In sum, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin widened the chasm between the North and the South, greatly strengthened Northern abolitionism, and weakened British sympathy for the Southern cause. The most influential novel ever written by an American, it was one of the contributing causes of the Civil War.
Major weaknesses that appeared in the American economy is that the stock market crashed. This was because there was a rapid growth of bank credit and loans in the U.S. and also because Americans were encouraged that the stock market was a one-way bet.
