Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/369

 North Carolina and Virginia. 361

had been displayed." And this again, we believe, is the world's verdict. Is this not glory enough to give us all a share ? Let us, then, not be envious and jealous of each other, where all did their part so well.

Virginia makes no boast of the part borne by her in that the greatest crisis of her history. She only claims that she did her duty to the best of her ability. She has, therefore, no apologies to make either for what she did or may have failed to do. It is true that she was somewhat reluctant to join the Confederacy; not because she had any doubt of the right of secession, or of the justice of the Con- federate cause; but only because of her devotion to the Union of our fathers, which she had done so much to form and to maintain from its foundation. But when she did cast her lot with her Southern sisters, she bore her part with a courage and devotion never sur- passed; and the record shows this in no uncertain way. In the ad- dress issued and signed by every member of the Confederate Con- gress in February, 1864, not written by a Virginian, she is thus referred to:

" In Virginia, the model of all that illustrates human heroism and self-denying patriotism, although the tempest of desolation has swept over her fair domain, no sign of repentance for her separation from the North can be found. Her old homesteads dismantled; her an- cestral relics destroyed; her people impoverished; her territory made the battle-ground for the rude shocks of contending hosts, and then divided with hireling parasites mqckingly claiming jurisdiction and authority, the Old Dominion still stands with proud crest and defiant mien, ready to trample beneath her heel every usurper and tyrant, and to illustrate afresh her Sic Semper Tyrannis, the proudest motto that ever blazed on a nation's shield or a warrior's arms."

On such testimony as this, Virginia can safely rest her title to share equally with her Southern sisters in the " wealth of glory " produced by the war, and this equality is all she asks or would have. She disdains to pluck one laurel from a sister's brow.

SCHOOL BOOKS.

We have but little to add since our last report about the books used in our schools, as there has been no change in these, so far as we know. We have received from the publishers, the "American Book Company," a copy of the School History of the United States, by Philip A. Bruce, Esq. This work is well written; accurate in its