If he had no intention of casting unmerited opprobrium upon slaveholders, it is difficult to imagine what language he could have used if he had undertaken to pass the limit of deserved reprobation.

In this regard the book is quite in line with the style of Southern utterance against abolitionists.
Helper belonged to a slaveholding family, for a hundred years resident in the Carolinas.

The dedication is significant.

It is to three personal friends from three slave States who at the time were residing in California, in Oregon, and in Washington Territory, "and to the non-slaveholding whites of the South generally, whether at home or abroad." Out of the South had come the inspiration for the religious and humanitarian attack upon slavery.

From the same source came the call for relief of the poverty-stricken white victims of the institution.
Helper's book revived the controversy which had been forcibly terminated a quarter of a century before.