The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It

The author compiles economic comparisons and statistics to argue that slavery has depressed agricultural output, wealth, and social progress in the southern states while concentrating advantage in a narrow oligarchy. He proposes a practical political program for ending slavery largely without direct compensation, urges non‑slaveholding whites to pursue their economic interests, and outlines electoral and legislative steps for reform. The text assembles testimony from Southern and Northern public figures, European thinkers, church authorities, and biblical passages to bolster its claims. It also surveys measures of education, infrastructure, manufactures, and public welfare to contrast the outcomes of free and slave labor.