Uncle Tom's Cabin

I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin for our teen lit discussion on Friday. I found this paragraph in the preface particularly interesting:

In the northern states, these representations may, perhaps, be thought caricatures; in the southern states are witnesses who know their fidelity. What personal knowledge the author has had, of the truth of incidents such as here are related, will appear in its time.

It is a comfort to hope, as so many of the world's sorrows and wrongs have, from age to age, been lived down, so a time shall come when sketches similar to these shall be valuable only as memorials of what has long ceased to be.

It's interesting to see the historical perspective the author provides us with by considering the future of the slavery issue. She might not have guessed, though, how long this history would haunt us.