ricultural system is a failure (Foner 44).
The Republican opposition to slavery on economic rather than ethical grounds was in part based on a view which Stowe herself shared---"that it was not the Negro himself who was to blame for the South's backwardness; it was rather that the institution of slavery deprived him of both the education and the incentives which made the labor of northern freemen so productive" (Foner 45).
While Stowe certainly shared this practical view with the Republicans, she did not stop there, as we shall see, but went on instead to develop a passionate position based on ethics and religion.
The Republicans also did not stop there, but went on to make another argument which was rooted in part in what was the racist attitude---conscious or unconscious---of many Republicans. The Republicans argument, after all, implied that there was something lacking in the institution of slavery that was not lacking in free labor. Foner explains this shortcoming from the Republican point of view:
Some Republicans believed, to be sure, that the Negro was by nature wasteful and lazy, and that his labor, therefore, could never be as productive as the white man's; this same argument, moreover, was used by southerners in belittling the statistical arguments of Republican spokesmen (Foner 45).
In any case, while the Republicans were focusing on the practical factors of economics, education and statistics in their argument against slavery, Stowe was concentrating on the ethical, religious and emotional responses against that institution and its role in the life of the South.
The more one delves into a comparison between Stowe's and the Republicans' indictments of slavery, the more it becomes clear that Stowe's argument is radically different, no matter that both were staunchly against the institution. In the very first paragraph of the novel, in fact, Stowe makes clear that she believes that blacks are, rather ...