American History

1. Sectional tensions were further strained in 1852, and later, by an inky phenomenon. Harriet Beecher Stowe published a hearth taking novel called Uncle Tom's Cabin. She was dismayed by the passage of the fugitive slave law and she was determined to address the North about the badness of slavery and laying out in the open its terrible inhumanity, especially cruel splitting of children and parents. She wrote a book that relied heavily on pathos and powerful imagery, and the deeper sources of her antislavery sentiments lay in the evangelical religious crusades of the Second Great Awakening. This successful book hit home and several thousand copies were sold in the first year. This book made slavery appear as evil as it really was. This helped start the civil war and actually helped win it. The south was angered when many people were reading and believing the "vile wretch in petticoats" depiction of slavery. After reading many who had once supported it said that they had and would have nothing to do with the fugitive slave law. Some of the youth that read the story would later become so impressed by it they would become part of the Boys in Blue who volunteered to fight in the Civil War. The people of England as well as France supported the North cause in this war once the guns went up, the London and Parisian governments thought it would be best to intervene in favor of the South, but this would go against the ways of many of the Tom-mania citizens.

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