Pride in the Confederacy among white Southerners is evident in today’s South Carolina Confederate Baptist newspaper.
When the second temple of Jerusalem was erected, the contrast of its limited dimensions with the amplitude and splendor of the first, affected the old men, who remembered it, and they wept. Intent on the material structure, they thought not of Him, their expected Messiah, who was to hallow it with his presence; and, by His instructions, inaugurate a new blessed era. Yet “the glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the Lord of hosts.”
Our Confederacy compared with the vast domain of the old United States, is small, yet we may, by God’s blessing, make it far more glorious. It is not extent of territory, or brilliant feats of arms or expanded commerce, that constitutes the true greatness of a commonwealth. It is freedom, intelligence, morality, piety. These are the jewels that give lustre to its diadem, and perpetuity to its sway. “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” If we would have a glorious Confederacy, we must lay its foundation and build it up as god-fearing men and women. Our churches must awake to their responsibility, and employ all their energies to strengthen and consolidate the interests of truth, virtue and piety.
That the “freedom” of white Southerners is predicated upon an economy, culture and society of black bondage does not seem to strike believers as strange. Some, however, no doubt realize that such a “glorious” vision of white supremacy is rapidly fading away in the face of Union advances throughout the South.
Sources: “The Glory of the Confederacy,” Confederate Baptist, November 11, 1863
