Uncle Toms Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Civil War

Uncle Tom's Cabin played a big role in starting the only war that was fought entirely on

American soil. There were many factors that led up to the Civil War, but Uncle Tom's Cabin turned

the anger caused by the fugitive slave act into moral outrage which was then fueled by cases such as

John Brown and Dredd Scott.

The Fugitive Slave Act was seen by many Northerners as a violation of their personal

freedoms. Why should any Northerner be forced to miss work and leave their family to take a

runaway slave back to their master? Unfortunately they didn't have a choice unless they wanted to

go to jail and/or pay a $1000 fine. Uncle Tom's Cabin included a slave family (Eliza, George, and

Harry Harris) that was running away in order to keep their son. This made Northerners mad because

they didn't want to leave their life anyways and to leave it to destroy another family was completely

against their will.

Most Northerners saw slave owners as lazy because they didn't do their own work. With new

ideas about human rights, dignity, and the sanctity of motherhood brought about by the social reforms

caused by cult of domesticity. Harriet Beecher Stowe showed that slaves were people too through

Tom and his role all of the plantations that he worked on. By humanizing slaves many the North saw

the

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