of this defense to say one word against the white women of the South. Such
need not be said, but it is their misfortune that the chivalrous white men
of that section, in order to escape the deserved execration of the
civilized world, should shield themselves by their cowardly and infamously
false excuse, and call into question that very honor about which their
distinguished priestly apologist claims they are most sensitive. To
justify their own barbarism they assume a chivalry which they do not
possess. True chivalry respects all womanhood, and no one who reads the
record, as it is written in the faces of the million mulattoes in the
South, will for a minute conceive that the southern white man had a very
chivalrous regard for the honor due the women of his own race or respect
for the womanhood which circumstances placed in his power. That chivalry
which is "most sensitive concerning the honor of women" can hope for but
little respect from the civilized world, when it confines itself entirely
to the women who happen to be white. Virtue knows no color line, and the
chivalry which depends upon complexion of skin and texture of hair can
command no honest respect.

When emancipation came to the Negroes, there arose in the northern part of
the United States an almost divine sentiment among the noblest, purest
and best white women of the North, who felt called to a mission to educate
and Christianize the millions of southern exslaves. From every nook and
corner of the North, brave young white women answered that call and left
their cultured homes, their happy associations and their lives of ease,
and with heroic determination went to the South to carry light and truth
to the benighted blacks. It was a heroism no less than that which calls
for volunteers for India, Africa and the Isles of the sea. To educate
their unfortunate charges; to teach them the Christian virtues and to
inspire in them the moral sentiments manifest in their own lives, these
young women braved dangers whose record reads more like fiction than fact.