The earnest seeker and hopeful discoverer of this new world always haunts the outskirts of his or her time. Our history is written in the lives of such individuals.
The 1840s saw the middle group of Beechers, especially Harriet and Henry, beginning their careers. It was about this time that American literature left behind its dreams, as Herman Melville and Walt Whitman found America itself an adequate—a vast—theme.
The national debate over slavery erupted into a free speech issue. Cincinnati had its own taste of mob violence. In the midst of these portentious events, Harriet Beecher, recently married to Calvin Stowe, one of her father’s professors, still made time to write, as did her brother Henry.

HARRIET : Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your old friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease to be Hatty Beecher and change to nobody knows who. My dear, I have been dreading and dreading the time, and lying awake all last week wondering how I should live through this overwhelming crisis, and lo it has come and I feel NOTHING AT ALL.
The wedding is to be altogether domestic; nobody present but my own brothers and sisters, and my old colleague Mary Dutton; and as there is a sufficiency of the ministry in our family we have not even to call in the foreign aid of a minister. Sister Katy is not here, so she will not witness my departure from her care and guidance to that of another.
Yesterday evening I spent scribbling for Henry’s newspaper, the Cincinnati Journal, in this wise; ‘‘Birney’s printing press has been mobbed, and many of the respectable citizens are disposing to wink at the outrage in consideration of its moving in the line of their prejudices.’’
I wrote a conversational sketch, in which I rather satirized this inconsistent spirit. It was designed to draw attention to a long editorial of Henry’s in which he considers the subject fully and seriously. His piece is, I think, a powerful one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite proud of his editorials; I think he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to press today, with Charles’s article on music, and we have had not a little diversion about our FAMILY NEWSPAPER.

NARRATOR : The same pro and anti-slavery elements that had led to the death of Elijah Lovejoy at Alton in 1837 confronted each other again in Cincinnati. Freedom of the press was at issue—and no Beecher had any doubt about that subject.

HARRIET : The excitement about Birney continues to increase. A meeting has been convoked by means of a handbill, in which some of the most respectable men of the city are invited by name to come together and consider the quesiton whether they will allow Mr. Birney to continue his paper in the city. Many of the most respectable and influential citizens gave out that they should go.
For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings may make converts to abolitionism, for already my sympathies are strongly enlisted for Mr. Birney, and I hope that he will stand his ground and assert his rights. The office is fire-proof, and enclosed by high walls. Henry sits opposite me writing a most valient editorial, and tells me to tell you he is waxing mighty in battle.
All the newspapers in the city, except Hammond’s Gazette and Henry’s Journal. were either silent or openly mobocratic. As might have been expected, Birney refused to leave, and that night the mob tore down his press, scattered the types, dragged the whole to the river, threw it in, and then came back to demolish the office.
The mayor was a silent spectator of these proceedings, and was heard to say, ‘‘Well, lads, you have done well, so far; go home now before you disgrace yourselves’’; but the ‘‘lads’’ spent the rest of the night and a greater part of the next day, Sunday, in pulling down the houses of inoffensive and respectable blacks. The Gazette office was threatened, the Journal office was to go next; Lane Seminary and the waterworks also were mentioned as probable points to be attacked by the mob.
By Tuesday morning the city was pretty well alarmed. A regular corps of volunteers was organized, who for three nights patrolled the streets with firearms and with legal warrant from the mayor, who by this time was glad to give it, to put down the mob even by bloodshed.
For a day or two we did not know but there would actually be war to the knife, as was threatened by the mob, and we really saw Henry depart with his pistols with daily alarm, only we were all too full of patriotism not to have sent every brother we had rather than not have had the principles of freedom and order defended.
But here the tide turned. The mob, unsupported by a now frightened community, slunk into their dens and were still; and then Hammond, who, during the few days of its prevalence, had made no comments, but published simply the Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution of Ohio, and the Declaration of Independence, without any comment, now came out and gave a simple, concise history of the mob, tracing it to the market-house meeting, telling the whole history of the meeting, with the names of those who got it up, throwing on them and on those who had acted on the committee the whole responsibility of the following mob. It makes a terrible sensation, but it cuts its way and all who took other stand than that of steady opposition form the first are beginning to feel the reaction of public sentiment.

NARRATOR : In later years, James G. Birney became the Presidential candidate of the Liberty Party in the next two elections, with a vote substantial enough to affect the outcome of at least one presidential election.
About the time of the Birney incident, Cassius Clay in the Kentucky legislature was proposing a system of gradual emancipation. In 1845, he established an anti-slavery publication, The True American—but a mob wrecked his press and office, and he moved across the river to Cincinnati.
Though Henry Beecher was not a success even on his own terms in Lawrenceburgh, the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, and Samuel Merrill in particular, beckoned the young minister, and he left for the capital in 1839. The Indiana state capital at that time had only 4,000 residents, but it was a planned city, with wide streets radiating out from a hub. It was also malarial, and both Eunice and Henry fell ill of it. Eunice had a stillbirth.
Within months of beginning his new ministry, Henry was writing his father that he was doing well in this larger arena. Isabella predicted a great future for him. Catharine said:

CATHARINE : I think in one year my brother Henry will make his influence felt all over the state of Indiana. I have never seen persons improve as fast morally and intellectually as my brothers since they commenced the duties of their mission.

ISABELLA : Brother Henry is working with all his might—he feels much encouraged—and writes to father in great haste (once in a while) of what he is doing—his hopes and fears. I think he is going in father’s track, perhaps one day will come somewhere near him in eminence.

NARRATOR : The following year, Henry’s congregation built their church, including a platform in front, at Henry’s request, rather than a conventional pulpit—so that he might maintain the intimacy with his audience that gave him a certain power of communication. Henry also made another discovery.

HENRY : I can preach so as to make the people come to hear me, but somehow I can’t preach them clear into the kingdom. I studied the Apostles, and found that they had sought a common ground on which the people and they stood together. Then they heaped up a large number of the particulars of knowledge that belonged to everybody, and brought it to bear upon them with all their excited heart and feelings. A sermon suceeds only if it has power on the heart.

LYMAN : Henry, though so recently established at Indianapolis, is beginning to be felt not only at home in the pwoer of the Holy Spirit which attends his labors, but abroad as a man of piety, talents, and power, in the churches and in the capital of his state.

NARRATOR : Calvin Stowe was a good husband to Harriet, but he wasn’t much help around the house. So, Harriet, who had been simply a daydreamer, scraped together enough money from writing to hire a ‘‘stout German girl’’ to do the housework, as well as Anna, the English nursemaid, to take care of three children—leaving Harriet about three hours a day in which to write. Lyman and Catharine encouraged her efforts to be a professional writer, and Calvin was very supportive. Harriet set herself to studying the formula writing of annual publications like Affection’s Gift, Token, Lily, and the Christmas books.
Several times Harriet and Calvin were apart for extended periods of time; often one of them retreated to a certain water-cure spa in Vermont for health reasons. They kept in touch by letter.

HARRIET : And if you see my name coming out everywhere, you may be sure of one thing—that I do it for the pay. I have determined not to be a mere domestic slave.

NARRATOR : When the Old School/New School schism finally came in the Presbyterian Church, Lyman, George, and Edward were leaders in organizing the New School as a separate church. Henry was against the division.

HENRY : I ask no questions about old or new school in giving my confidence. I am unwilling to be hemmed in by the narrow lines of Schools and parties—but, standing a free man in God’s church, I look about to see who is most loved of God. Where there is a heart right before God there cannot be grounds for refusing fellowship and communion.

NARRATOR : Peter Cartwright, the Ohio Valley Methodist minister, saw developments in his church parallel to Lyman Beecher’s experience. Slavery was becoming the topic behind all other topics.

CARTWRIGHT : Prior to the General Conference of 1826, the run-mad spirit of rabid abolitionism had broken out in some of the Eastern and Northern conferences; and Methodist preachers were found by the dozen to quit their holy callings of saving souls, and turn out and become hired lecturers against slavery. They went so far as to violently oppose colonization as a slaveholding trick.
The legislatures of the different slave states greatly embarrassed the operations of the Church by narrowing the door of emancipation, and passing unjust and stringent laws to prevent manumission.
And now, I would soberly ask, What has all this violent hue and cry of proscriptive abolitionism done for the emancipation of the poor degraded slaves? Just nothing at all; nay, infinitely worse than nothing. It has riveted the chains of slavery tighter than ever before; it has engendered prejudice; it has thrown firebrands into legislative halls; laws for the good of the people are neglected; prejudice, strife, and wrath, and every evil passion stirred up till the integrity of the union of our happy country is in imminent danger—and what has it all amounted to?
Not one poor slave set free; not one dollar expended to colonize them and send them home happy and free. Mobs are fast becoming the order of the day. Presses demolished; preachers hailing from free states are hunted down, tarred and feathered, and threatened with the rope if they do not leave in a few hours.
I believe, from more than 20 years’ experience as a traveling preacher in slave states, that the most successful way to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, and Christianize them, and finally secure their freedom, is to treat their owners kindly, and not to meddle politically with slavery.

NARRATOR : At the other extreme was William Lloyd Garrison, the most stubborn and the most hated of the Northern abolitionists. His magazine, The Liberator, grew to an enormous circulation. GARRISON : So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims. They do not deny that the slaves are held as property, but that terrible fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or savage barbarity.
Let it never be forgotten, that no slaveholder or overseer can be convicted of any outrage perpetrated on the person of a slave, however diabolical it may be, on the testimony of colored witnesses, whether bond or free. Hence, there is no legal protection in fact, whatever there may be in form, for the slave population; and any amount of cruelty may be inflicted on them with impunity.

NARRATOR : In her last year at Hartford, Isabelle Beecher came to know John Hooker, a law clerk in her brother-in-law Thomas Perkins’s office. They married and moved to Farmington nearby, and while John waited for his first law clients, they read Blackstone during the day, and literature at night. &
But then they reached the chapter in Blackstone titled ‘‘Domestic Relations and Reciprocal Duties of Husband and Wife.’’ Blackstone says:

BLACKSTONE : By marriage the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least, is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband under whose wings, protection and cover she performs everything.

ISABELLA : Is that the justice which your law furnishes to us women?

BLACKSTONE : The husband possesses the right to restrain his wife by domestic chastisement, and by whips and cudgels vigorously to punish a wife, and in certain cases to use moderate whipping for more serious domestic offenses.

NARRATOR : Isabella began a search for some defense against this legal doctrine—eventually finding it in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and the Subjection of Women, and in Harriet Mill’s articles on women’s rights in the English magazines. Isabella wrote them both, and developed a correspondence on women’s issues. But there seemed to be no scope for action.

ISABELLA : I can’t write a book—nor draw pictures—nor do any other productive work. John, I have always told you that you overestimated your wife. Everywhere I go, I have to run on the credit of my relations, nowhere but at home can I lay claim to a particle of individuality, to any distinction of goodness, smartness or anything else whatever. It becomes more and more evident to me that I have great power of personal influence—family name goes a great way no doubt, but there is a magnetism of heart and eye and voice that is quite individual—oh how I wish I might exert this on a broad scale, to sweep people along on the right path.

NARRATOR : James, the youngest Beecher, was a man of action. As soon as he reached Dartmouth, he became a rebel. In his junior year, he was in debt and in disgrace: he asked his father for money so he could ship out to the Orient. Lyman refused; James left anyway. He spent five years on clipper ships, returning as an officer. He would later re-enter the fold, but always there was something wild about James.
In contrast, Harriet Stowe described her own life in the 1840s—surprised that anyone would bother to inquire.

HARRIET : Having reflected duly and truly on my past life, it is so thoroughly uneventful and uninteresting that I do not see how anything can be done for me in the way of a sketch. My sister, Catharine, has lived much more of a life and done more than can be told of than I whose course and employments have always been retired and domestic. The most I can think of is that I was born in Litchfield, Connecticut—was a teacher from my 15th year till my marriage, that I have been mother to seven children—six of them are now living—and that the greatest portion of my time and strength has been spent in the necessary but unpoetic duties of the family. I would say that I have never published but one book, The Mayflower, by Harpers.

NARRATOR : Katy Beecher, Edward’s wife, encouraged Harriet to write serious pieces, not just the sentimental stories that the magazines were asking for.

KATY BEECHER : I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and intemperance when our home was in Illinois. Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is

NARRATOR : Harriet read this letter to her children in the front parlor, and when she came to the last words, she crushed the letter in her hand and said:

HARRIET : God helping me, I will write something. I will if I live

NARRATOR : Pondering the story of the Rev. Josiah Henson, whom she had met at Edward’s, Harriet remembered the Christlike spirit of Henson’s father as he was beaten to death. On returning to Brunswick, during a communion service, she suddenly had a vision of the death of Uncle Tom by the two black slave-drivers Sambo and Quimbo, of how he turned his physical defeat into a spiritual victory. At home she wrote it all out, switching to brown wrapping paper when her writing paper ran out.
Later, she found her husband weeping over some pieces of brown paper that she’d forgotten to tell him about. He said:

CALVIN : Hattie, this is the climax of that story of slavery which you promised sister Katy you would write. Begin at the beginning and work up to this and you’ll have your book.

NARRATOR : In late 1840, Henry took Eunice back to her parents’ home in Massachusetts. She had aged considerably, so that at first they didn’t recognize her. Henry’s congregation had noted that Eunice didn’t do any of the things that a minister’s wife was expected to do, that she was often absent from Sunday service, that she was moody. She was not happy with her life in the West. A visiting minister noted this of the couple.

MINISTER : Henry’s greeting was hearty and sincere. I knew he meant his welcome and the invitation he extended to me to his church and his home. The latter, a neat, one-story cottage in Market Street, I soon visited, meeting his wife, a rather discontented woman, complaining constantly of chills and the unhealthy nature of the town.

NARRATOR : Henry was a moderate Whit in politics. He had known old General William Henry Harrison in Cincinnati when the old Indian-fighter had lived in nearby North Bend. About this time, Daniel Webster visited Indianapolis, and spoke on the same platform as General Harrison, Old Tippecanoe himself. Henry heard Webster give a two-hour speech on the currency in question; he listened and learned. Webster needed no ranting.

HENRY : It shows one thing plainly—that is, a promiscuous Western audience will listen attentively to plain sense and reasoning, and does not need the boisterous excitement, so prevalent and which it is said the people must have.

NARRATOR : Henry was pleased of course when Harrison won the Presidential race, despite his pro-slavery views—but a month later, Harrison died in office. Henry Beecher and Governor Samuel Bigger gave the main addresses at the memorial services in the state capitol.
Henry expanded his enthusiasm for gardening, buying two additional lots to garden in; he helped organize the Indiana Horticultural Society. Rhubarb, or as it was then called, pie-plant, was his specialty, and he sold as much as he could grow. For a few years, he edited a semi-monthly Indiana Farmer and Gardner, contributing articles on temperance and rowdyism as well as on vegetables.
In July 1841, Henry went East—Eunice had given birth to a son in Massachusetts—and he took along Samuel Merrill’s daughter Julia, 14 years old, and her friend Betty Bates—both of whom he had taught; he’d also lived with the Merrills and was currently boarding with the Bates family. Henry may not have known it then, but Julia Merrill had a crush on the handsome young preacher.

NARRATOR : As soon as he went away, the revival that Henry had been working on for three years began without him, first among the Methodists, then at his church and others. Lyman Beecher, now sixty-six, was filling in for Henry, and he brought Darcia Allen, one of his professors at Lane. Together they set up a rigorous schedule of meetings, sermons, and counseling. Lyman brought a dozen converts into the church. Elsewhere in Indiana, revivals broke out—and Henry helped with one in Terre Haute on his return.
In his journal of his first year in Indianapolis, Henry Ward Beecher wrote these resolutions—they explain much of his later career.

HENRY : If God will give me grace I will preach faithfully all parts of the Gospel necessary for conversion of men and perfecting them in holiness. But in his strength, I am resolved, never to become a disputant or champion on any of those points which divide truly evangelical Christians.
1. If I feel it a duty ever to speak of such topics, I will strive to do it so as to soften and win the feeling and promote charity rather than bitter sectarianism.
2. Resolve that I will strive to cherish secret feelings of love to all other churches beside my own;—to say nothing evil of them nor to desire their members;—nor their decline.
3. Resolved, that in public and private, I will give my life to bringing all Christians to the work of spreading the true power of the Gospel—the love of Christ.

NARRATOR : Revivalism, mainly out of town, became very important to Henry.

HENRY : This glowing center seemed to intolerable that my whole nature and all my soul rose up in uncontrollable prayer. Through the beech woods, sometimes crying, sometimes singing, and always praying, I rode in one long controversy with God. ‘‘Slay me if Thou wilt, but do not send me home to barrenness. Thou shalt go with me. I will not be refused. I will prevail or die’’—these and wilder strains went through the soul. At length the clouds rolled away. An unspeakable peace and confidence filled my soul. The assurance of victory was perfect.

NARRATOR : So he tried with his congregation for weeks. A fellow minister remembered.

MEMBER : I can see him still, in his rough brown overcoat, his trousers tucked in his heavy boots, flying around full of zeal and inspiration.

NARRATOR : And from February through April, about 90 people came to the church rolls. Then, joining a Baptist and a Methodist pastor, he held a riverside baptism on the White River, drawing two or three thousand spectators. The religious hysteria sometimes stirred up other passions too, including violence and sexuality. The minister told him:

MINISTER : Religious passion includes all other passions. You cannot excite one without stirring up the others.

NARRATOR : Younger brothers Thomas and James stayed with Henry for long periods, and brother Charles came in 1841, to serve as Henry’s all-around assistant. Gradually, under Henry’s influence, Charles lost his skepticism, and Henry helped him to win a pastorate in Ft. Wayne.