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 6 intensified the general bad feeling. These are matters of commonest knowledge and of the gravest import. They are, nevertheless, ignored by many Northern writers as causes of the war. One prominent writer—Mr. Fiske—very briefly mentions the Hartford Convention of 1814. Even our old enemy, Mr, Barnes, gives the list in a fine print note. The fact is, these matters do not serve the purpose, as none of them could be depended upon to enlist the sentimental sympathy of the world against the South. Slavery and Southern action thereupon must be, for these historians, the cause of the war. There are people at home who, with these men, ignore all this history and accept and support their view. We are glad they are few, but they exist; and, therefore, Virginians do not feel as they did when, at the touch of hostile spear, the shield of the State rang true; when at the call of honor, the State of Virginia stepped to the front, to stay to the end of the war. For all of us there is cause to fear that our success in suppressing the more flagrant evils has lessened our watchfulness against subtler forms which may prove harder to expel; reason to apprehend that our people of Virginia and other Southern States may sink down into blind content with a situation which is still full of danger. If you will look over the lists of books allowed in some of our States you will be amazed. The artifices and corruption that secured their adoption would furnish a curious subject for a student of human nature.

Here in Virginia our hope is in this Grand Camp, with its allies among the scholars in the State, and in the men upon whom the law has laid the heavy responsibility belonging to our State Board of Education. We are glad to know that these are good men and true; that they have on the whole given the public schools of Virginia by far the best set of books they have ever had. So we are glad to acknowledge the good work they have done for the State, however strongly we may dissent from and protest against some of their conclusions. With respect to the situation abroad, it describes it not unfairly if we say that the reasons for the existence of our History Committee are, in a modified form, the same that