Helper, Hinton R., 1829-1906 The Impending crisis of the South: How to meet it
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00267.074 Author/Creator: Helper, Hinton R., 1829-1906 Place Written: New York, New York Type: Book Date: 1857 Pagination: 420 p. ; 19.8 x 13.5 cm. Order a Copy
First edition. Signed as presented by Samuel A. Winsor. Published by the Burkick Brothers, New York. Bookplate removed. In 1857, Hinton Rowan Helper, the son of a western North Carolina farmer, published one of the most politically influential books ever written by an American. 'The Impending Crisis of the South' argued that slavery was incompatible with economic progress. Using statistics drawn from the 1850 census, Helper maintained that by every measure the North was growing far faster than the South and that slavery was the cause of the South's economic backwardness. Helper's thesis was that slavery was inefficient and wasteful, that it impoverished the South, degraded labor, inhibited urbanization, thwarted industrialization, and stifled progress. A rabid racist, Helper accompanied his call for abolition with a demand for colonization. He concluded with a call for non-slaveholders to overthrow the South's planter elite. During the 1860 presidential campaign, the New York Tribune distributed 500 copies of the book a day, considering it the most effective propaganda against slavery ever written. Many Southerners burned it, fearful that it would divide the white population.
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