n. Of the six million white
people in the South, two millions of them did not own slaves, and most
of these were opposed to the slave traffic. Thousands of Southerners
freed their slaves before the war, and moved into Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Other thousands declined to participate in the traffic. A North
Carolinian named Hinton Rowan Helper published in 1857 a very striking
volume called "The Impending Crisis in the South, and How to Meet It."
Dedicated to the non-slaveholding whites, and not on behalf of the
blacks, its theme was slavery as a blight upon Southern white people
and their institutions, and a political peril. Not Garrison himself ever
made so vigorous and powerful an arraignment of slavery as did this
Southerner. Helper pronounced slavery the enemy of invention, the foe of
manufacturing plants, an obstacle to the development of the land, a
barrier to the progress of the sons of white men. He held that slavery
starves to death masters in the long run, while for the moment it
seemingly enriches them. Slavery was like sin, it wore the garb of an
angel of light; while secretly it sharpened a dagger, with which to stab
to the heart the angel of civilization. Within two years this book sold
over 150,000 copies, and set the whole South in a fever of unrest.
Nevertheless, when the storm broke, the large non-slaveholding element
in the South took up arms for the doctrine of State sovereignty. If they
resented interference with slavery, it was because slavery was a
Southern domestic institution. But this was only an incident; the one
thing they wished was the vindication of the sovereignty of each State
of the Union, and the right of its people to govern themselves without
regard to other States who had the same right of self-government.

The character of the Southern leaders throws light upon Calhoun's
principle. Than Robert E. Lee, what general has been more idolized by
those who knew him best? His first ancestor in America was a cavalier
who left England rather than endure the tyranny of Charles II. The son
of "Light Horse Harry" of Revolutionary fame, he loved the Union.
Educated at West Point, he left the institution after four years without
a demerit, and won distinction both in the army during the Mexican War,
and later as an engineer. He was a man of such probity, purity and lofty
character that his followers loved him to the point of worship. He was
deeply religious, and the best expression we can use is that