peculiar institution emanated from the North, the defenders had
the full benefit of local prejudice and resentment against
outside intrusion. Helper was himself a thorough-going believer
in state rights. Slavery was to be abolished, as he thought, by
the action of the separate States. Here he was in accord with
Northern abolitionists. If such literature as Helper's volume
should find its way into the South, it would be no longer
possible to palm off upon the unthinking public the patent
falsehood that abolitionists of the North were attempting to
impose by force a change in Southern institutions. All that
Southern abolitionists ever asked was the privilege of remaining
at home in their own South in the full exercise of their
constitutional rights.

Southern leaders were undoubtedly aware of the concurrent
publications of travelers and newspaper reporters, of which
Olmsted's books were conspicuous examples. Olmsted and Helper
were both sources of proof that slavery was bringing the South to
financial ruin. The facts were getting hold of the minds of the
Southern people. The debate which had been adjourned was on the
eve of being resumed. Complete suppression of the new scientific
industrial argument against slavery seemed to slave-owners to
furnish their only defense.

The Appalachian ranges of mountains drove a wedge of liberty and
freedom from Pennsylvania almost to the Gulf. In the upland
regions slavery could not flourish. There was always enmity
between the planters of the coast and the dwellers on the upland.
The slaveholding oligarchy had always ruled, but the day of the
uplanders was at hand. This is the explanation of the veritable