In the 1850s, most Americans could not imagine the disaster that awaited them in a few years.

But Harriett Beecher Stowe heard, saw and understood the doom that threatened to engulf the hypocrisy of America.

At the end of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she reminded the church that, according to the Bible, Christ “shall break in pieces the oppressor.”

She warned Americans that these are “dread words for a nation bearing in her bosom so mighty an injustice.”

Nevertheless, Harriett Beecher Stowe did not yet abandon all hope for a peaceful end to slavery. As she put it, “[a] day of grace is yet held out to us.”

However, she saw, heard, and understood the evil in America and in the Church. She wrote, “Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian Church has a heavy account to answer.”

Harriett Beecher Stowe rejected the compromises (such as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850) that politicians crafted to save the Union for white people at the expense of black people.

She accurately foresaw that the Union could not be saved “by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin.” The Union could only be saved “by repentance, justice, and mercy.”

Therefore, Harriett Beecher Stowe ended Uncle Tom’s Cabin with a prophecy of doom: if America did not take the path of “repentance, justice, and mercy,” there was no doubt that the “injustice and cruelty” in America would bring “the wrath of Almighty God!”

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This blog is based on passages in my book Visions of America, at pages 67-68 (first published in 2004, together with Visions of the Church). For the supporting sources, please see the endnotes to those pages of my book.

For more of my thoughts inspired by Juneteenth, please read “Juneteenth: George Washington”, “Juneteenth: Frederick Douglass Learns To Read”, “Juneteenth: Frederick Douglass Denounces America’s Hypocrisy”, “Juneteenth: Harriett Beecher Stowe Writes Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, “Juneteenth: Frederick Douglass Urges an Earnest Struggle for Liberty”, and “Juneteenth: Sojourner Truth and Harriett Tubman”.

For my thoughts on related themes, please read my blogs “Raising the Star-Spangled Banner—Americans”, “Racism Is America Gone Astray”, “The 500-Year Marathon To Overcome Racism”, “The ‘United States’ Compared to ‘America’”, “George Washington Refuses To Become a King”, “Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—Unifying Americans”, “Martin Luther King, Jr.—Restoring Hope and Giving a Vision”, “Nationalism Is Patriotism Gone Astray”, “How Do We Build a Civilization That Is Good—That Is Very Good?”, “We Need Inspiring Visions of a Bright Future. Why?”, “Speaking Up”, “Irresistible Hurricanes of the Holy Spirit”, “Parking Cars”, “St.  Francis of Assisi Made the Way of Jesus Great Again”, “Hypocrisy: Taking Away What You Gave”, “Pandemic Wisdom: Visions of America”, and “Pandemic Wisdom: Scattering the Church”.