We do not forget that there was wisdom as well as wit in Dr. Johnson’s sarcastic classification of facts with donkeys.  The great majority of so-called facts, and especially those detailed by travellers, are of no consequence whatever to man or beast.  What is it to us that Mr. A. has been condescending enough to look at the Venus of Milo, or that Mr. B., with more time than he knows what to do with already on his hands, must steal a couple of good working hours from Carlyle, worth probably five guineas apiece?  That Hannibal crossed the Alps was something; that Goethe did was and is also of some consequence; but the transit of Mr. Anarithmon Smith need cause no excitement in the observatories.  That a man has found out, by laborious counting, which is the middle word in the New Testament, is pretty sure to get into the newspapers as a remarkable fact; that he had discovered its central thought, and made it the keystone to knit together his else incomplete outward and inward lives, would hardly be esteemed of so much consequence.  Facts are such different things, especially to different persons!  The truth is, that we should distinguish between real facts and the mere images of facts, though the newspapers teach us to confound them, putting side by side, as they do, Garibaldi’s entry into Naples and Dennis McQuigley’s into the lock-up.

The man who gives us a really new fact deserves to be classed with him who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, for it contains the germinal principle of knowledge.  We owe a large debt in this kind to Mr. Olmsted.  He tells us much of what he saw, little of what he thought.  He has good eyes, and that something behind them that makes a good observer.  As respects the South, he has the advantage of being at once native and foreigner, so that what is merely American does not divide his attention with what is local and peculiar.  Making entries in his diary before impressions have had time to cool, he has preserved even the dialect of those with whom he talked, and thus given a lively reality to his narrative.

Nearly one-half of Mr. Olmsted’s present volume is devoted to a discussion of the conclusions to be drawn from the mass of observations he has thus far collected.  His views are entitled to the more consideration that the tone of his mind is so dispassionate.  He finds himself compelled to give his verdict against Slavery, whether it be considered morally, politically, or economically.  We cannot but think that the reading of his book will do great good in opening the minds of many to a perception that the agitation of the Slavery question is not a mere clash of unthinking prejudices between North and South, that Slavery itself is not a matter of purely local concern, but that it interests all parts of the Republic equally.  It is certainly of paramount importance that we should understand the practical workings of a system which is converting what by natural increase will soon constitute a majority of the population in the fairest portion of our territory into a vast planting, hoeing, and cotton-picking machine.