Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/191

 Minor Notices i8i The economic history of the state during this period — the recovery from war, the revival of business and industry, and the readjustment to the conditions of free labor, with whatever effect, favorable or unfavor- able, the course of politics may have had on these things, needs exhaus- tive treatment but does not get a whole page. The basis of taxation was changed so that land — in the hands of those who were now land-poor — bore a heavier burden. Was this change made vindictively or in wisdom or in unthinking accord with the practice elsewhere of those who pro- posed it? The " carpet-baggers" imposed upon this extreme type of the southern state a New York code with New England embellishments ; and Mr. Reynolds says that the result was not in all points unhappy. But he does not go further into this interesting experiment. Through the enfranchisement of the blacks and the disfranchisement of many of those who had been leaders among the whites state govern- ments were constructed to which Congress was willing to accord the rights of protection and the immunities of local self-government pro- vided by the Constitution. Every one of these state governments fell, that of South Carolina last of all. Their failure suggests the timely inquiry whether it is possible ever to establish democratic self-govern- ment upon the basis of a mere numerical majority, whether there must not also be on the side of the rulers at least a fair share of the prestige, the integrity, the intelligence, and perhaps also of the property of the community ; whether, in other words, Congress did not undertake an impossibility and did not set forces in motion that would inevitably produce evil results. Mr. Reynolds loses sight of the philosophy of his- tory in the combat of opposing parties. Frederick W. Moore. The Virginia State Library ( }ilr. John P. Kennedy, librarian) has just published a large and well-printed volume entitled Calendar of Transcripts, including the Annual Report of the Department of Archives and History (Richmond, 1905, pp. 658, xliv). More exactly, the book is a report of the riewly-created Department of Archives and History, by Mr. Edward S. Evans, acting chief, including a calendar of transcripts. About one-sixth of the book (pp. 7-1 18) consists of an inventory of the manuscripts, archival and other, relating to 'irginian history, now in the custody of the state librarian. It would be convenient if somewhere it were stated, in statutory terms, just what this collection embraces; not, it is evident, the papers of the state land-office, which are described in a separate place in the volume, nor those of the offices of the auditor- general, adjutant-general, and attorney-general, which are not mentioned. After the inventory follows (pp. 118-640) an itemized list of transcripts, nearly 6400 in number, possessed by the state library, made chiefly from documents in the Public Record Office in London, and relating to Vir- ginian history. Five-sixths of these dociunents. by the way, are ab- stracts, not full texts. Lastly, on pp. 640-658, comes a provisional in-