ey should be treated as criminals ostracized from respectable society.
He is careful to state, however, that by slaveholder he does not mean
such men as Benton of Missouri and many others throughout the slave
States who retain the sentiments on the slavery question of the
"immortal Fathers of the Republic." He has in mind only the new order of
owners, who have determined by criminal methods to inflict the crime of
slavery upon an overwhelming majority of their white fellow-citizens.

The publication of "The Impending Crisis" created a profound sensation
among Southern leaders. So long as the attack upon the peculiar
institution emanated from the North, the defenders had the full benefit
of local prejudice and resentment against outside intrusion. Helper was
himself a thorough-going believer in state rights. Slavery was to be
abolished, as he thought, by the action of the separate States. Here
he was in accord with Northern abolitionists. If such literature as
Helper's volume should find its way into the South, it would be no
longer possible to palm off upon the unthinking public the patent
falsehood that abolitionists of the North were attempting to impose by
force a change in Southern institutions. All that Southern abolitionists
ever asked was the privilege of remaining at home in their own South in
the full exercise of their constitutional rights.

Southern leaders were undoubtedly aware of the concurrent publications
of travelers and newspaper reporters, of which Olmsted's books were
conspicuous examples. Olmsted and Helper were both sources of proof that
slavery was bringing the South to financial ruin. The facts were getting
hold of the minds of the Southern people. The debate which had been
adjourned was on the eve of being resumed. Complete suppression of
the new scientific industrial argument against slavery seemed to
slave-owners to furnish their only defense.

The Appalachian ranges of mountains drove a wedge of liberty and freedom
from Pennsylvania almost to the Gulf. In the upland regions slavery
could not flourish. There was always enmity between the planters of the
coast and the dwellers on the upland. The slaveholding oligarchy had
always ruled, but the day of the uplanders was at hand. This is the
explanation of the veritable panic which Helper's publication created.
A debate which should follow the line of this old division between the
peoples of the Atlantic slave States would, under existing conditi