The story is set is Georgia and tells of a plantation owner's efforts to avoid bankruptcy with the help of his loyal slave Daddy Cato.

The Lofty and the Lowly is one of several examples of the pro-slavery plantation literature genre that emerged from the Southern United States in response to the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was criticised in the South for its portrayal of the evils of slaveholding.

The majority of these "anti-Tom" novels often focused on the benevolence of plantation owners, and the evils of abolitionism and capitalism practised in the Northern United States.

With the aid of his Christianized slave Daddy Cato, Young Montrose sets to work on getting the plantation back up to speed, but his efforts come under the scrutiny of a usurer named Uriah Goldwire, who is employed by a group of devious capitalists from the North who wish to see the Montrose plantation ruined in order to keep their own pockets filled.

[2] This would have made The Lofty and the Lowly the most commercially successful anti-Tom novel since the publication of Aunt Phillis's Cabin in 1852, which sold between 20,000 and 30,000 copies for the entire year.