UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

"
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by
86 KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN.
certain course, in the face of the whole
power, temporal and spiritual, of the Romish
church,in spite of fining, imprisoning, passed,
starving,whipping,beating,and other
enlightening argumentative processes, not book,and
wholly peculiar, seems, to that age.
"
You will never subdue that woman," said its most
the ecclesiastic, who was a phrenologist before
his age; "she's got a square head, pirates,
if the owner could onlyget the use of him.
His head is well enough, but he will use it
whether they have caught him yet ; or
whether the impenetrable thickets, the poisonous
to amend itsconstitution, which assembled
miasma, the deadlysnakes, and the at Raleigh,June 4th,1835. It is but justice
unwieldyalligators of the swamps, more
to say that in these proceedings,
guard the onlyfastness in Carolinawhere a state were
slave can live in freedom.
of candor,fairness and moderation,of gentlemanly
It is not', then,in mere poetic fictionthat
honor and courtesyin the treatment
the humane and graceful pen of Longfellow of opposingclaims,and Of an overruling
hassdrawn the following picture :
sense of the obligations of law and
religion, Avhich certainly have not always
been equallyconspicuous in the proceedings
*
"
In the dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted negro lay;
He saw the fire of the midnightcamp,
And heard at times the horse's tramp,
And a bloodhound's distant bay.
" Where will-o'the-wisps and glow-worms shine,
In bulrush and in brake;
Where waving mosses shroud the pine,
And the cedar grows, and the poisonousvine
Is spottedlike the snake;
"
Where hardlya human foot could pass,
Or a human heart would dare,"
On the quaking turf of the green
morass
H~ crouched in the rank and tangled grass,
Like a wild beast in his lair.
"
A poor old slave ! infirm and lame.
Great scars deformed his face;
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,
And tho rags that hid his mangled frame
Were the liveryof disgrace.
"
All thingsabove were brightand fair,
All thingswere gladand free;
lithe squirrels darted here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoingair
With songs of liberty!
"
On him alone was tho doom of pain,
From the morning of his birth ;
On him alone the curse of Cain *
Jell like the flailon the garneredgrain,
And struck him to the earth."
* "
Gen. 4 : 14. And it shall eome to pass
findeth nie shall slayme."
that every one that
The civilizedworld may and willask, in
what state this law has been drawn,and
-and revised, and allowed to appear
at the presentday on the revised statute-
to be executed in the year of our
Lord 1850, as the above-cited extracts from
respectable journalshow.
as
high-minded,
enlightened, as humane, as
any men in
"
Is it
some heathen, Kurdish tribe, some nest of
some horde of barbarians, where
and I have alwaysnoticed that peoplewith destructive godsare worshipped, libations
square heads never can be turned out of to their honor pouredfrom human
their course." We think it very probableskulls '? The civilizedworld will not believe
that Harry,with his "squarehead,"isjust it, but it is actually a fact, that this
one of thissort. He isprobably one of those law has been made,and is stillkept in force,
articleswhich would be extremelyvaluable, by men in every other respectthan what
relates to their slave-code as
for himself. It is of no use to any
one but Christendom ; citizensof a state which
the wearer ; and the master seems to symbolize
glories in the blood and hereditary Christian
thisstate of things, byoffering twentyfivedollarsmore
for the head without the what sort of men the legislators of North
institutionsof Scotland. Curiosity to know
body țhan he is willing to give for head, Carolinamightbe,led the writer to examine
man and all. Poor Harry! We wonder with some attention the proceedings and debates
of the convention of that state,called
humane than the slave-hunter, have interposed
which all the differentand perhaps conflicting
their uncouth and loathsome forms to interests of the various parts of the
discussed, there was an exhibition
of deliberative bodies in such cases. It
simplygoes to show that one can judge
nothing of the religion humanity
of individuals from what seems to us objectionable
practice, they have been
educated under a system entirely incompatible
with both. Such is the very equivocal
character of what we
call virtue.
It could not be for a moment supposed
that such men as JudgeRuffm, or
many
of the gentlemenwho figure in the debates
alluded to, would ever think of availing
themselves of the savage permissions of such
a law. But what then? It follows that
the law is a direct permission, letting loose
upon the defenceless slave that classof men
who exist in every community,who have
no conscience, no honor, no who
shame,"
are too far below publicopinionto be restrained
by that,and from whom accordingly
this provision of the law takes away
the
onlyavailablerestraintof their fiendish natures.
to the
Such men are not peculiar