cargoes by half a dozen Southern planters prove that 5,000,000 of them had determined thus to strengthen their working forces.
WHAT HE OVERLOOKS.
In his work Mr. Fiske overlooks the fact that the Confederate Government, at the first meeting of its Congress, incorporated into its Constitution a clause which forever forbade the reopening of the slave trade. I beg you to consider the following contrast: George III. forced the Virginia Governor to veto our Virginia act of 1769, prohibiting the further importation of slaves. Mr. Fiske tells us that "in Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence this act (of the King) was made the occasion of a fierce denunciation of slavery, but in deference to the prejudices of South Carolina and Georgia, the clause was struck out by Congress."
The different impressions made on different authors by the same facts is to be observed. Mr. George Lunt, of Boston (Origin of the Late War), understood Mr. Jefferson to show that the omission was very largely due to "the influence of the Northern maritime States." Mr. Jefferson wrote the passage and describes the incident. To us, it appears from his account that this denunciation was of the King not less than—perhaps more than—of this traffic to which we Virginians were so much opposed. As to the omission of the passage, he gives Mr. Fiske's statement as to South Carolina and Georgia, but adds the following, which Mr. Fiske omits: "Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures, for though their people had very few slaves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others." Of course, historians cannot say everything—must omit something. We could wish, however, that our author had displayed a less judicious taste in omissions. Be it understood that we ourselves omit many things that we would say, but for the fact that we are only seeking to supply some of Mr. Fiske's omissions, and so establish our proposition that our children cannot get true pictures from this artist's brush, and that his book ought not to be in our schools.
