what effect did "Uncle Tom's cabin" have on the nation?

Answer 1

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a phenomenon because it opened up the eyes of many of the Northerners who didn't really care about slavery one way or another. There was also a play that people went to see.

According to Wikipedia:

According to Stowe's son, when Lincoln met her in 1862 he commented, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!" [6] Historians are undecided if Lincoln actually said this line and in a letter Stowe wrote to her husband a few hours after meeting with Lincoln no mention of this comment was made.[7] Since then, many writers have credited this novel with focusing Northern anger at the injustices of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law.[8]

The book excited greater interest in England than in America itself. The first London edition appeared in May, 1852, and sold over one million copies, far more than in the US, Much of this interest was due to British antipathy to America. As one prominent writer explained, "The evil passions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America--we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy hate her voluntary system--our Tories hate her democrats--our Whigs hate her parvenus--our Radicals hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and her ambition. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as a revolter from the enemy." [9] Charles Francis Adams, the American minister to Britain during the war, argued later that, "Uncle Tom's Cabin; or Life among the Lowly, published in 1852, exercised, largely from fortuitous circumstances, a more immediate, considerable and dramatic world-influence than any other book ever printed." [10]

The book is credited with aiding anti-slavery efforts around the world. For example, Alamayahu Tana translated the novel into Amharic around 1930, in support of Ethiopian efforts to end slavery in that nation.[11]

Answer 2

It helped make people aware of the inequity of a society founded upon Freedom that allowed slavery to flourish.

Answer 3

It brought the plight of the slaves to the common person.