The Impending Crisis of the South

Book by Hinton Rowan Helper

The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It is an 1857 book by Hinton Rowan Helper, who declares himself a proud Southerner. It was a strong attack on slavery as inefficient and a barrier to the economic advancement of whites. The book was widely distributed by Horace Greeley and other antislavery leaders, and infuriated Southerners. According to historian George M. Fredrickson, "it would not be difficult to make a case for The Impending Crisis as the most important single book, in terms of its political impact, that has ever been published in the United States. Even more perhaps than Uncle Tom's Cabin, it fed the fires of sectional controversy leading up to the Civil War; for it had the distinction of being the only book in American history to become the center of bitter and prolonged Congressional debate". In the Northern United States, it became "the book against slavery."

The book condemned slavery, but "not with reference, except in a very slight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects," which had already been dealt with at length by Northern writers. Many draw on the U. S. Census, or other "confessedly authentic, and for the most part official, sources of information."

A version of it was published in German translation in 1860. With the approach of the 1860 presidential election, to help the Republican Party a Compendium version appeared in July 1859; it was an abridgement that kept the statistics but watered down some of the confrontational rhetoric. It was endorsed by 68 Republican members of Congress. By December 1859, 500 copies a day were being sold. This version met with fierce opposition. Possession of a copy was treated as criminal offense in most of the South. Distributors of the book were arrested, and three men in Arkansas were hanged for possession of it. Congress convened on December 5, 1859. The House of Representatives was unable to conduct any business until February 1, 1860, because the body was so divided that it was unable to elect a speaker. Helper's book was the only topic. During the "ill tempered and acrimonious election for Speaker of the House, the second longest in congressional history southern politicians refused to accept as Speaker anyone who had supported Helper". His goal in writing the book, as he says, was to help Southern whites, not Blacks. According to him, Blacks were inferior to whites, and there was no place for them in the United States; after emancipation, they should be removed from the country, he said. "A. B. Burdick, the publisher of The Impending Crisis, testified that Helper avoided all contacts with Negroes, refusing even to patronize hotels or restaurants which employed Negroes in menial capacities. Another man who knew Helper before the war recalled that 'he has always been inflexibly opposed to all the relations and conditions which have kept the two races close together; and this was one of the principal grounds of his opposition to slavery."