This year saw the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act,
which required the citizens of free states to aid in catching and returning
escaped slaves. This Act roused Mrs. Stowe, and she began _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_, which was published in book form in 1852.
Perhaps no other American book of note has been written under so great a
handicap. When Mrs. Stowe began this work, one of her large family of
children was not a year old, and the others were a constant care.
Nevertheless, she persevered with her epoch-making story. One of her
friends has given us a picture of the difficulties in her way, the baby on
her knee, the new hired girl asking whether the pork should be put on top
of the beans, and whether the gingerbread should stay longer in the oven.
In _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ Mrs. Stowe endeavored to translate into concrete
form certain phases of the institution of slavery, which had been merely an
abstraction to the North. Of Senator John Bird, who believed in stringent
laws for the apprehension of fugitive slaves, she wrote:--
"... his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell
the word,--or, at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a
man with a stick and bundle, with 'Ran away from the subscriber' under
it.
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