Critics pointed out that Stowe had never been to the South, but her novel became a bestseller in the North (banned in the South) and the most effective bit of propaganda to come out of the abolitionist movement. It galvanized many who had been sitting on the sidelines.
blue law. 1. any puritanical law that forbids certain practices, especially drinking or working on Sunday, dancing, etc.
Black Codes were a series of laws passed after the completion of the U.S. Civil War in the 1860s. They were passed by the governments of several states in the southern United States as a means of keeping freed slaves from gaining rights equal to those of white men. These laws had their origins in the Slave Codes that existed before the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ended slavery in the U.S.