Indiana and Indianans - a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood (1919) (14773848892)

Identifier: indianaindianans01dunn (find matches)
Title: Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924 Kemper, General William Harrison, 1839-
Subjects: Medicine
Publisher: Chicago and New York : The American historical society
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive



Text Appearing Before Image:
It is hushed indeed forthe moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geograph-ical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, onceconceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never beobliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.^In Indiana the geographical line was the Ohio river, and that line hada profound significance. As Edward May had said, the negro was eithera man or a brute. South of the Ohio he was a brute, a chattel, a part ofthe stock, like a horse. North of the Ohio he was not a man socially orpolitically, but he was a human being. The really great efiect of UncleToms Cabin was impressing on the readers that the negro was a manin his feelings, who could suiter as deeply as other men. Nobody under-stood that it presented events that ordinarily happened to slaves, but 3 Letters from the ITiiited States, &e., pp. .128-34.* Woollen s Sketches, pp. 97, 460.•■.Jeffersons Works, Vol. 7, pp. 1.58-9.
Text Appearing After Image:
First State Fair Grounds 506 INDIANA AND INDIANANS everybody knew it described things that might happen to any slave, andthat had occasionally happened to some of them. The book was widelyread in Indiana, not only for its story, but also on account of the prom-inence of the Beeehers in the State, and because the composite characterof Uncle Tom was believed to have been drawn, in part at least, froman old Indianapolis negro, formerly a slave in the Noble family, whowas known as Uncle Tom, and whose humble home was always calledUncle Toms Cabin. He was very religious, was a favorite of HenryWard Beecher, and his family coincided with that in the book. It wassaid that Mrs. Stowe visited his home, while at her brothers in Indian-apolis.^ There were two features of the fugitive slave law that soonaroused deep resentment in Indiana, as well as in other northern states.One was the section making it a penal offense to refuse to act on a possefor the arrest of a fugitive slave, and the other w