The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-06-27
THE POINT OF HONOR.

1t is always quite amusing to read
Northern papers ideas of an affair Of honor
Some time since the New York San relatet
the details Of cowhiding Mr.. Bryant, th
poet and editor of the Post, Is sale
to have administered to Col. Stone
| the editor Of q rival paper, and III
comment was-"This circumstance naturally
| created Ill feeling afterwards" Now, tht
Chicago Times comes in with It's ideas about
the Rosser-Acklen affair. Taking the most
outrageous representation of 1t as the yer.
sion Gen. Rosser gave, and assuming that
Mr.. Acklen is gentleman, they1F,nes SAYS
III Rosser accepts a challenge in such an af.
fair, he will exhibit something more than
the average foolishness of the chiyalrous
Southron."
But the most philosophic article on the
measure OF satisfaction that either party
would derive from rencouRtre, and the eff
cacy OF an exchange Of shots between Gen.
Rosser and Mr.. Acklen in washing off the
soil from a lady's name, is in the Washington
Post The Post pursues the old Sunday
school system of morality to sustain it's point.
Exempt gratia: The bad boy goes in swim
ming on Sunday; the good parson stands on
the bank and expostulates; the lightning de-
sends and the thunders ROLL the wickedness
Of the bad boy is a conductor; the righteous
ness OF the parson Is a non-conductor; the
bad boy is struck by lightning and the good
parson relates the story afterwards for the
edification of youth and the vindication Of
scriptural morality. A happy denouement
But suppose the water act as a non-conductor
and the parson be struck by the lightning I!
We must Immediately revise our whole sys-
tenn of theology and morals. So, we feel
obliged to upset the logic of the Post. The
code and duello were not meant as cure but
as a preventive, and an ounce of this last.
we are assured, is worth a pound of the
former. The code assumes that honor and
character are everything that is of value in
this world. Life is an accident which man
shares with the brute, the sponge, the cab
bage; but honor Is an ideality susceptible of
no such gradations. If you make man love
life merely above all things, you simply in
tensify brute instinct; but If you make him
love morality, the honor of himself, the chas-
tity OF his wife, the purity of his child, you
make him love something that ennobles and
purifies man, something that is intangible as
the spirit OF God, but something that is won
drously like it. II you make him love these
better than life you do good thing, and if
you go further and make him believe that an
life shall pay the penalty of every
violence done to his sanctified things, and that
It is his duty to exact that life that all sacri-
ege may be GUerted-not punished nor
lvenged-you are merely consistent and
1othing more. This is the whole theory of
5he code of honor and the duello. It is ques-
lion OF morals whether human life or manly
honor or womanly virtue are the more valua-
Die. We would put our faith every time in the
community that values honor the more. tits
Intangible, ideal, or what you will. But you
'an touch and see the fetch of the Hottentot.
rhe spirit of God you can see-only in his
works.