an fugitives do the same thing--it is--what IS it?"
Little did she think that when the eloquence of the Hungarian refugee
had been forgotten, the story of Eliza and Uncle Tom would ring
throughout the world.

The book did far more than vindicate the conduct of those who rendered
assistance to the fugitive from slavery; it let in daylight upon the
essential nature of slavery. Humane and just masters are shown to be
forced into participation in acts which result in intolerable cruelty.
Full justice is done to the noble and admirable character of Southern
slave-owners. The author had been a guest in the home of the "Shelbys,"
in Kentucky. She had taken great pains to understand the Southern point
of view on the subject of slavery; she had entered into the real trials
and difficulties involved in any plan of emancipation. St. Clair,
speaking to Miss Ophelia, his New England cousin, says:

"If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How many families of your
town would take in a negro man or woman, teach them, bear with them, and
seek to make them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, if
I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted to teach him a
trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools
are there in the Northern States that would take them in? How many
families that would board them? And yet they are as white as many a
woman north or south. You see, cousin, I want justice done us. We are in
a bad position. We are the more obvious oppressors of the negro; but
the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equally
severe."

Throughout the book the idea is elaborated in many ways. Miss Ophelia
is introduced for the purpose of contrasting Northern ignorance and New
England prejudice with the patience and forbearance of the better class
of slave-owners of the South. The genuine affection of an unspoiled
child for negro friends is made especially emphatic. Miss Ophelia
objected to Eva's expressions of devotion to Uncle Tom. Her father
insists that his daughter shall not be robbed of the free utterance of
her high regard, observing that "the child is the only true democrat."
There is only one Simon Legree in the book, and he is of New England
extraction. The story is as distinctly intended to inform Northern
ignorance and to remove Northern prejudice as it is to justify the
conduct of abolitionists.

What was the effect of the publication? In European countri