The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ had a great effect on public sentiment North, and some influence even in the South. _The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It_, written by Hilton R. Helper, a poor white man of North Carolina (1857), an arraignment of slavery from the standpoint of the white majority South, was denounced as incendiary in Congress. Sherman of Ohio, having in some way endorsed its publication, when a candidate for Speaker, was denounced by Millson of Virginia, who declared that "one who consciously, deliberately, and of purpose lent his name and influence to the propagation of such writings is not only not fit to be Speaker, but is not fit to live." Sherman's endorsement of the Helper book caused his defeat for Speaker, and a riot occurred in the House during this contest: Not quite bloodshed. Of the scene, Morris of Illinois said: "A few more such scenes . . . and we shall hear the crack of the revolver and see the gleam of the brandished blade." The contents of the book, though temperate in tone, were said by Pryor of Virginia to deal only "in rebellion, treason, and insurrection." Scenes, most extraordinary, were not unfrequently enacted in the House of Representatives, all having the effect to inflame the public mind. Some of these were brought on by violent speeches of Northern statesmen, made in response to the defiant attitude or utterances of Southern men, boastful of their bravery. One such scene was precipitated in 1860 by Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, who, in a speech to the House, denounced "Slaveholding as worse than robbing, than piracy, than polygamy. The enslavement of human beings because they are inferior . . . is the doctrine of the Democrats, and the doctrine of devils as well! and there is no place in the universe outside the five-points of hell and the Democratic party where the practice and prevalence of such doctrines would not be a disgrace." Lovejoy had more than an ordinary excuse for using such violent language. As long before as November 7, 1837, his brother, Elijah P. Lovejoy, had been murdered at Alton, Illinois, while defending his printing- press from a mob, chiefly from Missouri, his offence being that he published an Abolition paper (_The Observer_). His press had thrice before in a year been destroyed. Pryor of Virginia, Barksdale of Mississippi, and others resented Lovejoy's expletives, calling him "an infamous, perjured villain," "a perjured negro-thief," and demanding of the Speaker to "order that blackhearted scoundrel and negro-stealing thief to take his seat."