[
145]
Edward Beecher, in a letter to
Mrs. Stowe's son, writing of this period, says:--
I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and intemperance, when our home was in Illinois.
These terrible things which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this spirit.
What can I do?
I thought.
Not much myself, but I know one who can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, telling her of various heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. I remember distinctly saying in one of them, “ Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.” . . . When we lived in Boston your mother often visited us. . . . Several numbers of Uncle Tom's Cabin were written in your Uncle Edward's study at these times, and read to us from the manuscripts.
A member of
Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers the scene in the little parlor in
Brunswick when the letter alluded to was received.
Mrs. Stowe herself read it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came to the passage, “I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is,”
Mrs. Stowe rose up from her chair, crushing the letter in her hand, and with an expression on her face that stamped itself on the mind of her child, said:
I will write something.
I will if I live.
This was the origin of
Uncle Tom's Cabin, and
Professor Cairnes has well said in his admirable work,
The slave power, “The Fugitive Slave Law has ”
