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