In April 1857, Samuel Green, a free black farmer and preacher living on Maryland's Eastern Shore, was taken from his home and sentenced to 10 years in prison for the felony of possessing a book that was, the law asserted, "calculated to create discontent among the colored population of this state." The book was called "Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly." The prosecution of Green was of course a travesty. But Maryland and the rest of the slave-holding South had reason to be scared.

"Uncle...