Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 45

19. “American Slavery. English Opinion of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’” London Times (September 3, n.d.; reprint).

Unsympathetic review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The reviewer blames the book for an increase in sectionalism and animosity between the slave and free states. He opines that the colonization of African slaves in Liberia is the best alternative to emancipation. The review concludes with these sentences. “We have said that the process of liberation was going on, and that we are convinced the South, in its own interests, will not be laggard in the labor. Liberia, and similar spots on the earth’s surface, proffer aid to the South which cannot be rejected with safety. That the aid may be accepted with alacrity and good heart, let us have no more Uncle Tom’s Cabins engendering ill-will, keeping up bad blood, and rendering well-disposed, humane, but critically-placed men their own enemies and the stumbling blocks to civilization and to the spread of glad tidings from Heaven.”