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Uncle Tom's Cabin Thesis

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Eric Primiano April 23, 2017 Mrs. Szoke/ Mr. Freeth U.S History 1 Uncle Tom’s Cabin and its Effects Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti slavery book created by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852. It was written to protest against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which made aiding or assisting runaway slaves as a crime in free states. Stowe believed that if she could convince a Christian audience that slavery is morally wrong, she could win the favor of everyone. It has been said that Uncle Tom’s Cabin intensified tensions between the North and South which eventually led to the Civil War. Being an abolitionist, Beecher wrote the book using racial stereotypes to get her point across to the American people. While showing Northerners the harsh reality of slavery and upsetting Southerners by looking down upon their way of life, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the perfect alibi for the starting of the war. In a repeated legend, President Lincoln is rumored to have said, “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war,” when he met with Beecher, and he wasn’t wrong. …show more content…

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 could hardly be enforced by any of Stowe’s readers. Readers became even more aware of the horrors of slavery on a far more personal level. Stowe hoped that readers would rise up if they understood the beatings, the rapes, and the division of families that often occurred. For Northerners, Uncle Tom’s Cabin produced a sense of responsibility, especially for those who had been hesitant watchers to the idea of slavery. This book shaped the political scene by making the North, even more hostile to anti-slavery reform, farther more than they ever had

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