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The old South.
Recently a great deal has been written about the New South; to my mind this term is somewhat ambiguous.
If its authors intend to convey the idea that since 1865 the
Confederate soldier has been succeeded by a new race—a race with different thoughts and different sentiment from those who wore the gray, and that our heroes are apologizing and begging for forgiveness for the part they took in the conflict between the States, and that all of our posterity has come from this alien race—then I for one must protest at such a perversion of history and truth.
I have no more use for such a New South than I have for the socalled new woman.
If, on the other hand, these writers, when they speak of tile Southern Confederacy as the New South, mean that our boys accepted the surrender at
Appomattox in good faith, and that when
Lee, that grandest of our great men, sheathed his sword at
Appomattox, that they returned home and beat their implements of war into plowshares and pruning hooks, and that all, even those who had never known aught save luxury, they and their wives, their sons and their daughters, worked as man never worked before, obeying the laws of their country and administering the same as soon as they were permitted to do so, then I would pronounce a long and a loud ‘Amen.’
