Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
After the first appearance of Helper's " Impending Crisis of the South," the Author of this work intended to have answered it immediately; but on considering it, he thought that it was too contemptible to notice, and he determined to pay no attention to it whatsoever, and would have adhered to his resolution had the work not had so much importance given to it by Members of Congress during the late contest for Speakership of the House of Representatives. But as the work has been brought to the attention of the public by Members of Congress, we think some notice may be taken of the many lies contained in the work of this vile wretch (Helper). And in refuting his would-be arguments, and by correcting his Statistics, and calling the attention of the public to the incendiary portions of his infamous work, we will not allow ourselves, like Helper, to descend so much beneath the dignity of humanity, much less of a gentleman, be that humanity ever so corrupt, as to notice some of the obscure and disgusting insinuations, leaving these, as we do, for the public to consider them as the effusions of a diseased brain, - as Mr. Helper's must have been, or he never would have stooped so low as to make the dirty allusions to those who honestly differed with him. And it appears worse when we consider that not more than three years ago, this very same man held the opinion that Slavery was right and ought to be extended, as we show on Page 67 of our work; but who seeing he could make nothing further out of the South, went to the North and turned against us, and now (not honestly we believe) denounces what he once considered right as being wrong. We leave it to the public to judge what confidence can be placed in such a man. We have not followed Helper in a regular manner in considering his Statistics, but have met them all at one time. Believing, as we do, that we here discharge a high duty not only to truth, but to our country, we put forth the following pages for the consideration of the citizens of the United States.