Confederate History Month 2012: The Southern Cross (1861)

Virginia

St. George Tucker’s The Southern Cross appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in March 1861:

Oh, say can you see, through the gloom and the storm
More bright for the darkness, that pure constellation?
Like the symbol of love and redemption in its form,
As it points to the haven of hope for the nation.
How radiant each star! As they beacon afar,
Giving promise of peace, or assurance in war;
‘Tis the Cross of the South, which shall ever remain
To light us to Freedom and Glory again.

How peaceful and blest was America’s soil,
‘Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon,
Which lurks under Virtue, and springs from its coil,
To fasten its fangs in the life-blood of freemen.
Then loudly appeal to each heart that can feel,
And crush the foul viper ‘neath Liberty’s heel;
And the Cross of the South shall forever remain
To light us to Freedom and Glory again.

‘Tis the emblem of peace, ’tis the day star of hope;
Like the sacred Labarum, which guided the Roman,
From the shores of the Gulf to the Delaware’s slope,
‘Tis the trust of the free and the terror of foemen –
Fling its folds to the air, while we boldly declare,
The rights we demand, or deeds that we dare;
And the Cross of the South shall forever remain
To light us to Freedom and Glory again.

But, if peace should be hopeless and justice denied,
And war’s bloody vulture should flap his bloody pinions,
Then, gladly to arms! while we hurt in our pride,
Defiance to tyrants, and death to their minions,
With our front to the field, swearing never to yield,
Our return like the Spartan in death on our shield;
And the Cross of the South shall triumphantly wave
As the flag of the free or the pall of the brave.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

5 Comments

  1. “But, if peace should be hopeless and justice denied,
    And war’s bloody vulture should flap his bloody pinions,
    Then, gladly to arms! while we hurt in our pride,
    Defiance to tyrants, and death to their minions,
    With our front to the field, swearing never to yield,
    Our return like the Spartan in death on our shield;
    And the Cross of the South shall triumphantly wave
    As the flag of the free or the pall of the brave.”

    Powerful stuff, really beautiful. Do people in the South still consider themselves a seperate nation in any way, Hunter?

  2. We are increasingly a degraded and homogenized race within the Union. Every media outlet parrots the same anti-White, anti-Southern message.

    I think the worst of it is over though. Within just the last few years, social media has broken the ability of the MSM to control and narrow our national discourse.

    The MSM has been discredited. White Southerners are more anxious and skeptical than they were in the Bush years. It is still raining outside, but the storm system has passed.

    That’s my view.

  3. If the White man had systematically exterminated the Black African and replaced them with white settlers the place would feed the world. The under utilization: irrigation, commercial farming, arable land.

    It’s shocking when you go through it. Some cold hearted bastard ought to have been given the commission 100 years ago.

  4. “How peaceful and blest was America’s soil,
    ‘Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon,
    Which lurks under Virtue, and springs from its coil,
    To fasten its fangs in the life-blood of freemen.”

    I didn’t understand this until I started reading this blog.

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