Without it great advantages would have been
taken to depreciate the value of the national testimony. The value of
this testimony in particular will appear from the fact that the anti-
slavery cause has been treated with especial contempt by the leaders
of society in this country, and every attempt made to brand it with
ridicule.
The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable is much greater
in this world than it ought to be. It operates very powerfully with
the young and impressible portion of the community; therefore Cassius
M. Clay very well said with regard to the demonstration at Stafford
House: "It will help our cause by rendering it fashionable."
With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery cause in America,
I think, for many reasons, that it has never been more encouraging. It
is encouraging in this respect, that the subject is now fairly up for
inquiry before the public mind. And that systematic effort which has
been made for years to prevent its being discussed is proving wholly
ineffectual.
The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively at the South,
following in the wake of "Uncle Tom." Not one fact or statement in it
has been disproved as yet. I have yet to learn of even an
_attempt_ to disprove.
The "North American Review," a periodical which has never been
favorable to the discussion of the slavery question, has come out with
a review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which, while rating the book very
low as a work of art, they account for its great circulation and
success by the fact of its being a true picture of slavery.
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