Jan

10

Uncle Tom's Cabin really did help start the Civil War; but it was not by arousing the North to embark on some moral crusade. The book's most important effect was to promote wildly exaggerated notions in the minds of plantation owners in the deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and the delta parts of Tennessee) about how many slaves were were escaping to the North. The estimate of how many slaves escaped in the 40 years from 1820 to 1860 that I trust is James McPherson's — somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 — only "several hundred per year". The politically correct numbers being offered by the National Park Service ("one thousand a year" and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati (2,500 a year) are as exaggerated as Ms. Stowe's narrative. What everyone agrees on is that almost all the escaped slaves — like Frederick Douglas –came from the border states - Maryland, Kentucky and Virginia.

I find myself wondering how long it will be before the current plantation owners — the School Teacher Unions — become hysterical about runaway children. 3 decades ago a majority of states in the Union made home schooling a crime (30, to be precise). According to Joseph Murphy, who teaches at Vanderbilt, in 1975 there were only 10,000-15,000 children being taught at home in the entire United States. There are now, according to Professor Murphy, two million. "Home Schooling in America” may be as exaggerated as Harriet Beecher Stowe's book was in terms of its numbers; I doubt it will have anything close to the same popularity. But, it may be "the smoking gun" (appropriately awful metaphor for our current politics) for the official education lobby. One can only hope.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search