Daily Mississippi clarion and standard. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1866, 1866-07-28
From the Richmond Examiner
L. q nLa y :.

We accept the epithet, and the gen.
uine sympathy it embOdies, not without
4 sense Of mournful pride. Beyond
question we are poor, beyond question
there is great misery among our help.
less ones; and our undyiug gratitude
will ever 60 forth in recognition oil
that true charity, which, as in the case
Of the Baltimore ladies, has been so
munifcently bestowed upon us. We
are not ashamed Of our poverty and
misery, nor of the aims that have been
so generously lent US, because ofthem.
Those who are despOiled must needs
be poor; those who are trampled upon
must needs be miserable, and we can
not deem it to be any crime Of our
own that the spoilers hand has been
upon us, and his heel has ground us
into the dust.
But there is q sort of compassion in
the tone with which the Northern press
lavishes pity upon us that is quite IN
called for, quite supererogative, quite
thrown away. The sheer does not
hurt US, since it is misplaced, and we
can laugh at an excess of sentimental
sympathy for which there is not q
shadow of occasion We are not poor
er now than we were weak when Pat
rick Henry's clarion awoke the dawn
Of the revolution in the House OF
Burgesses, nor are We poor in fact
No one can look around with half a
glance at the exuberant and inexhaus-
ubIe resources Of our great State and
call Virginia poor No where has ma
ture been so kind no where, in river,
mountain, slope and forest and plain
in the bend of the sky, in the mellow
filth or grassy verdue of the soil, and
in the deep and secret bowels Of the
earth, no where has the hand of ma
ture been so lavish Of her good gifts
as in Virginia. The kindly sky of
ours is itself an endowment and per
petual possession; one hour of Vir-
ginia sunshine is worth more than a
weeks sojourn under those pallid rays
that glimmer over Cape Cod and lend
sickly yellowness to the murky fogs
of Massachusetts Bay.
Nor have these good and generous
gifts Of nature been thrown away upon
poor and mean spirited people
Virginians are emphaticauy a race OF
men-of men who stand erect and
honor the sunshine and look kindly
nature right in the face. We have
the pride, the energy, the physique,
the endurance of governing race
The pure oxygenated blood that flows
in our veins, makes our hearts strong,
our muscles firm, our minds serene
and self poised Despair and despond-
ency hide themselves alb; shed from
the presence Of our composed healthy
spirit, and obstacles and difficulties
yield before our resolute assault
Look at our men and our women, and
dare to think US poor! Were those
men and paupers who stood in the
trenches all the long months, starving
and in rags, but unfnching and in
domitable? Were those women pau
pers who SMILED at home and still urg-
ed US to battle, in their scanty suits of
homespun, while the children cried at
their knees for bread when there was
none, and every mail brought the
news of another loved one slain at his
post Of duty? Nay, we are rich in
deed in our men and women; doubly
rich in that remnant of heroes who
walked away from the lest field of bat.
tie and calmly bestowed their hands
TO labor; in the sweet patience and
christian faith of our women, cheering
us on with smiles to this task as they
smilingly cheered us on to thatsone-
We are rich In the examples our
heroes have set US, and it is perpet-
ual riches to US and grand legacy to
our children, that we can point to the
noble old man there at Lexington,
calmly sitting down teaching the CON-
ing men of Virginia, lessons in the
truth and honor that made their faith
ers lives illustrious.
And we are doubly rich in our
sacred memories. There at Lexinc-
ton, beside the living hero, sleeps
another, dead indeed, but teaching US