the
South, appealing to the compromises of the Constitution, would sacrifice
the Union before it would give up slavery, and in fear of this menace
he begged the North to conquer its prejudices. We are not liable to
overrate his influence as a compromising pacificator from 1832 to 1852.
History will no doubt say that it was largely due to him that the war on
the Union was postponed to a date when its success was impossible.

It was the fugitive slave law that brought the North face to face with
slavery nationalized, and it was the fugitive slave law that produced
Uncle Tom's Cabin. The effect of this story was immediate and electric.
It went straight to the hearts of tens of thousands of people who had
never before considered slavery except as a political institution for
which they had no personal responsibility. What was this book, and how
did it happen to produce such an effect? It is true that it struck into
a time of great irritation and agitation, but in one sense there was
nothing new in it. The facts had all been published. For twenty years
abolition tracts, pamphlets, newspapers, and books had left little to be
revealed, to those who cared to read, as to the nature of slavery or its
economic aspects. The evidence was practically all in,--supplied largely
by the advertisements of Southern newspapers and by the legislation of
the slaveholding States,--but it did not carry conviction; that is, the
sort of conviction that results in action. The subject had to be carried
home to the conscience. Pamphleteering, convention-holding, sermons, had
failed to do this. Even the degrading requirements of the fugitive slave
law, which brought shame and humiliation, had not sufficed to fuse the
public conscience, emphasize the necessity of obedience to the moral
law, and compel recognition of the responsibility of the North for
slavery. Evidence had not done this, passionate appeals had not done
it, vituperation had not done it. What sort of presentation of the case
would gain the public ear and go to the heart? If Mrs. Stowe, in all her
fervor, had put forth first the facts in The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,
which so buttressed her romance, the book would have had no more effect
than had followed the like compilations and arraignments. What was
needed? If we can discover this, we shall have the secret of this
epoch-making novel.

The story of this book has often been told. It is in the nature of a
dramatic incident of which the