UTC
National Anti-Slavery Standard
Unsigned Reprint
New York: 13 August 1853

Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe.

  "MRS. STOWE's name was sent to the Queen to know if it would be agreeable to have her presented, and no notice was taken of it. 'God save the Queen!' for she is a noble-hearted little woman. I should not be at all surprised to hear very soon of Mrs. Stowe's return."

  This noble paragraph is from the correspondence of the Louisville Courier, and has been copied into a great many papers; perhaps, because it contains an extraordinary amount of falsehood, foolery, and fanatical spite. This correspondent thinks names are sent to the Queen, before people can be presented, whereas the Queen has nothing at all to do with the matter, the Chamberlain being the party to arrange all. The Queen, if she had anything to say about received Mrs. Stowe, would not venture to treat an American lady with rudeness; and if she did so treat the woman whose genius has filled the civilized world, she is a very ignoble litle woman. We have no doubt Mrs. Stowe took no pains to be presented to the Queen. Even if she did, and it was refused, what is it that this Jackassical correspondent is in a paroxysm of delight about? The Queen has no more real political power in the country than he has. Her ministers, through whom alone she can say one word or do the smallest act politically, did not wait for Mrs. Stowe to go to them, but rushed off to her with extraordinary alacrity. The lady who has been for years her intimate friend and female confidant entertained Mrs. Stowe as her guest, and did for her what we will venture to say she never did for any foreigner before. Now here have been the Statesman of the land, "pillars of the State," waiting upon Mrs. Stowe, and the "correspondent" goes into ecstasies because she was not at the Court gala.

  She has had the substantial homage of real power; no doubt, she declined to appear at court, which is a mere form. Not to one in a hundred who are presented does the Queen say six words. Ladies and gentlemen, dressed up in all the colours of the rainbow, the former bedizened like actresses with lace and jewels, and decorated like Indians with paint and feathers, pass through a room, sidling and bowing to the Queen who is there seated—that is a presentation—and Tom, Dick and Harry, Charlotte, Sally and Bess can be presented at any drawing room or levee if they can get the clothes, and somebody who has the entree to present them. Garrison and Lucy Stone could be received at Court if they wanted to figure there. It is no honour or distinction at all; people of extraordinary vulgarity and ignorance are often presented there. Contractors who have robbed the country and amassed a fortune; rascals who have concocted swindling joint stock companies and plundered the community; old sinners who have revelled in all sorts of pettifogging, jobbing and corruption; and gluttonous, chuckle-headed Adlermen—all these are to be found at Court—anybody that is not of notoriously vile character. Yet we see blockheads, fanatics and hypocrites, mostly in the Northern States, enjoying or pretending extreme delight because they believe that an American lady, whose genius as a writer is an honour to the country, to say the least, is refused admission at Court. Verily, there is a small difference between the giants of the South, the intellectual champions of her institution, and the tribe of fools and parasites who try to decry Mrs. Stowe. The latter is a woman of wonderful genius, and of earnest piety, and firm of purpose withal; she may be prejudiced and in some measure mistaken—but no man with the smallest grain of sense doubts her sincerity and capacity.—Ohio Statesman.