The South was outraged by Stowe's novel as well as his attempt to plant the abolitionist roots of his fiction in Southern reality (Beau 672) John R. Thompson, l he editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, said she had “willingly volunteered to meddle in things that do not concern her – to defame. . . a people from whom have come some of the noblest men who have adorned the countenance – to foment burning and unappeasable hatred between brothers of a common country” (Gossett 189). Some Southerners were concerned that the novel would lead to slave rebellions. In Abolitionism Unveiled, Henry Field James predicted that the South would be ravaged by blacks acting in the spirit of Stowe's militant slave, George Harris (Reynolds 151). Southerners felt threatened by the fact that it seemed necessary to challenge him in every genre, even poetry. Anti-Tom novels arose and their theme was the defense of slavery, arguing that enslaved blacks in the South were much better off than poor whites or free blacks in the North (Reynolds 155). When Southerners returned with defensive publications or protests, the North responded. The novel created a constant protest between the North and the South which was a factor in sectional conflict. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was a catalyst for the Civil War due to its portrayal of slavery as harsh and brutal. Use Tom, St. Clare and Legree for