The following letters were written by Mrs. Stowe for her own personal
friends, particularly the members of her own family, and mainly as the
transactions referred to in them occurred. During the tour in England
and Scotland, frequent allusions are made to public meetings held on her
account; but no report is made of the meetings, because that
information, was given fully in the newspapers sent to her friends with
the letters. Some knowledge of the general tone and spirit of the
meetings seems necessary, in order to put the readers of the letters in
as favorable a position to appreciate them as her friends were when they
were received. Such knowledge it is the object of this introductory
chapter to furnish.
One or two of the addresses at each of several meetings I have given,
and generally without alteration, as they appeared in the public
journals at the time. Only a very few could be published without
occupying altogether too much space; and those selected are for the most
part the shortest, and chosen mainly on account of their brevity. This
is certainly a surer method of giving a true idea, of the spirit which
actually pervaded the meetings than could be accomplished by any
selection of mere extracts from the several speeches. In that case,
there might be supposed to exist a temptation to garble and make unfair
representations; but in the method pursued, such a suspicion is scarcely
possible. In relation to my own addresses, I have sometimes taken the
liberty to correct the reporters by my own recollections and notes. I
have also, in some cases, somewhat abridged them, (a liberty which I
have not, to any considerable extent, ventured to take with others,)
though without changing the sentiment, or even essentially the form, of
expression. What I have here related is substantially what I actually
said, and what I am willing to be held responsible for. Many and bitter,
during the tour, were the misrepresentations and misstatements of a
hostile press; to which I offer no other reply than the plain facts of
the following pages. These were the sentiments uttered, this was the
manner of their utterance; and I cheerfully submit them to the judgment
of a candid public.
I went to Europe without the least anticipation of the kind of reception
which awaited us; it was all a surprise and an embarrassment to me. I
went with the strongest love of my country, and the highest veneration
for her institutions; I every where in Britain found the most cordial
sympathy with this love and veneration; and I returned with both greatly
increased. But slavery I do not recognize as an institution of my
country; it is an excrescence, a vile usurpation, hated of God, and
abhorred by man; I am under no obligation either to love or respect it.
He is the traitor to America, and American institutions, who reckons
slavery as one of them, and, as such, screens it from assault. Slavery
is a blight, a canker, a poison, in the very heart of our republic; and
unless the nation, as such, disengage itself from it, it will most
assuredly be our ruin. The patriot, the philanthropist, the Christian,
truly enlightened, sees no other alternative. The developments of the
present session of our national Congress are making this great truth
clearly perceptible even to the dullest apprehension.