Monthly Archives

October 2020

The Calhoun Monument Deserved Legal and Historical Protection Blog

The Calhoun Monument Deserved Legal and Historical Protection

As some business owners and residents on King Street described it, “Charleston was raped” on the night of May 30, 2020, as mobs looted and burned the Holy City, turning so-called “peaceful protests” violent. Following numerous calls to remove the John C. Calhoun Monument and repeal the South Carolina Heritage Act, Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg took a resolution to the…
Stewart O. Jones
October 30, 2020
Dumping Dixie Beer Blog

Dumping Dixie Beer

There’s a popular meme floating around the internet that has a middle-aged, pot-bellied, suburban male standing by a charcoal fire with the caption below reading, “I just want to grill for God’s sake!” It has been seen as both an ideal (men just want to go about their weekly business without intrusion by the pet causes of the day) and…
Christopher J. Carter
October 29, 2020
The Southern (Catholic) Tradition Blog

The Southern (Catholic) Tradition

When asked why he was a Catholic, Southern author Walker Percy liked to provocatively respond, “What else is there?” Savannah-born writer Flannery O’Connor, a Catholic or Irish heritage, once asserted that she was a “hillbilly Thomist,” a nod to Thomas Aquinas, whose Summa Theologiae she piously read. Percy and O’Connor certainly saw no conflict between their Southern identity and their…
Casey Chalk
October 28, 2020
A Neo-Confederate Prediction of Post-Election America Blog

A Neo-Confederate Prediction of Post-Election America

The political chaos that has accompanied President Trump’s first term will not abate anytime soon. From the Russian Collusion hoax to rioting in the streets to the public policy responses to the Covid-19 so-called pandemic, there appears to be something afoot that does not bode well for the future. Whether the motivation is ideological, economic, official incompetence, or a toxic…
Marshall DeRosa
October 27, 2020
Zorro and the Southern Tradition Blog

Zorro and the Southern Tradition

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…
Earl Starbuck
October 26, 2020
How Arizona Seceded From the Union Blog

How Arizona Seceded From the Union

The United States acquired a vast area of the Southwest with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (May 30, 1848), which included all or part of the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, Texas and Utah. As part of the treaty, Mexico agreed to sell the land (more than 1,000,000 square miles) to the United States for $15…
Steve Lee
October 22, 2020
Secession Becomes Thinkable Review Posts

Secession Becomes Thinkable

A review of American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup (Encounter Books, 2020) by F.H. Buckley When asked whether a state can constitutionally secede from the United States, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia brushed the question aside, saying the matter was settled by the Civil War. He was wrong. A Zogby poll in 2018 found that 39 percent of…
Donald Livingston
October 20, 2020
A Simple Explanation Blog

A Simple Explanation

What separated the Jeffersonian understanding of government embraced by the South from the philosophy of Lincoln and the people of the North? For if Lincoln had believed as Jefferson, the war would not have happened. Indeed, it is probable that the circumstances leading up to the war would not have happened. So, what in fact, did happen?! Truth to tell,…
Valerie Protopapas
October 14, 2020
The End of Reconciliation Blog

The End of Reconciliation

There’s something pernicious with the New York Times’ 1619 Project and its inversion of early Virginia colonial history. The colony of Jamestown isn’t a story of bravery and resilience in the face of disease and death. The House of Burgesses, founded in 1642, is not important as the first bicameral elected assembly in the American colonies. The Old Dominion of…
Casey Chalk
October 13, 2020
1619 Plus 2020 Equals 1984 Blog

1619 Plus 2020 Equals 1984

In George Orwell’s novel “1984,” the central governmental agency in his fictitious country of Oceania is the antonymic Ministry of Truth, a body charged with the duty of erasing actual history and then rewriting it to meet what was considered to be more acceptable ideological concepts.  In America today, the same type of inane metaphorical thinking is also taking place,…
John Marquardt
October 12, 2020
When Yankees Pack the Court Blog

When Yankees Pack the Court

The 2020 presidential election took a decided turn as it moved into the final six weeks when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon, passed away, opening up a seat that would, if filled by a conservative, shift the ideological balance of the High Court, and bringing the issue to the forefront of what is already a raucous…
Ryan Walters
October 9, 2020
Flowering Wisdom Review Posts

Flowering Wisdom

A Review of Chained Tree, Chained Owls, Poems (Green Altar Books, 2020) by Catharine Savage Brosman. This is Catharine Savage Brosman’s twelfth book of poems, and the praise for her work has increased with each new publication. This review will follow suit; and in order to demonstrate-- to point out clearly-- this new level of excellence, it is best to…
William Wilson
October 6, 2020
Monument Avenue 1890-2020 Blog

Monument Avenue 1890-2020

For the majority of my life I have had an intense interest in the history of the War Between the States. This interest germinated as a result of two very influential places that I became well acquainted with from a young age. The first of these was the land that I have lived on since before my memory was even…
Patrick Seay
October 5, 2020
The Eyes of Our Fathers Blog

The Eyes of Our Fathers

Coming from a small, truly united community, I have many places that are dear to me that I often visit. One of these is a small city, located in the town where I grew up. But this is no ordinary city: it’s a resting place for people who have gone on before us. As I walk through Smith Cemetery at…
Travis Holt
October 2, 2020
California Secession…in 1858? Blog

California Secession…in 1858?

Antebellum California secession is a little known topic, but the Southern portion of the State nearly broke free from Northern California in the years just before the outbreak of war in 1861. California gained statehood in 1850 with a Senate vote of 34 ayes and 18 nays and a House vote of 156 ayes to 56 nays with Jeremiah Clemens…
Justin Pederson
October 1, 2020