I was just finishing the last 100 pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin because I
have to take it back to the library tommorow and while poking around
the web I found these issues;
Uncle Tom's Cabin became one of the most widely read and deeply
penetrating books of its time. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies
and was translated into numerous languages. Many historians have
credited the novel with contributing to the outbreak of the Civil War.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/uncletom/context.html
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written after the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Act of 1850, which made it illegal for anyone in the United States to
offer aid or assistance to a runaway slave. The novel seeks to attack
this law and the institution it protected, ceaselessly advocating the
immediate emancipation of the slaves and freedom for all people. Each
of Stowe's scenes, while serving to further character and plot, also
serves, without exception, to persuade the reader-especially the
Northern reader of Stowe's time-that slavery is evil, un-Christian,
and intolerable in a civil society.
