k, and there ensued a general discussion of the
subject which was on the whole enlightening. Yet the immediate political
effect of the publication was less than might have been expected from
a book so widely read and discussed. Its appearance early in the decade
did not prevent the apparent pro-slavery reaction already described. But
Mr. Rhodes calls attention to the different impression which the book
made upon adults and boys. Hardened sinners in partizan politics could
read the book, laugh and weep over the passing incidents, and then go
on as if nothing had happened. Not so with the thirteen-year-old boy.
He never could be the same again. The Republican party of 1860 was
especially successful in gaining the first vote of the youthful citizen
and undoubtedly owed much of its influence to "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Two lines of attack were rapidly rendering impossible the continuance
of slavery in the United States. Mrs. Stowe gave effective expression to
the moral, religious, and humanitarian sentiment against slavery. In the
year in which her work was published, Frederick Law Olmsted began his
extended journeys throughout the South. He represents the impartial
scientific observer. His books were published during the years 1856,
1857, and 1861. They constitute in their own way an indictment against
slavery quite as forcible as that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but an
indictment that rests chiefly upon the blighting influence of the
institution of slavery upon agriculture, manufactures, and the general
industrial and social order. The crisis came too soon for these
publications to have any marked effect upon the issue. Their appeal
was to the deliberate and thoughtful reader, and political control had
already drifted into the hands of those who were not deliberate and
composed.

In 1857, however, there appeared a book which did exert a marked
influence upon immediate political issues. There is no evidence that
Hinton Rowan Helper, the author of "The Impending Crisis," had any
knowledge of the writings of Olmsted; but he was familiar with
Northern anti-slavery literature. "I have considered my subject more
particularly," he states in his preface, "with reference to its economic
aspects as regards the whites--not with reference, except in a very
slight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects. To the latter
side of the question, Northern writers have already done full and timely
justice.... Yankee wives have written the