Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1866-02-22
SCHOOL BOOKS.

History of the United States" Conspicu
Gus for the fascinating effrontery of its tis
sue of falsehoods, and deliberate perpersior
of the commonest facts of recent history
it may be regarded as a contemplate Gu
riosity, rather than history. The page!
devoted to an account of the causes of the
recent war, are so remarkable that we give
a few extracts from them without comment
"Certain of the leading men Of the South
large owners of land and slaves, had long
been opposed to the principles of free gov
ernment they considered that universal suf.
frage was Injurious in its effects-not to the
masses of the Southern people, but to the
few thousands of their own class, who were
prevented by it from governing the country
as they desired. They wished to set up q
government in which they-the rich
would be princes and rulers, and the com,
mon people would be their servants, without
the right to vote, and with none of the
privileges Of a republican government
X X x X
The leaders having made the people be.
lieve that it was for their interest to main.
tain slavery among them, now taught them
to believe that the people of the North wish.
ed to prevent it, and were going to elect a
president who were going to take their ne
groes away from them. It was easy to
make them believe this, for they were pur-
posely kept in ignorance, and had few ad-
vantages of enlightening public discussion.
The people of the North, however, had
no such intention. 1t is true, large ma.
jority of them thought slavery injurious to
the South; injurious to the slaves, injurious
to the poor whites, whose labor was thus
brought into ruinous competition with slave
labor, and injurious to the slave owner,
whom it made cruel, despotic and domi-
neering. But they had no idea of inter.
fering with an institution over which they
had no constitutional power"
1t is difficult to conceive how an author
who pretends to write history for the young,
could allow such statements to 90 before the
world upon his authority. We know them
to be false, and the people whose temper be
expectsto crafty by such malicious and wan.
ton invective, know them to be false. Every
schoolboy in the South in whose hands this
sickly volume is placed, must either regard
it, or the teachings of his ancestry, as false.
We trust it will not be placed in the hands
of our children.
But the author not content with mis-
representing the causes of the revolution,
goes on to falsify its subsequent history
As if to give the proof of his Ignorance of
everything connected with the struggle and
his utter incapability of truth, be fails even
to narrate single battle as it occurred
Beginning with the ghts around Rich.
mond, he says MCCLELLAN begun q
change of base from the York to the James
River, on the 24th of June, 1862, and
fought battles evey day until he effected his
purpose At Sharpsburg be says "the battle
lasted all day, and the rebels retreated
across the Potomac that night,"-which
they did not do! MEAD, he says "ad.
vanced" into Pennsylvania, to meet LEE
in 1868. He makes the great battle at
Spottsylvania occur on the 10th of May,
1864, instead of the 18th. LEE surren-
ders in Virginia, on the "6th of April, >
when everybody knows it was the 9th
cHERMAN's and JoHNsoN's armies he says
"never met in North Carolina )" while the
whole country mourned the sanguinary bat
tie at Bentonsvile.
Such is a specimen of the "histOry" writ
ten by CHARLES A. GOODRICH. If the
country retains any respect for the motives
that actuated the deeds of those who obey
ed its call, or sleep under its bloody battle
plains, they will repudiate such stnff. 1t is
from such history that future generations
will form their estimate of us. If We have
left, we mnst blush for the ver-
dict posterity will bestow upon US, when its
opinions are formed upon such statements.
Our children will learn to curse their wicked
sires for all that is base in men; false in
politics and morals, and cruel in war.
The struggle of which the latter pages of
his pretended history treats is past, and its
objects forever relinquished by the South
But while we are willing to bury the past
ind enter upon new era of political hsto.
y, we do not desire to have the principles
which actuated the men engaged in it stul-
ifed before the world Much more unwil.
ing are we that our children should be ed
lcated with such false views concerning its
objects.
AS to facts, Mr.. GOODRICH has not