Slavery Related "Mrs. Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin distinction & myself are engaged together upon a work"

"So you see Mrs. Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin distinction & myself are engaged together upon a work."

In this letter to his brother in New Hampshire, seminary student Joseph H. Tyler congratulates New Hampshire on the recent Whig triumph in the state elections. He views their victory as a warning to supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in Congress.

He also explains that he will be a research assistant for a few weeks for Harriet Beecher Stowe "of Uncle Tom's Cabin distinction" for a new book she was publishing. The "Prof. S." to whom he refers was likely Rev. Calvin E. Stowe (1802-1886), Associate Professor of Sacred Literature at Andover Theological Seminary, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's husband. In 1854, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Sunny Memoirs of Foreign Lands, a two-volume travel memoir about her first trip to Europe, which was unique in providing an American woman's view of Europe.

[HARRIET BEECHER STOWE]. Joseph H. Tyler, Autograph Letter Signed, to John M. Tyler, March 21, 1854, Andover, [Massachusetts]. 3 pp., 5" x 8". Expected folds; minor edge tear; very good.

Complete Transcript
Andover, March 21, 1854
My Dear Brother
I congratulate you on what you have done in the old Democratic State of N.H. The result of the election is a stern rebuke to the present administration & the corrupt supporters & promoters of the Nebraska measure & will doubtless be felt more at Washington than anything that has before occurred. It shows unmistakably what is the Northern sentiment upon the Bill when N.H., the democraticest state in the Union & the home of the democratic President, elects an opposition House & almost defeats a personally popular candidate for Governor. It will furnish an admirable & convincing argument to the opponents of the measure in Congress. N.H. has thus set the seal of condemnation upon the iniquitous scheme & has thus opened the eyes of Northern men in Congress to their fate if they help pass the bill.
I had a letter from Sidney last week dated at Hanover whither he has gone to remain at least two terms he says.
I have quite a job on hand which will require a week or two after the close of the term to complete. Mrs. Stowe, perhaps you know, is about to publish, "Pleasant Memories of Foreign Land" & she is to have a Chapt. showing the progress of education in England. The materials for this are to be culled from some 3400 pages of Reports &c & not having time herself to collect them & Prof. S. not having time or health he came to me thinking as I had had some experience in Law I should know about what she wanted; so I have undertaken it. Of course I shall know how to charge as well or better than how to do the job. So you see Mrs. Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin distinction & myself are engaged together upon a work. Success of course will crown our efforts.
The term closes next week Friday the 31st inst. I shall go in the earliest train on Sat. morning to Lawrence & from L to Lowell if the first train does not leave before I can get there. If it does I shall go to Lowell in the second train from Lawrence. I will try & ascertain the time before I send this. I should like to have you send me $10 so that I may certainly have enough to come out strong. Who have you preaching at P.? Johnson would like to go there if you would give him enough. He would prefer P. to Shelburne. Write soon.
Very truly your brother,
J. H. Tyler
Col. John M. Tyler, / Pelham, / N.H.
P.S. I shall go to Bonney's office if you are not at the Depot. The first train from Lawrence starts at 8 o'clock A.M. & I suppose I can go in that.
J. H. T.

Historical Background
On January 4, 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced the Nebraska Bill. It proposed to organize the vast Nebraska Territory (modern states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and parts of Colorado and Idaho) under the principle of popular sovereignty, which allowed the territory's residents to decide whether they wanted slavery. This provision was a clear repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery north of the southern border of Missouri (except for Missouri, where slavery was allowed). An amendment to Douglas's bill explicitly repealed the Missouri Compromise, and President Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire reluctantly supported the bill.

On January 23, a revised bill was submitted to the Senate, and an identical bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. Debate began both in Congress and in the nation as a whole and lasted for months. On March 4, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 37 to 14. When the House voted in late March to refer the bill to the Committee of the Whole as a delaying tactic, President Pierce made the act a question of Democratic party loyalty. On May 8, debate in the House of Representatives began and continued for two weeks. When Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio led a filibuster against the bill, Representative Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia had to be restrained from making a violent attack on Campbell. After the sergeant at arms arrested Edmundson, debate was cut off, and not until the House adjourned did the violence subside. On May 22, the House passed the bill by a vote of 113 to 100, with 21 not voting. President Pierce signed the bill into law on May 30.

Meanwhile, on March 20, voters elected a majority of Whig and Free Soil candidates to the state legislature. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nathaniel B. Baker defeated Whig and Free Soil candidates to win the governor's office, but together those two candidates polled more votes. In the Congressional elections in the fall of 1854, Know Nothing candidates swept all three Democratic Congressmen from New Hampshire from their offices; one had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, but 8the other two had voted against it.

Joseph Howe Tyler (1825-1892) was born in Pelham, New Hampshire. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1851. He studied law and then attended Andover Theological Seminary in 1853-1854. He gained admission to the bar and practiced law in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1854 to 1870, when he moved to Winchester, Massachusetts. He served as register of probate in Middlesex County for 34 years. In November 1858, he married Abigail Little Hitchcock (1830-1929), and they had two children.

John Milton Tyler (1816-1886) was born in Pelham, New Hampshire. He married Betsey C. Gage in 1840, and they had one child before she died in 1847. In 1848, he married Mercy Ford, and they also had one child before she died in 1872. In 1873, he married Lucy Cross Tenney, who died in 1880. He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1855, where he was president of the Cambridge Gas Light Company. He was also a coal merchant in Boston.

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