outh: How to Meet It", by Hinton Rowan Helper, a Southerner of
inferior social position belonging to the class known as poor whites.
The book teemed with such sentences as this, addressing slaveholders:
"Do you aspire to become victims of white non-slave-holding vengeance by
day and of barbarous massacres by the negroes at night?" It is scarcely
strange, therefore, that in 1859 no Southerner would hear a good word of
anyone caught distributing the book. And yet, in the midst of all this
vehement exaltation of slavery, the fight to prevent a reopening of
the slave trade went bravely on. Stephens, writing to a friend who was
correspondent for the "Southern Confederacy", in Atlanta, warned him in
April, 1860, "neither to advocate disunion or the opening of the slave
trade. The people here at present I believe are as much opposed to it
as they are at the North; and I believe the Northern people could be
induced to open it sooner than the Southern people."

The winter of 1859-1860 witnessed a famous congressional battle over
the speakership. The new Congress which met in December contained
109 Republicans, 101 Democrats, and 27 Know-Nothings. The Republican
candidate for speaker was John Sherman of Ohio. As the first ballot
showed that he could not command a majority, a Democrat from Missouri
introduced this resolution "Whereas certain members of this House, now
in nomination for speaker, did endorse the book hereinafter mentioned,
resolved, That the doctrines and sentiments of a certain book, called
'The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It', are insurrectionary
and hostile to the peace and tranquillity of the country, and that no
member of this House, who has indorsed or recommended it, is fit to be
speaker of the House."

During two months there were strange scenes in the House, while the
clerk acted as temporary speaker and furious diatribes were thundered
back and forth across the aisle that separated Republicans from
Democrats, with a passage of fisticuffs or even a drawn pistol to add
variety to the scene. The end of it all was a deal. Pennington, of the
"People's Party" of New Jersey, who had supported Sherman but had not
endorsed Helper, was given the Republican support; a Know-Nothing was
made sergeant-at-arms; and Know-Nothing votes added to the Republican
votes made Pennington speaker. In many Northern cities the news of his
election was greeted with the great salute of a hundred guns, but at
Richmond t