Mahatma Gandhi once said, “In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.” In fact, laws that are made by the majority are changed by the uprising of people listening to their conscience. In order to change the majority vote, people’s conscience must be provoked since it is the number one motivator of action for all people. Knowing how powerful it can be, many authors write works that are directed at the reader’s conscience in order to start a movement against the majority. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was written to show the reality of the horrors of slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was used to strike at the morals and conscience of the readers during a time when the United States
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Moving to Ohio with her family in 1852, Stowe was able to witness the realities of slavery first hand just over the state line in the pro-slavery state of Kentucky. During her life, Harriet Beecher Stowe aided in the escape of a slave that she had hired whose master was hunting for her throughout Cincinnati. Her husband and brother helped the slave to freedom that her master could not take away. This event sparked the story line for George and Eliza Harris’ escape to freedom (“Harriet Beecher Stowe”). However, the major event that sparked Stowe’s imagination to write this book was when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, a law “…[requiring] that everyone, law enforcers and ordinary citizens, help catch fugitives. Those who refused to assist slave-catchers, or aided fugitives, could be fined up to $1,500 and jailed for six months” (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). Enraged by this law, Stowe began drafting installments for the National Era newspaper inspired by “…freedom narratives and anti-slavery newspapers” (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). These installments quickly became published as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and impacted many readers in the United States and all over the world. It ignited the deeply needed conversation of what Americans wanted the future of the country to look like and whether slavery would be a part of that or not. Not only did this book challenge the morality of slavery in the United States, but it also inspired women in Britain to petition the United States to end slavery (“Impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Slavery, and the Civil
Moving to Ohio with her family in 1852, Stowe was able to witness the realities of slavery first hand just over the state line in the pro-slavery state of Kentucky. During her life, Harriet Beecher Stowe aided in the escape of a slave that she had hired whose master was hunting for her throughout Cincinnati. Her husband and brother helped the slave to freedom that her master could not take away. This event sparked the story line for George and Eliza Harris’ escape to freedom (“Harriet Beecher Stowe”). However, the major event that sparked Stowe’s imagination to write this book was when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, a law “…[requiring] that everyone, law enforcers and ordinary citizens, help catch fugitives. Those who refused to assist slave-catchers, or aided fugitives, could be fined up to $1,500 and jailed for six months” (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). Enraged by this law, Stowe began drafting installments for the National Era newspaper inspired by “…freedom narratives and anti-slavery newspapers” (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). These installments quickly became published as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and impacted many readers in the United States and all over the world. It ignited the deeply needed conversation of what Americans wanted the future of the country to look like and whether slavery would be a part of that or not. Not only did this book challenge the morality of slavery in the United States, but it also inspired women in Britain to petition the United States to end slavery (“Impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Slavery, and the Civil