Books: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Charles Edward Stowe >> The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Under my picture I have inscribed, "Forasmuch as Christ also hath
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind."
This year has been one long sigh, one smothering sob, to me. And I
thank God that we have as yet one or two generous friends in England
who understand and feel for our cause.
The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England, in those
_instincts_ of a right heart which always can see where the cause
of liberty lies, has been as bitter a grief to me as was the similar
prostration of all our American religious people in the day of the
Fugitive Slave Law. Exeter Hall is a humbug, a pious humbug, like the
rest. Lord Shaftesbury. Well, let him go; he is a Tory, and has, after
all, the instincts of his class. But I saw _your_ duke's speech
to his tenants! That was grand! If _he_ can see these things,
they are to be seen, and why cannot Exeter Hall see them? It is simply
the want of the honest heart.
Why do the horrible barbarities of _Southern_ soldiers cause no
comment? Why is the sympathy of the British Parliament reserved for
the poor women of New Orleans, deprived of their elegant amusement of
throwing vitriol into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies
inconceivable in any other state of society? Why is _all_
expression of sympathy on the _Southern_ side? There is a class
of women in New Orleans whom Butler protects from horrible
barbarities, that up to his day have been practiced on them by these
so-called New Orleans ladies, but British sympathy has ceased to
notice _them_. You see I am bitter. I am. You wonder at my
brother. He is a man, and feels a thousand times more than I can, and
deeper than all he ever has expressed, the spirit of these things. You
must not wonder, therefore. Remember it is the moment when every nerve
is vital; it is our agony; we tread the winepress alone, and they
whose cheap rhetoric has been for years pushing us into it now desert
_en masse_. I thank my God I always loved and trusted most those
who now _do_ stand true,--your family, your duke, yourself, your
noble mother. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great heart, her eloquent
letters, would have been such a joy to me! And Mrs. Browning, oh such
a heroic woman! None of her poems can express what _she_ was,--so
grand, so comprehending, so strong, with such inspired insight! She
stood by Italy through its crisis. Her heart was with all good through
the world. Your prophecy that we shall come out better, truer,
stronger, will, I am confident, be true, and it was worthy of yourself
and your good lineage.
Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only in the throes and
ravings of the exorcism. The roots of the cancer have gone everywhere,
but they must die--will. Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural
destruction. Lincoln has been too slow. He should have done it sooner,
and with an impulse, but come it must, come it will. Your mother will
live to see slavery abolished, _unless_ England forms an alliance
to hold it up. England is the great reliance of the slave-power to-
day, and next to England the faltering weakness of the North, which
palters and dare not fire the great broadside for fear of hitting
friends. These things _must_ be done, and sudden, sharp remedies
are _mercy_. Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether God be
with us or not, I know He is with the slave, and with his redemption
will come the solution of our question. I have long known _what_
and who we had to deal with in this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" I had letters addressed to me showing a state of society
perfectly _inconceivable_. That they violate graves, make
drinking-cups of skulls, that _ladies_ wear cameos cut from
bones, and treasure scalps, is no surprise to me. If I had written
what I knew of the obscenity, brutality, and cruelty of that society
down there, society would have cast out the books; and it is for their
interest, the interest of the whole race in the South, that we should
succeed. I wish _them_ no ill, feel no bitterness; they have had
a Dahomian education which makes them savage. We don't expect any more
of _them_, but if slavery is destroyed, one generation of
education and liberty will efface these stains. They will come to
themselves, these States, and be glad it is over.
I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please give my best love to
your dear mother. I am going to write to her. If I only could have
written the things I have often thought! I am going to put on her
bracelet, with the other dates, that of the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia. Remember me to the duke and to your dear
children. My husband desires his best regards, my daughters also.
I am lovingly ever yours,
H. B. STOWE.
Later in the year we hear again from her son in the army, and this
time the news comes in a chaplain's letter from the terrible field of
Gettysburg. He writes:--
GETTYSBURG, PA., _Saturday, July_ 11, 9.30 P. M.
MRS. H. B. STOWE:
_Dear Madam_,--Among the thousands of wounded and dying men on
this war-scarred field, I have just met with your son, Captain Stowe.
If you have not already heard from him, it may cheer your heart to
know that he is in the hands of good, kind friends. He was struck by a
fragment of a shell, which entered his right ear. He is quiet and
cheerful, longs to see some member of his family, and is, above all,
anxious that they should hear from him as soon as possible. I assured
him I would write at once, and though I am wearied by a week's labor
here among scenes of terrible suffering, I know that, to a mother's
anxious heart, even a hasty scrawl about her boy will be more than
welcome.
May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time!
Yours with sincere sympathy,
J. M. CROWELL.
The wound in the head was not fatal, and after weary months of intense
suffering it imperfectly healed; but the cruel iron had too nearly
touched the brain of the young officer, and never again was he what he
had been. Soon after the war his mother bought a plantation in
Florida, largely in the hope that the out-of-door life connected with
its management might be beneficial to her afflicted son. He remained
on it for several years, and then, being possessed with the idea that
a long sea voyage would do him more good than anything else, sailed
from New York to San Francisco around the Horn. That he reached the
latter city in safety is known; but that is all. No word from him or
concerning him has ever reached the loving hearts that have waited so
anxiously for it, and of his ultimate fate nothing is known.
Meantime, the year 1863 was proving eventful in many other ways to
Mrs. Stowe. In the first place, the long and pleasant Andover
connection of Professor Stowe was about to be severed, and the family
were to remove to Hartford, Conn. They were to occupy a house that
Mrs. Stowe was building on the bank of Park River. It was erected in a
grove of oaks that had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. Stowe's
favorite resorts. Here, with her friend Georgiana May, she had passed
many happy hours, and had often declared that if she were ever able to
build a house, it should stand in that very place. Here, then, it was
built in 1863, and as the location was at that time beyond the city
limits, it formed, with its extensive, beautiful groves, a
particularly charming place of residence. Beautiful as it was,
however, it was occupied by the family for only a few years. The needs
of the growing city caused factories to spring up in the neighborhood,
and to escape their encroachments the Stowes in 1873 bought and moved
into the house on Forest Street that has ever since been their
Northern home. Thus the only house Mrs. Stowe ever planned and built
for herself has been appropriated to the use of factory hands, and is
now a tenement occupied by several families.
Another important event of 1863 was the publishing of that charming
story of Italy, "Agnes of Sorrento," which had been begun nearly four
years before. This story suggested itself to Mrs. Stowe while she was
abroad during the winter of 1859-60. The origin of the story is as
follows: One evening, at a hotel in Florence, it was proposed that the
various members of the party should write short stories and read them
for the amusement of the company. Mrs. Stowe took part in this
literary contest, and the result was the first rough sketch of "Agnes
of Sorrento." From this beginning was afterwards elaborated "Agnes of
Sorrento," with a dedication to Annie Howard, who was one of the
party.
[Illustration: THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD.]
Not the least important event of the year to Mrs. Stowe, and the world
at large through her instrumentality, was the publication in the
"Atlantic Monthly" of her reply to the address of the women of
England. The "reply" is substantially as follows:--
_January_, 1863.
A REPLY
To "The affectionate and Christian Address of many thousands of Women
of Great Britain and Ireland to their Sisters, the Women of the United
States of America," (signed by)
ANNA MARIA BEDFORD (Duchess of Bedford).
OLIVIA CECILIA COWLEY (Countess Cowley).
CONSTANCE GROSVENOR (Countess Grosvenor).
HARRIET SUTHERLAND (Duchess of Sutherland).
ELIZABETH ARGYLL (Duchess of Argyll).
ELIZABETH FORTESCUE (Countess Fortescue).
EMILY SHAFTESBURY (Countess of Shaftesbury).
MARY RUTHVEN (Baroness Ruthven).
M. A. MILMAN (wife of Dean of St. Paul).
R. BUXTON (daughter of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton).
CAROLINE AMELIA OWEN (wife of Professor Owen).
MRS. CHARLES WINDHAM.
C. A. HATHERTON (Baroness Hatherton).
ELIZABETH DUCIE (Countess Dowager of Ducie).
CECILIA PARKE (wife of Baron Parke).
MARY ANN CHALLIS (wife of the Lord Mayor of London).
E. GORDON (Duchess Dowager of Gordon).
ANNA M. L. MELVILLE (daughter of Earl of Leven and Melville).
GEORGIANA EBRINGTON (Lady Ebrington).
A. HILL (Viscountess Hill).
MRS. GOBAT (wife of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem).
E. PALMERSTON (Viscountess Palmerston).
(And others).
SISTERS,--More than eight years ago you sent to us in America a
document with the above heading. It is as follows:--
"A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely believe, a common
cause, urge us, at the present moment, to address you on the subject
of that system of negro slavery which still prevails so extensively,
and, even under kindly disposed masters, with such frightful results,
in many of the vast regions of the Western world.
"We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,--on the progress of
civilization, on the advance of freedom everywhere, on the rights and
requirements of the nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very
seriously to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a state
of things is in accordance with his Holy Word, the inalienable rights
of immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian
religion. We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the
dangers, that might beset the immediate abolition of that long-
established system. We see and admit the necessity of preparation for
so great an event; but, in speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we
cannot be silent on those laws of your country which, in direct
contravention of God's own law, 'instituted in the time of man's
innocency, deny in effect to the slave the sanctity of marriage, with
all its joys, rights, and obligations; which separate, at the will of
the master, the wife from the husband, and the children from the
parents. Nor can we be silent on that awful system which, either by
statute or by custom, interdicts to any race of men, or any portion of
the human family, education in the truths of the gospel and the
ordinances of Christianity. A remedy applied to these two evils alone
would commence the amelioration of their sad condition. We appeal to
you then, as sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices
to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God, for the removal of
this affliction and disgrace from the Christian world.
"We do not say these things in a spirit of self-complacency, as though
our nation were free from the guilt it perceives in others.
"We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy share in this great
sin. We acknowledge that our fore-fathers introduced, nay compelled
the adoption, of slavery in those mighty colonies. We humbly confess
it before Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel and
unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we now venture to implore
your aid to wipe away our common crime and our common dishonor."
This address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, was sent to our shores
at the head of twenty-six folio volumes, containing considerably more
than half a million of signatures of British women. It was forwarded
to me with a letter from a British nobleman, now occupying one of the
highest official positions in England, with a request on behalf of
these ladies that it should be in any possible way presented to the
attention of my countrywomen.
This memorial, as it now stands in its solid oaken case, with its
heavy folios, each bearing on its back the imprint of the American
eagle, forms a most unique library, a singular monument of an
international expression of a moral idea. No right-thinking person can
find aught to be objected against the substance or form of this
memorial. It is temperate, just, and kindly; and on the high ground of
Christian equality, where it places itself, may be regarded as a
perfectly proper expression of sentiment, as between blood relations
and equals in two different nations. The signatures to this appeal are
not the least remarkable part of it; for, beginning at the very steps
of the throne, they go down to the names of women in the very humblest
conditions in life, and represent all that Great Britain possesses,
not only of highest and wisest, but of plain, homely common sense and
good feeling. Names of wives of cabinet ministers appear on the same
page with the names of wives of humble laborers,--names of duchesses
and countesses, of wives of generals, ambassadors, savants, and men of
letters, mingled with names traced in trembling characters by hands
evidently unused to hold the pen, and stiffened by lowly toil. Nay, so
deep and expansive was the feeling, that British subjects in foreign
lands had their representation. Among the signatures are those of
foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Autographs so diverse, and
collected from sources so various, have seldom been found in
juxtaposition. They remain at this day a silent witness of a most
singular tide of feeling which at that time swept over the British
community and _made_ for itself an expression, even at the risk
of offending the sensibilities of an equal and powerful nation.
No reply to that address, in any such tangible and monumental form,
has ever been possible. It was impossible to canvass our vast
territories with the zealous and indefatigable industry with which
England was canvassed for signatures. In America, those possessed of
the spirit which led to this efficient action had no leisure for it.
All their time and energies were already absorbed in direct efforts to
remove the great evil, concerning which the minds of their English
sisters had been newly aroused, and their only answer was the silent
continuance of these efforts.
From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be expected, came a
flood of indignant recrimination and rebuke. No one act, perhaps, ever
produced more frantic irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse.
It came with the whole united weight of the British aristocracy and
commonalty on the most diseased and sensitive part of our national
life; and it stimulated that fierce excitement which was working
before, and has worked since, till it has broken out into open war.
The time has come, however, when such an astonishing page has been
turned, in the anti-slavery history of America, that the women of our
country, feeling that the great anti-slavery work to which their
English sisters exhorted them is almost done, may properly and
naturally feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay before them the
history of what has occurred since the receipt of their affectionate
and Christian address.
Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict was coming to
its intensest point. The agitation kept up by the anti-slavery portion
of America, by England, and by the general sentiment of humanity in
Europe, had made the situation of the slaveholding aristocracy
intolerable. As one of them at the time expressed it, they felt
themselves under the ban of the civilized world. Two courses only were
open to them: to abandon slave institutions, the sources of their
wealth and political power, or to assert them with such an
overwhelming national force as to compel the respect and assent of
mankind. They chose the latter.
To this end they determined to seize on and control all the resources
of the Federal Government, and to spread their institutions through
new States and Territories until the balance of power should fall into
their hands and they should be able to force slavery into all the free
States.
A leading Southern senator boasted that he would yet call the roll of
his slaves on Bunker Hill; and for a while the political successes of
the slave-power were such as to suggest to New England that this was
no impossible event.
They repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had hitherto stood like
the Chinese wall, between our Northwestern Territories and the
irruptions of slaveholding barbarians.
Then came the struggle between freedom and slavery in the new
territory; the battle for Kansas and Nebraska, fought with fire and
sword and blood, where a race of men, of whom John Brown was the
immortal type, acted over again the courage, the perseverance, and the
military-religious ardor of the old Covenanters of Scotland, and like
them redeemed the ark of Liberty at the price of their own blood, and
blood dearer than their own.
The time of the Presidential canvass which elected Mr. Lincoln was the
crisis of this great battle. The conflict had become narrowed down to
the one point of the extension of slave territory. If the slaveholders
could get States enough, they could control and rule; if they were
outnumbered by free States, their institutions, by the very law of
their nature, would die of suffocation. Therefore Fugitive Slave Law,
District of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-trade, and what not, were all
thrown out of sight for a grand rally on this vital point. A President
was elected pledged to opposition to this one thing alone,--a man
known to be in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and other so-called
compromises of the Constitution, but honest and faithful in his
determination on this one subject. That this was indeed the vital
point was shown by the result. The moment Lincoln's election was
ascertained, the slaveholders resolved to destroy the Union they could
no longer control.
They met and organized a Confederacy which they openly declared to be
the first republic founded on the right and determination of the white
man to enslave the black man, and, spreading their banners, declared
themselves to the Christian world of the nineteenth century as a
nation organized with the full purpose and intent of perpetuating
slavery.
But in the course of the struggle that followed, it became important
for the new confederation to secure the assistance of foreign powers,
and infinite pains were then taken to blind and bewilder the mind of
England as to the real issues of the conflict in America.
It has been often and earnestly asserted that slavery had nothing to
do with this conflict; that it was a mere struggle for power; that the
only object was to restore the Union as it was, with all its abuses.
It is to be admitted that expressions have proceeded from the national
administration which naturally gave rise to misapprehension, and
therefore we beg to speak to you on this subject more fully.
And first the declaration of the Confederate States themselves is
proof enough, that, whatever may be declared on the other side, the
maintenance of slavery is regarded by them as the vital object of
their movement.
We ask your attention under this head to the declaration of their
Vice-President, Stephens, in that remarkable speech delivered on the
21st of March, 1861, at Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the
object and purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one of the most
extraordinary papers which our century has produced. I quote from the
_verbatim_ report in the "Savannah Republican" of the address as
it was delivered in the Athenĉum of that city, on which occasion, says
the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr. Stephens took his seat amid a
burst of enthusiasm and applause such as the Athenĉum has never had
displayed within its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest
inhabitant,'"
Last, not least, the new Constitution has put at rest _forever_
all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution,--
African slavery as it exists among us, the proper _status_ of
the negro in our form of civilization. _This was the immediate cause
of the late rupture and present revolution_. Jefferson, in his
forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock upon which the old Union
would split." He was right. What was a conjecture with him is now a
realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon
which that rock _stood_ and _stands_ may be doubted.
_The prevailing ideas entertained by him, and most of the leading
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were,
that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of
nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and
politically._
In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican
administration, with all the unwonted care of organizing an army and
navy, and conducting military operations on an immense scale, have
proceeded to demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery by
purely constitutional measures. To this end they have instituted a
series of movements which have made this year more fruitful in anti-
slavery triumphs than any other since the emancipation of the British
West Indies. The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly to the
national government and to no separate State, has furnished a fruitful
subject of remonstrance from British Christians with America. We have
abolished slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of
territorial responsibility on our escutcheon.
By another act, equally grand in principle, and far more important in
its results, slavery is forever excluded from the Territories of the
United States.
By another act, America has consummated the long-delayed treaty with
Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade. In ports whence
slave vessels formerly sailed with the connivance of the port
officers, the administration has placed men who stand up to their
duty, and for the first time in our history the slave-trader is
convicted and hung as a pirate. This abominable secret traffic has
been wholly demolished by the energy of the Federal Government.
Lastly, and more significant still, the United States government has
in its highest official capacity taken distinct anti-slavery ground,
and presented to the country a plan of peaceable emancipation with
suitable compensation. This noble-spirited and generous offer has been
urged on the slaveholding States by the chief executive with
earnestness and sincerity. But this is but half the story of the anti-
slavery triumphs of this year. We have shown you what has been done
for freedom by the simple use of the ordinary constitutional forces of
the Union. We are now to show you what has been done to the same end
by the constitutional war-power of the nation.
By this power it has been this year decreed that every slave of a
rebel who reaches the lines of our army becomes a free man; that all
slaves found deserted by their masters become free men; that every
slave employed in any service for the United States thereby obtains
his liberty; and that every slave employed against the United States
in any capacity obtains his liberty; and lest the army should contain
officers disposed to remand slaves to their masters, the power of
judging and delivering up slaves is denied to army officers, and all
such acts are made penal.
By this act the Fugitive Slave Law is for all present purposes
practically repealed. With this understanding and provision, wherever
our armies march they carry liberty with them. For be it remembered
that our army is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most
zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been for years
fighting, with tongue and pen, the abolition battle. So marked is the
character of our soldiers in this respect, that they are now
familiarly designated in the official military dispatches of the
Confederate States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive the results when
an army so empowered by national law marches through a slave
territory. One regiment alone has to our certain knowledge liberated
two thousand slaves during the past year, and this regiment is but one
out of hundreds.
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