Uncle Tom's Cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe: Analysis

One of the biggest revelations to the North and something that changed all of their views on slavery was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This novel unveiled to the North the true horrors occurring in the south. Until then the South attempted to keep a seal on how slaves were treated, but Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel shook them. It greatly intensified the sectional divide between the north and south, and changed the north view of it. “Tom Shows” are what the northers called plays of scenes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin in which those who were illiterate could understand the atrocities being practiced in their very country. This was a huge motivator for the North to abolish it. The South still defended slavery as a “necessary evil” stating that without it the American economy would suffer without the key cash
Another key divide and one of the biggest -- if not the biggest -- court decision ever, the Dred Scott case, greatly strengthened the divide. The Taney court was not one to bring abolitionist cases and when it came to the Dred Scott case Taney changed American history forever. He decided that slaves are property, therefore, they cannot travel to free states and become free, they will always be slaves. This was a momentous victory for the South but it knocked the wind out the abolitionists. This was the final straw, there would be no hope for the abolitionist movement without war.
As stated best by a panel of historians in 2011: "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." Slavery was a national issue because of the many politically problems it created. As the nation began expanding into the west the great question of “would this or wouldn’t this be a slave