The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1869-01-20
ChIyalry.

is not now our purpose to SETTLE Our at
tent;on is often called to the fact, although
if may now be deemed a fact belonging to
history. The combinationof elements under
which this sort of chivalry was generated.
and the meat by which it was nourished, have
about all passed away, and are now only
things of recollection. 1t is not correct to
say that these knights have passed off the
stage, or that they do not still boast of their
chivalry. The boasting did always make the
staple of the thing, and now it is;au that is
left OF it. We do not say that these persons
do not still imagine themselves to be just all
thatstsey Conceive to be chivalric. No one
doubts the force of the hallucination under
which they labor. soa 70 iea 3Fa
But at the present it has assumed new
shape Railways was related to slavery and
the negro, and it still clings to the negro, but
seeminglyit it has assumed the form Of most
violent antipathy. 1t exhausts its functions
in the effort to crush and destroy the black
man. Not to dwell upon or characterize
this new phase of the glory of slavery, we
simply propose to inquire by what law it was,
or now is, that this class Of men were granted
the right to be considered chivalric. 1t has
always been claimed that it was the proper
outgrowth of Christianity its princi-
plies were founded in the very life of true re-
ligion, and thatits practice involved the very
chiefest of Christian duties. That Its range
of service included mainly the defence OF the
weak-the rescue of those in distress-relief
of the suffering--to visit the sick and pro-
vide for the poor 1t is true that the form
and manner in which this was done may be
open to some question, but we do not now
wish to provoke any discussion on the point.
While also we cannot consent to allow that
modern duelling, horse racing, fox hunting,
which were the past times of the chivalry in
former days, yet now only wewould contrast
any conception that men may have of what
is chivalrous with the course of conduct that
obtains toward the poor, ignorant, and often
suffering slave of the men who still claim to
be the embodiment extant of this grand
Southern idea. That it has any Christian
element about it none will suppose; that it
has one particle of the spirit or conduct of
the proper age of chivalry, we also deny.
Even suppose that under any view of this
system it were proper to retaliate for wrongs
to revenge insult-to vindicate rights over
the fsllea, it does not hold here The class
whom it is attempting to destroy-who are
abused, cheated, cursed and hated, are
a poor and friendless class. Look at them
from what point you will, this must make
them objects of pity to every Christian and
generous heart. No truly proud spirit could
raise his hand to strike them down still
lower No manly soul could wrong them of
single human right. Granted they are
ignorant, is it their fault Who cut off from
their thirsty souls the stream of knowledge?
When they could have thrown off the barba
rism that hid the image of God in them,
did Christian ciiivalry extend to them a
succoring hand Say, why are they ignorant?
Granted, chivalrous accusers of the lately
fettered slaves, that they have vices Who
refused them the Book of God, and who de-
MED to them access to the great Healer
Was their treatment-was their condition
lwas your example such as to purify their
livesg Who of you. o. chivalrous souls,
clad in the 0irtues you boast, will meet then,
before the God in whose presence all must
stand, and there charge on them the vices
that they bring with them out of their state
of bondage2 Three hundred years they
were under your tuteage-a thousand more
you determined they should remain so, and
as they greao under the glare of chivalric life
and precept, so they are now. Does it be-
come you. Sir Knight, to curse them9 Stay
the hand that shoots and the step that hunts
them as beasts. You owe them, if not what
clivalry, yet what Christ's religion would
give to sympathy, pity and help.
Yes, proud and heartless men, you owe them
more than this, and it is unmanly, it is inhu-
man to punish yindictively those few vices
your example and your lips taught them.
Grant they display no energy, and are to
a large extent, shiftless. Did those down
trodden ones ever have noble motive pre-
sented to their souls r. Did you or your
chivalrous cnmpeers among the shareholders,
ever hold out to their ambition a noble
prize worthy the souls efforts2 Would not
the charity that "vaunteth not ITSELF think
that centuries ofservitude would SO benumh-
the soul that all the nerve of its ambition
would be enfeebled? Should it not be ad-
mitted that charity has place for The negro
Should not true cllivalry behold in him an
object of its high purpose, demanding IFS
best energies and purest devotion? The
lower, the more degraded, the more help
less he is, so much the louder the plea his
case presents to christian effort But he is
6tac6! Yes, heuas so. Would to God cbiv-
airy had not marred his color Is not true
chivalry, like true christianity, power that
embraces eworld-inciutles in its forgive
ness, its generosity and its benevolepce all
people and kindreds? One of the most
discouraging of all the facts that meet us in
the South is this too general want of SYM
pathy with the fallen and igaorant-want
ofa manly generosity in the treatment of the
late bondsmen. 1t argues the absence of
those manly, christian virtues that give