The weekly standard. (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1865-1867, 1866-05-05
A Tribute to the Women of
the South.

Replying to coarse allusion of the
New York Tribune to the women of
the South, the Courier des Etates Unis
says:
s'Let US permit the Tribune to insist
upon the gross ignorance Of the Con
federate women, and to infer to this
ignorance their energy and constancy
during The war. We attribute the quail
tiles Of which the Southern women
have given noble example, to high
er origin. Ignorance-the Tribune has
said it hundred times, can engender
only vice and meanness-and if the
Confederate women have been heroic,
it is because they had faith in their
cause. There are occasions IN history
when women, whose mission in ordina-
ry times is to make the good wife, the
tender mother, and to polish manners
by the charm and grace which she
brings into all social relations, may rise
above herself and give examples of the
highest virtue. The occasions occur
when the sacred soil of her country,
and with it or through it the domestic
hearth and tie family are threatened
with invasion. These high virtues the
women of the South have practiced
without ostentation, without theatrical
parade.
They have borne all privations, they
have defed all outrages by their proud
and impossible attitudes. All that is
precious to women-dress, jewels, the
luxuries of home-all these the women
of the South gave up-they did not
even recoil before sacrifices still more
painful-they did not fear to break their
hearts by sending forth their sons to
do battle for cause, sacred in their
ewes, like that Lacedemonian mother
who showed a shield to her son and
said simply return with it or upon it;
do thy duty or die Do not expect
such trials from ignorant women, from
souls without eleyation.
And while desolation swept over all
the hearths of the South, while mothers
had each day fresh tears to wipe away,
yet braycly bore their grief, how were
the women of the North employed p
In developing q costly luxury against
which the Tribune itself cried out, cal
ling. attention to its scandalous extent,
feminine prcdigality became more and
more unrestraineG. We know to what
disastrous fesults>th;s state Of affairs
led. Some women, like 1Ss41iSs Anna
Dickinson, gave tiresome lectures to
promiscuous audiences, others clamor-
ed for pretended women's rights and
exposed themselves to the derision Of
the public; and others still, enrolled
themselves under the banner of misce-
genation. It is among these classes OF
women who defy good sense and mod
esty that the Tribune finds its ideal.
Let this journal, then, cease to insult
these conquered women, Of whom the
: defeat, has not diminished the great
ness; ;"let itAcease to embitter and dis.
honor pgpen in Sustaining an indefen.
sible paradox. The North, like the
, Souths has its contingent of good
/ graceful and educated women; it ha'
perhaps, larger number of that class
who little deserve the name of women
and for whom certain announcements
- made in the journals; it possesses
o1so or. ter share of learned ane
; pedantic ladies-bus lor oneso VIII no
New Orleans become enVirol-SS ol Dos
! ton? As for good and well-bred Soc.
iety, it is the same everywhere; and the
} Tribune may be sure that woman O
the world, coming from Boston, Woulc
, not feel out of place in New Orleans
nor. would the contrary be true. Ii
calumniating the Southern women, Mr.
] Greely has simply shown that he doe
rot know them, and that he knows still
:, less the common laws of propriety."
! -e-<&se>s---
Tnr H1srnRv or VErnEs.--The Rich