Through the centuries since Jamestown was founded, the South has held certain values, virtues, and ideals in high esteem: Courage, duty, humility, integrity, courtesy, chivalry, gallantry, self-control, reverence, selflessness, strength, wisdom, and a willingness to defend what was right, no matter the odds. To be noble, to be a gentleman, was to exemplify those ideals. Sir Walter Scott’s novels were the most popular fiction in the antebellum South for a reason: his protagonists embodied (or learned to embody) those Southern Virtues. Captain John Smith, George Washington, Light Horse Harry Lee, Francis Marion, Sam Houston, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, John S. Mosby, Nathan Bedford Forrest – these men are all Southern heroes because, to some extent or other, they possessed those Southern Virtues.[1] If we intend to preserve these Southern Virtues, we must do we everything we can to pass them on to posterity. The best way of doing that is by telling our children the right stories.
More @ The Abbeville Institute
No comments:
Post a Comment