Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH: HOW TO MEET IT. BY HINTON ROWAN HELPER, OF NORTH CAROLINA. COUNTRYMEN! I sue for simple justice at your hands, Naught else I ask, nor less will have; Act right, therefore, and yield my claim, Or, by the great God that made all things, I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd!--_Shakspeare._ The liberal deviseth liberal things, And by liberal things shall he stand.--_Isaiah._ 14TH THOUSAND. NEW YORK: A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER, No. 8 SPRUCE STREET. 1859. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by HINTON ROWAN HELPER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. J. J. REED, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, 43 Centre Street. To HENRY M. WILLIS, OF CALIFORNIA, FORMERLY OF MARYLAND, WOODFORD C. HOLMAN, OF OREGON, FORMERLY OF KENTUCKY, MATTHEW K. SMITH, OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY, FORMERLY OF VIRGINIA, AND TO THE NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES OF THE SOUTH GENERALLY, WHETHER AT HOME OR ABROAD THIS WORK IS MOST CORDIALLY DEDICATED BY THEIR SINCERE FRIEND AND FELLOW-CITIZEN, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. If my countrymen, particularly my countrymen of the South, still more particularly those of them who are non-slaveholders, shall peruse this work, they will learn that no narrow and partial doctrines of political or social economy, no prejudices of early education have induced me to write it. If, in any part of it, I have actually deflected from the tone of true patriotism and nationality, I am unable to perceive the fault. What I have committed to paper is but a fair reflex of the honest and long-settled convictions of my heart. In writing this book, it has been no part of my purpose to cast unmerited opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special friendliness or sympathy for the blacks. I have considered my subject more particularly 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. The genius of the North has also most ably and eloquently discussed the subject in the form of novels. Yankee wives have written the most popular anti-slavery literature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all well enough for women to give the fictions of slavery; men should give the facts.