Helper, Hinton Rowan

(born Dec. 27, 1829, Davie County, N.C., U.S.—died March 9, 1909, Washington, D.C.) the only prominent American Southern author to attack slavery before the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861–65). His thesis widely influenced Northern opinion and served as an important force in the antislavery movement.

Despite his limited education, Helper was suddenly catapulted into the national limelight in 1857 with the publication of The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, in which he attacked slavery not because it exploited the black bondsman but because it victimized nonslaveholding whites and inhibited Southern economic progress. As almost the only Southern protest against slavery since early in the 19th century, The Impending Crisis caused a furor in both North and South. For his own safety, Helper moved to New York City, and in 1861 he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as consul in Buenos Aires, where he served until 1866.

Although Helper opposed slavery, he was not pro-black. After the war, he wrote three bitter racist tracts advocating deportation of blacks to Africa or Latin America. He later developed an obsession to build a railroad from Hudson Bay to the Strait of Magellan. Poverty-stricken after many years as a Washington lobbyist and political hanger-on, he committed suicide.