The banner of the South. (Augusta, Ga.) 1868-1870, March 21, 1868, Page 4, Image 4
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IMISBI
REV. A J. RYAN, Editor-
AUGUSTA, GA„ MARCH 21, 1868.
SALUTATORY.
With no little diffidence in ourselves,
but with a deep faith in the principles
which we intend to maintain, and with a
love fully as deep for the two sacred
causes which we are proud to espouse, we
send forth, to-day, “The Banner of the
•South,” to do humble, yet faithful, duty
in guarding the truths of Religion, and in
defending the rights and interests of
Native-land. \V e know not what welcome,
if any, we may receive ; but we know our
motives—and they are high and pure ;
we know the object we Lave in view’—and
there is none more honorable; and, if
we know ourselves at all, we are sure that,
in our efforts t*> reach that object, we shall
never stoop to the use of unworthy means.
We have no high-sounding promises to
make, for it is as far from our wishes, as it
would be unjust to our friends and patrons,
to arouse expectations which we might fail
to realize. Nit by our promises of to-day,
which arc easy to be evaded as they are
to bo made, but bv our course in the future,
do we wish to be judged. This, and this
only, we can and do promise—that we shall
do our best. No more could be asked of
us—no more expected. We shall be
found wanting, no doubt, in many things,
but never, we trust, in zeal and energy.
Without, flourish of trumpets, or vain
glorious boasting—without useless display
or vulgar parade—but quietly and unob
trusively. we enter the field of journalism,
where fiercer often than the battles of
men with men, and far more important in
their results, though more slowly decided,
are fought the battles of ideas. The last
in the field, wo know our cause, our friends,
our foes—-we choose our side—we take
our place— the humblest one—in the ranks
of those who are struggling for the True
against the False, for the Right against
the Wrong; and though for a time we
may not possess the skill, and drill, and
strong* h i>f the older and more experienced
combatants v.'ho have entered the field be
fore us, and who have borne hardships
and won honors in many a campaign
already, we shall, at least, have the courage
to stand firm to our colors to the last; and
if we be not among the bravest, we shall
certaiuK not bo cowards in the contest.
The difficulties which wc must encounter
—th«; viwpropitious time.-—the precarious
condition of the country—-the poverty of
our people—the uncertainty of all things
in the present—the dark aspect of the
future—all this, and more, we have de
liberately considered; yet, spite of it all,
trusting to the many kind friends who
hare encouraged, and who, we know, will
asset us, and hoping that thousands who
share our sentiments will rally to our side,
and greet us with glad welcome, we lift,
to-day. "The Banner of the South’’
over the ruins of our Land, and its folds,
as long as they may float, we pledge to the
high and holy causes of Religion- and
Country. A. J. K.
OUR PRINCIPLES AND POSITION,
'the I’ublie, on this our iirst appearance,
has the right to question us as to the prin
ciples which we profess and the position
which we intend to hold. It is our dutv,
irankly and clearly, to answer such ques
tion. li Religion, by the grace of God,
and by < eviction too deep for doubt, we
are Ro; an Catholics. This announce
ment, wt know well, will deprive, na of
the patr nage of many, who, w ere we any
thing eh c, would willingly give us their
Mipport. Well—be it so—if men are
afraid to read ns because we are Catho
lics, we are willing to do without their
support and that very fear we accept a«
| an homage paid to the mysterious power
jof our Religion. For us the teachings of
| our Church, in the spiritual order, are the
; teachings of God. As such we accept
i them, believe them, submit to them, will
! live by them—will die in them—and we
would regard it as the highest of crimes*
on our part, to gainsay or contravene
them. With the light of evidence shining
across their dim mysteriousness, the doc
trines of our Faith are as clear to us and
as imperative as a mathematical demon.
j stration—and they are so real that, were
*
; we to abate one iota of that Faith, we
| would be offering violence to our reason ;
for our Faith is intelligent submission to
the proved truths of God—not an imrea.
soning servility to the mere assertion of
men. Holding, therefore, to the Faith
of the Catholic Church, guiding our
thoughts and life according to its authori
tative teachings, we cannot, consistently
with conscience or duty, allow anything
to appear in our columns in opposition to
the doctrines or morals of our Church.
Knowing, too, what erroneous ideas are
entertained by many in regard to our
Church, we shall take frequent occasion
to explain them and to place them in their
true and proper light before our readers.
And yet, though we are thorough Catho
lics, bigotry is not & part of our religion
—prejudice is no element of our faith.
We love the truth deeply and dearly which
we have learned from the Church, and
on which rest all our hopes for eternity,
but we hate no man who differs from us.
Ileuce, we shall assail no man or men.
Bitter religious controversy we shall sedu
lously avoid as productive of more evil
than good. We do not believe in bitter
words—they always bear bitter fruit-
Honest convictions, wherever and in whom
sover found, we feel bound to respect. To
wards no one is it our intention to assume
an offensive attitude, unless indeed the
fact of our being Catholics constitute, in
itself, an offence. And as we treat others
so do tve wish, in all fairness, to be treated
If we do not assail, we do not wish to be as
sailed. If attacked, we claim, and to the
utmost will exercise, the right of defence.
We shall not be the first to commence
hostilities ; but if commenced against our
selves we shall give blow for blow, nor
shall we yield the field without a manly
struggle.
Our intention*, however, are pacific,
aud v;e trust that our work shall be a
work of peace. Indeed, w r e deprecate that
religious animosity which, but too frequent
ly, is regardless of the laws of courtesy as
well as of the spirit of charity, and which
is so apt to substitute abuse for argument
and violent vituperation for logic. We
eau confidently say that such shall never
be our course, and we are sure that,
when called upon to defend or discuss re
ligious principles, charity shall control our
thoughts, guide our pen and frame our
dswor, so that the feelings of all, differ
they ever so widely from us, shall meet
with respectful consideration, and the
feeling's of none be intentionally wounded.
We hope to have many readers, especially
through the South, whose belief differs
from our own, and we feel that in justice
to them aud to ourselves we ought thus
frankly explain our religious principles
and position.
In Politics, we shall be independent.
We belong to no party. Mere partisans
we shall never be, but, holding ourselves
aloof from party and party prejudices, we
shall take the liberty to discuss all public
questions, public measures and public
men—not in their relations to party, but
in their relation with principles and the
welfare of society. By birth aud senti
ment we are of the South. Dearer than
aU other interests, of this world, to us,
are those of our own land. Over these
interests we shall watch, 1’ irmly and
faithfully we shall defend them, and more
so now than ever when those interests are
such sore need of brave defence and
i ue defenders. Believing, as we do, that
Iu South had right, and reason, and prin
ciple, on her side in the late war, wc feel
j that we should not let the traditions and
memories and glories of the struggle pass
1 iuto oblivion. We must keep them alive
and aglow —we must pass them down—
we must, make our children proud of them
There is not a day nor a deed of the strug
gle of which we may feel ashamed. We
owe it to the past to preserve the story of
our struggle, and the future will not for
give us if we fail to record it. And in
recording it we must not use words of
apology, as though we doubted of the
righteousness of our cause ; but. plainly
aud fearlessly, true to ourselves, to our
cause, to our country—true to the dust of
the dead at our feet—true to the spirits of
those who were so true to us—true to the
living in their terrible loss—true to the
Future which is coming down to ask of
us the vindication of our course and the
story of our past—we must declare, and
stili declare, and never cease declaring,
in words as brave as our warriors were,
that in the dread struggle in which our
Flag went down with not a stain of dis
honor on the virgin purity ot its folds,
Justice stood on the side of the men who
wore the Grcv. And Justice has not
, changed sides because we have been de
feated. Unconquered and unconquerable,
Justice is still with the conquered. The
success of our cause has been lost—not its
right ; for failure can never make right
wrong; nor can success transform the
iniquity of wrong into the sacredness of
right. Brute force goes down into battle
✓
fields not to test the rightfulness of causes
but to try the strength of combatants. The
success of the sword is no argument in
favor of the cause for which it has been
unsheathed. The surrender of the sword
is no argument against the cause which
drew it from the scabbard. Shot and shell
do not reason—they slaughter—and slaugh
ter, be it more or less, is only slaughter
—it is no argument for or against the
rights of those who kill or are killed.
Bullets may mangle flesh —spill blood—
slay men—but they can never reach the
vital principles for which men contend.
These principles are beyond the range of
musket and cannon. Battle-fields may be
the burial-places of men—never of rights.
Above the smoke and storm and shock of
battles, unaffected by victory or defeat,
calm, and immovable, Justice sits on her
eternal throne, and in her eyes right is
right forever—wrong is eternally wrong
—and trampled right is grander than tri- j
umphant wrong. From the decisions
given against us in the court of battle, we
therefore appeal; and these decisions we
carry up to the high tribunal of Justice
for reversal. This, and this alone, was
settled by battle—that we were the weaker
party. We had less brute force on our
side and we were obliged to yield to the
superior strength of our assailants. The
armies and government of the Confedc
racy were but the mortal flesh and blood
of an immortal cause. They are gone—
it is living. Nor steel, nor lead, could
touch its life or take it away. It is
living in the loves ot Southern hearts—it
is living in the memories of the Southern
dead—it is living in the stories which
Southern mothers are telling their little
children —it is living in the sorrows and 1
tears of our widows and orphans. And
we shall keep it alive. The right of our
cause did not fall with Richmond. It
exists to-day as clearly as it did when
the first boom of our guns sounded across
the Carolina waters, and when the Pal
metto flag—mid the ringing of bells, and
the rapture of gladdened hearts and the
sounding of cheers which the shore sent
over the sea—waved in triumph over
l: muter. And on that April day when
Lee gave up his sword bright and un
blemished as when he tirst girded it on,
he yielded merely, and only, the policy
of further resistance—not the principle
which had lifted that resistance into a
right and sanctified it as a duty Right
began our struggle, right justified and
ennobled it, right animated our soldiers,
right made them strong to suffer, strong
to endure ; right made them brave to
dare, and, bravest of all, to die ; right
marched with them, step by step, info
every gory field; right flashed in the
sheen of their swords, and thundered in
! the boom of their cannons in every fray ;
right wreathed a glory around ban
ners wherever their banners were e ;
right consecrated their victories am n
soled them in their defeats; right lit in
their hearts the flames of that heroism
which blazed out into deathless deeds ;
right nerved them to every sacrifice they
made, to every hardship they endured :
right lit beacon-fires of glory on the plains
of Manassas, on the heights of Fredericks
burg, in the swamps of the Chickahomi
ny, in the trenches of Richmond, on the
mountains of Tennessee, in the battle
plaees of Kentucky, on the soil of Georgia,
on the seaboard of the Carolinas, in the
wilds beyond the Mississippi ; and, now ?
right stands amid our ruins and graves,
and pointing to the glories of our cause
and waiting in hope for the terrible re
tribution of the future, lifts towards
the heavens the manacled hands, which,
there at least, have never pleaded in
vain, and solemnly protests against the
oppressions of victorious wrong ; and we,
for one, join now and always in the pro
test. We stand by the Past of our coun
try and cause, and we accept no Future
which will not accept that Past. There
are men who bend their principles before
the bayonet. There are men who desert
the altars of a Lost Cause round which
they once stood with the blood in their
hearts panting for libation, and who kneel
to offer homage at the altars of successful
wrong. There are men who trample
under foot the very standards that once
floated proudly over them. There are
men base enough to lift their hands against
the very l ights for which they once up
lifted swords. We are not such. For
us, principle is principle, right is right—
ye stc rda y —to-day— l< >-m or row—fore ve v . j
Submission to might is not surrender of
right. We yield to the one—but shall
never yield up the other.
We shall do our best, therefore to save
from oblivion the memories and traditions
of the Confederacy. Whoever in the
South is ashamed of these had better not
read “ The Banner of the South.”
Amid the questions which agitate the
present, we should never lose pride in our
past. It is too grand to be forgotten.
PaRvS down its memories—they should
live forever. A. J. R.
GIVE GOD HIS PLACE.
Man’s faith in men is going down.
Trust in the merely human has been
tried, on a colossal scale, by our age ;
and that trust has been proved a cheat
and a delusion. The human must lean
upon the divine. The weight of this world
needs something mightier than this world
to sustain it. Mere man is not sufficient
for men. God is You may
as well think of thrusting •Him from His
throne in the Heavens as of ousting Him
from human history. In history as in
Heaven—in the civilizations of men as in
the courts of angels—in the annals of time
as in the annals of eternity, He must
and He will have His place—and that, the
supremest place of all. This world is
Ilia place as well as man’s —and more
than man’s. He has a word to say about
its affairs as well as man. He has rights
in it as well as man. He, as well as
man, has a work to do here, and lie will
doit. Men and nations, aforetime, tried
to do without Him ; they put Him out
of their calculations, or they put Him in
them only as a valuable cypher ; they
thrust Hun aside as an obstacle, or they
flung Him away as an encumbrance ;
and on they went, insensate, in the
pride of their hearts—light of step and
buoyant because the grand burden of
the divine did not press upon them ;
but sudden, a? the rush of the storm by
night, a footstep was heard that was not
man’s; a thunderbolt, not hurled by
human hands, flashed across the firma
ment of history ; men, startled and
stunned, looked up—and the forgotten
God was there—tight in their midst
where he had always been, though un
seen —where he always is and shall be
—not with folded arms, a passive
spectator —but with lifted hands, to bless
or curse their works. Nor men nor na-
tions can get rid of Him. He goes down
into the domain of history—and he
rules it gently as a mother, or terribly
as an avenger. Into every question of
earth He enters. lie is part of every
problem. He stands related to every
event—in the fall of a snow-flake, as in
the crash of an empire ; in the fading of
a flower-leaf; as in the ruin of a nation ;
in that happens between the
dust and the stars, He must be taken
into account. Truly, “in Him we live,
and move, and have our being.” With
out interfering with their free-will and
agency, He will, and lie does, and He
must, shape men’s courses to H s own
ends; He will and He does control the
destinies of the nations ; He will and He
does sway the fates of the world ; He
will and He does write His own great
name, in letters of love, or wrath, in
every chapter, upon every page and in
every line of the chronicles of time. Try
as it may, this world efci never be God
less. Out of eternity, through the gates
of creation, He enters the world- -moves
across it ; men may or may not see His
footprints—butif£hey are there—marked
and ineffaceable ; men may and may not,
see His shadow when he passes—but that
shadow moves beside them ; men may
or may not hear Lis voice—but 'tis sound
ing, nevertheless, amid all their tumults ;
men may not see His hand till the bless
ing falls from it, or the malediction—but
the hand is always there ; men may not
see Him working in their midst till He
has built a monument, graven His own
name on it, and passed ; men may not
know that He is walking on their way till
they meet Him treading in the dust a
proud people or an unholy nation ; but,
always—always—seen or unseen—felt or
unfelt, He, with man, is making and
moulding human history. Man, from
day to day, records the events of that
history, and too often He, who bolds that
history in the palm of His hand, is utterly
ignored—but never ignored with impu
nity. It is then not only religion—not
only true wisdom—but it is men’s and
nations’ interest to give God His place in
human affairs and to recognize and adore
Ilis presence and His power in the work
ings of this world. The civilization that
is false to Him cannot be beneficial to
man. The developments of individuals
and peoples which ignore ITitn must lead
straight to destruction. The progress
which goes not towards Him, is not pro
gress. Human fabrics, without the divine
cement, must totter. Sink their founda
tions never so dee}), let them tower ever
so high—they must fall. There can be
no salvation for the individual, without.
Him ; there can be no social ameliora
tion for the nation, without Him. Neces
sary for man isolated, he is necessary
for men in their collective capacity. Woe
to the nations that forget and ignore
Him. Are they strong ? lie can shat
ter their strength. Are they proud ?
He can belief their brows to the very
dust. Are they prosperous ! With a
wave of His hand He can bla.it their
prosperity. Boast they of their gran
deur ? He can dig it a grave. Do they
lift tip their heads vainly exalted ! In
the cloud lurks the lightning to strike
and scathe the lofty oak. Do they boast
of their security ? lie can change the
calm into the tempest. The powers of
life and death in his hands, he wields
them in justice and in judgment over the
nations and the centuries, in accordance
with their relations to Him and I!is laws
and truths. How stands our age towards
him? how, our people? Are we for
Him or against Him, that we mav know
whether He is for ns, or against us ?
What is the measure of ouv Faith in
Him—our fear of Him—our love for
Him ? Is the face of our century turned
towards llim to adore, or to deride '(
Are we giving them room and place, or
are we crowding Him out In the pro
gress we are making are we moving
towards Him, or from Him ? What are
the signs of His presence among us ? Is
the nineteenth century kneeling before
Him for a blessing, or has it turned its
back upon Him, and challenged His