ing. The inter-traffic in
slaves bred in the more northern slave States was likely to become
less profitable. And patrols by night, to insure order, had become
generally necessary.

The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ had
a great effect on public sentiment North, and some influence even
in the South. _The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet
It_, written by Hilton R. Helper, a poor white man of North Carolina
(1857), an arraignment of slavery from the standpoint of the white
majority South, was denounced as incendiary in Congress. Sherman
of Ohio, having in some way endorsed its publication, when a
candidate for Speaker, was denounced by Millson of Virginia, who
declared that "one who consciously, deliberately, and of purpose
lent his name and influence to the propagation of such writings is
not only not fit to be Speaker, but is not fit to live."

Sherman's endorsement of the Helper book caused his defeat for
Speaker, and a riot occurred in the House during this contest:
Not quite bloodshed. Of the scene, Morris of Illinois said:

"A few more such scenes . . . and we shall hear the crack of the
revolver and see the gleam of the brandished blade."

The contents of the book, though temperate in tone, were said by
Pryor of Virginia to deal only "in rebellion, treason, and
insurrection."

Scenes, most extraordinary, were not unfrequently enacted in the
House of Representatives, all having the effect to inflame the
public mind. Some of these were brought on by violent speeches of
Northern statesmen, made in response to the defiant attitude or
utterances of Southern men, boastful of their bravery.

One such scene was precipitated in 1860 by Owen Lovejoy of Illinois,
who, in a speech to the House, denounced

"Slaveholding as worse than robbing, than piracy, than polygamy.
The enslavement of human beings because they are inferior . . . is
the doctrine of the Democrats, and the doctrine of devils as well!
and there is no place in the universe outside the five-points of
hell and the Democratic party where the practice and prevalence of
such doctrines would not be a disgrace."

Lovejoy had more than an ordinary excuse for using such violent
language.

As long before as November 7, 1837, his brother, Elijah P. Lovejoy,
had been murdered at Alton, Illinois, while defending his printing-
press from a mob, chiefly from Missouri, his offence being that he
published an Abolition pape