; not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart as fearing God; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.” “Masters, give unto servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.”

Now, there is nothing in these directions to servants which would show that they were chattel servants in the sense of slave-law; for they will apply equally well to every servant in Old England and New England; but there is something in the direction to masters which shows that they were not considered chattel servants by the church, because the master is commanded to give unto them that which is just and equal, as a consideration for their service. Of the words “just and equal,” “just” means that which is legally theirs, and “equal” means that which is in itself equitable, irrespective of law.

Now, we have the undoubted testimony of all legal authorities on American slave-law that American slavery does not pretend to be founded on what is just or equal either. Thus Judge Ruffin says: “Merely in the abstract it may well be asked which power of the master accords with right. The answer will probably sweep away all of them;” and this principle, so unequivocally asserted by Judge Ruffin, is all along implied and taken for granted, as we have just seen, in all the reasonings upon slavery and the slave-law. It would take very little legal acumen to see that the enacting of these words of Paul into a statute by any state would be a practical abolition of slavery in that state.

But it is said that St. Paul sent Onesimus back to his master. Indeed! but how? When, to our eternal shame and disgrace, the horrors of the fugitive slave-law were being enacted in Boston, and the very Cradle of Liberty resounded with the groans of the slave, and men harder-hearted than Saul of Tarsus made havoc of the church, entering into every house, haling men and women, committing them to prison; when whole churches of humble Christians were broken up and scattered like flocks of trembling sheep; when husbands and fathers were torn from their families, and mothers, with poor, helpless children, fled at midnight, with bleeding feet, through snow and ice, towards Canada;—in the midst of these scenes, which have made America a by-word and a hissing and an astonishment among all nations, there were found men, Christian men, ministers of the gospel of Jesus, even,—alas! that this should ever be written,—who, standing in the pulpit, in the name and by the authority of Christ, justified and sanctioned these enormities, and used this most loving and simple-hearted letter of the martyr Paul to justify these unheard-of atrocities!