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

Invidious as the duty may be, I cannot withhold my testimony to the fact that families of slaves are often separated. I know not how any man can have the hardihood to deny it. The thing is notorious, and is often the subject of painful remark in the Southern States. I have often heard the practice of separating husband and wife, parent and child, defended, apologized for, palliated in a thousand ways, but have never heard it denied. How could it be denied, in fact, when probably the very circumstance which elicited the conversation was a case of cruel separation then transpiring? No, sir! the denial of this fact by mercenary scribblers may deceive persons at a distance, but it can impose upon no one at the South.

In all the slave-holding states the relation of matrimony between slaves, or between a slave and free person, is merely voluntary. There is no law sanctioning it, or recognizing it in any shape, directly or indirectly. In a word, it is illicit, and binds no one,—neither the slaves themselves nor their masters. In separating husband and wife, or parent and child, the trader or owner violates no law of the state—neither statute nor common law. He buys or sells at auction or privately that which the majesty of the law has declared to be property. The victims may writhe in agony, and the tender-hearted spectator may look on with gloomy sorrow and indignation, but it is to no purpose. The promptings of mercy and justice in the heart are only in rebellion against the law of the land.

The law itself not unfrequently performs the most cruel separations of families, almost without the intervention of individual agency. This happens in the case of persons who die insolvent, or who become so during lifetime. The estate, real and personal, must be disposed of at auction to the highest bidder, and the executor, administrator, sheriff, trustee, or other person whose duty it is to dispose of the property, although he may possess the most humane intentions in the world, cannot prevent the final severance of the most endearing ties of kindred. The illustration given by Mrs. Stowe, in the sale of Uncle Tom by Mr. Shelby, is a very common case. Pecuniary embarrassment is a most fruitful source of misfortune to the slave as well as the master; and instances of family ties broken from this cause are of daily occurrence.

It often happens that great abuses exist in violation of law, and in spite of the efforts of the authorities to suppress them; such is the case with drunkenness, gambling, and other vices. But here is a law common to all the slave-holding states, which upholds and gives countenance to the wrong-doer, while its blackest terrors are reserved for those who would interpose to protect the innocent. Statesmen of elevated and honorable characters, from a vague notion of state necessity, have defended this law in the abstract, while they would, without hesitation, condemn every instance of its application as unjust.

In one respect I am glad to see it publicly denied that the families of slaves are separated; for while it argues a disreputable want of candor, it at the same time evinces a commendable sense of shame, and induces the hope that the public opinion at the South will not much longer tolerate this most odious, though not essential, part of the system of slavery.

In this connection I will call to your recollection a remark of the editor of the Southern Press, in one of the last numbers of that paper, which acknowledges the existence of the abuse in question, and recommends its correction. He says:

“The South has a great moral conflict to wage; and it is for her to put on the most invulnerable moral panoply. Hence it is her duty, as well as interest, to mitigate or remove whatever of evil that results incidentally from the institution. The separation of husband and wife, parent and child, is one of these evils, which we know is generally avoided and repudiated there—although cases sometimes occur which we observe are seized by these Northern fanatics as characteristic illustrations of the system. Now we can see no great evil or inconvenience, but much good, in the prohibition by law of such occurrences. Let the husband and wife be sold together, and the parents and minor children. Such a law would affect but slightly the general value or availability of slave property, and would prevent in some cases the violence done to the feelings of such connections by sales either compulsory or voluntary. We are satisfied that it would be beneficial to the master and slave to promote marriage, and the observance of all its duties and relations.”

Much as I have differed with the editor of the Southern Press in his general views of public policy, I am disposed to forgive him past errors in consideration of his public acknowledgment of this “incidental evil,” and his frank recommendation of its removal. A Southern newspaper less devoted than the Southern Press to the maintenance of slavery would be seriously compromised by such a suggestion, and its advice would be far less likely to be heeded. I think, therefore, that Mr. Fisher deserves the thanks of every good man, North and South, for thus boldly pointing out the necessity of reform.

The picture which Mrs. Stowe has drawn of slavery as an institution is anything but favorable. She has illustrated the frightful cruelty and oppression that must result from a law which gives to one class of society almost absolute and irresponsible power over another. Yet the very machinery she has employed for this purpose shows that all who are parties to the system are not necessarily culpable. It is a high virtue in St. Clare to purchase Uncle Tom. He is actuated by no selfish or improper motive. Moved by a desire to gratify his daughter, and prompted by his own humane feelings, he purchases a slave, in order to rescue him from a hard fate on the plantations. If he had not been a slave-holder before, it was now his duty to become one. This, I think, is the moral to be drawn from the story of St. Clare, and the South have a right to claim the authority of Mrs. Stowe in defence of slave-holding, to this extent.

It may be said that it was the duty of St. Clare to emancipate Uncle Tom; but the wealth of the Rothschilds would not enable a man to act out his benevolent instincts at such a price. And if such was his duty, is it not equally the duty of every monied man in the free states to attend the New Orleans slave-mart with the same benevolent purpose in view? It seems to me that to purchase a slave with the purpose of saving him from a hard and cruel fate, and without any view to emancipation, is itself a good action. If the slave should subsequently become able to redeem himself, it would doubtless be the duty of the owner to emancipate him; and it would be but even-handed justice to set down every dollar of the slave’s earnings, above the expense of his maintenance, to his credit, until the price paid for him should be fully restored. This is all that justice could exact of the slave-holder.