[Letter to William Lloyd Garrison] [manuscript]

// I^-ioifH, 4e>nmiiiT 1st, 1859.

Dear Sik :

Referring you to the contents of the circular on another part of this paper,

permit me, if you please, to request your active and early cooperation in the consummation of the enterprise

therein set forth.

On not less than two hundred pages, 12mo., the compend of " The Impending Crisis of the South," will
be so condensed, in clear, legible type, as to emhrace all the incontrovertible Facts, Argument and Testimonies
contained in the volume in its present form — omitting or expurgating only those passages, equivalent, perhaps,
in all, to fifteen or twenty pages, which are, by many friends of the cause, both North and South, regarded as
unnecessarily harsh toward slaveholders.

One hundred thousand copies — at 16 cents each, $16,000 in the aggregate — arc what is wanted. So far
as may be compatible with your circumstances and inclination, please aid me in procuring these hundred tliou-
sand publications, and I promise you that they shall be used to the best possible advantage.

If, as I believe, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana and Illinois, in concert with all the other Free States,
except California, can be influenced to cast their elcctorial votes for the Eepublican nominees for the Presidency
in 1860— and thereby establish the principle that, in the United States, Freedom is to be national, and
Slavery sectional — the Pro-slavery party of the Soutli will be in a condition to offer, and the Anti-slavery party
there will be in a condition to invite and compel, proposals for the equitable and timely extinction of that des-
potic system of servitude which has proved, and, more conclusively than ever, is still proving, so disastrous to
all the mental, moral and material interests of the Southern States — of one of which I am a native.

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§m |orli, Jjcbruarir isl, 1859.

Deak Sir :

Mr. HiNTON K. Helper, who will send you this, is a native of North Carolina, who, as the result of careful obseiva-
tion and extensive inquiry, has reached the very obvious and just conclusion that Human Slavery is the great primary curse and
peril of the South, impeding its progress in morals, iatslligenc3, industry, and wsaltli. This conclusion, with the facts on which it
is founded, is embodied in his book entitled "The Impending Crisis of the South "—a work every where received and hailed by tl:e
advocates of Free Labor, as one of the most impregnable demonstrations of the justice of their cause and the vital importance of its
triumph to our National and general well-being. Were every citizen in possession of the facts embodied in this book, we leel confi-
dent that slavery would soon peacefully pass away, while a Kepublican triumph in 1860 would be morally certain.

It is believed that this testimony of a Southern man, born and reared under the influence of slavery, will be more generally
listened to and profoundly heeded, whether in the Slave or in the Free States, than an equally abb and conclusive work written by a
Northern man. And many are anxious that a cheap comp:nd of its contents, fitted for gratuitous circulation, be now made and
generally diffused in those States— Pennsylvania. New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois — which are to decide the next Presidential
contest.

JMr. Helper has, therefore, in this manner, been encouraged to ;iddress our most public-spirited citizens throughout the
countrv, known, or presumed to be, friendly to the Free LabDr cause, and solicit of them subscriptions in fivor of the gratuitous
and general circulation of his work through the States above named and the border Slave States.

Whoever subscribes f 10 or over, is entitled to receive, or to control the direction given to, so many cipies of the work as his
Subscription will print.

But Mr. Helper positively declines to receive any money, (except from friends in the South, who, for " prudential reasons,"
prefer to subscribe through him,) and should you aid the effort by a subscription, please transmit it or m dee it payable to the Hon.
William H. Anthon, 1G Exchange Place, New York, who is thj Treasurer of the enterprise.

Yours truly,

HORACE GREELEY',
JOHN JAY,

WM. HENRY ANTHON,
JAMES KELLY,

Chairman of the State Central Committee.
WM. C. BRYANT,
MARCUS SPRING,
R. H. MoCURDY.
B. S. HEDRICK,
JOHN C. UNDERWOOD,
E. DELAFIELD SMITH,
JOHN A. KENNEDY,
ABRAM WAKEMAN,
WM. CURTIS NOYES.

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