"We cannot too strongly urge upon our people the great importance of avoiding, as far as possible, the purchasing and disseminating of books and literature which are unkind and unfair to the South, which belittle our achievements, impugn our motives, and malign the characters of our illustrious leaders. An example of this kind of literature is the Encyclopædia Britannica, which, while a work of exceptional merit in many particulars, abounds in such a distortion of historical facts in reference to the South as could have emanated only from ignorance or malignity. A yet more flagrant example of this kind is a reprint in part of that encyclopædia, known as the R. S. Peale reprint (published by the Werner Company, of Chicago), now being advertised in Southern newspapers. * * Justice to the South requires that the entire field of history be explored and its neglected facts be faithfully gathered and portrayed. We need a ‘renaissance' of history throughout the South."-From the reports of the Historical Committee of the United Confederate Veterans, at Birmingham, Ala., April 25th, 1894; Houston, Texas, May 23d, 1895; and Richmond, Virginia, June 30th, 1896.

SOME TRUTHS OF HISTORY.

A Vindication of the South Against the Encyclopedia Britannica and Other Maligners.

I.

"Since the Revolution days the few thinkers of America born south of Mason and Dixon's line-out-numbered by those belonging to the single State of Massachusetts-have commonly migrated to New York or Boston in search of a university training. In the world of letters, at least, the Southern States have shone by reflected light; nor is it too much to say that mainly by their connection with the North the Carolinas have been saved from sinking to the level of Mexico or the Antilles. Like the Spartan marshaling his helots, the planter lounging among his slaves was made dead to art. It has only flourished freely in a free soil, and for almost all its vitality and aspirations we must turn to New England."-Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition), Volume 1, p. 719.

If the sons and daughters of the South do not themselves uphold the truth of history, "the dust on antique time will lie unswept, and mountainous error be too highly heaped for truth to overpeer." As my mite towards averting a consummation so much to be deprecated, I desire to place before the public, through the columns of the Advertiser, in answer to the statements of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a summary of historical facts, showing that to the South, far more than to any other section, is this Union indebted for the genius, wisdom, enterprise, patriotism and valor that have given it so proud an eminence among the nations of the earth. I purpose to fix these facts in the firmament of truth, so grouped that the most care

less observer of that field can easily see and comprehend them; and so that the children of the South can readily grasp them, and with them confound the maligners of their fathers and their native land whenever occasion calls for their defense. The material for this purpose being too abundant to be comprised in a single article of appropriate length for the columns of a daily paper, this will, if you please, be followed by other articles in refutation of the Britannica's slur upon the South, and exposing its general worthlessness as an encyclopedia for Americans, and especially for Southern people.

I will begin, then, the purposed refutation and exposure of the Britannica with the following simple statement of historic facts:

The first President of the United States, and the most illustrious American-"the man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen;" the commander-in-chief of the army, under whose leadership the colonies won their independence, and on whom, by common acclaim, is bestowed the title, "the father of his country,"-was a Southern

man.

The commander-in-chief of the Continental navy in the war of the Revolution was a Southern man,1 so was the first President of the Continental Congress,2 and a Southern member of that Congress was the author and mover of the adoption of the resolution declaring the Colonies free and independent States.3

1. James Nicholson. 2. Peyton Randolph. 3. Richard Henry Lee.

The greatest American orator-the man whose words most inspired the American heart and nerved the American arm in the struggle for independencewas a Southern man.

The world's greatest Democrat, the author of the Declaration of Independence-the most famous production of an American pen-was a Southern man, and when the peoples of the United States met to celebrate the Centennial of that Declaration it was a Southern man who was selected to write the poem for the opening of that Centennial.1

"The father of the Constitution" was a Southern man; its greatest expounder-the greatest American jurist-was a Southern man; and when, in the fulness of time, the peoples of the Union came to celebrate the Centennial of that immortal instrument, it was a Southern man who was the chosen orator of that memorable and imposing occasion.*

For more than half the period of its existence the Government formed by that Constitution was administered by Presidents who were Southern men, and the years of their administrations mark immeasurably the happiest, most illustrious and beneficent eras of the Union. But nine men have been twice elected to the office of President of the United States; six of them were Southern men and six were slaveholders, and the only administration during which there was but one

1. Sidney Lanier. 2. James Madison.

3. John Marshall.
Samuel F. Miller.

4.

defaulter—and he for a very small sum-was that of John Tyler, a Southern man.

It was the statesmanship of a Southern President,1 seconded by the ability of a Southern diplomat,2 that extended the boundary of the United States from the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean on the northwest, thus adding to them a territory greater in extent than their original limits; it was Southern valor and Southern statesmanship that carried the boundary on the southwest from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, and added Texas, New Mexico and California to the United States-an addition of 20,000 square miles more than the original thirteen States had; it was the prowess of a Southern soldier3 that secured to the Republic all that territory northwest of the Ohio river, of which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, were afterwards made; the policy that made that territory public domain-the common property of all the States-was the policy that has done more than any other to build up the Union, and it is indebted for that policy to the wisdom and patriotism of the Southern States of Maryland and Virginia, to Maryland for proposing and urging it, and to Virginia for acceding to it, for that territory belonged to her, and in giving it to the United States for the sake of the Union (the gift of the South to the North) Virginia furnished the crowning proof of her devotion to that Union and became 3. George Rogers Clark.

1. Thomas Jefferson. 2. James Monroe.