Monthly Archives

May 2026

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Dixie Book of Days

The Dixie Book of Days by Matthew Page Andrews, 1912 Like many of us today I receive the most interesting news and event notifications through group chats. In one of such group chats a friend sent a picture of a book with a succinct and articulate paragraph of one of the kindest epitaphs to receive: bravery, honesty, love of truth.…
Matthew Conard
May 29, 2026
Blog

Remembering Martin Dies, Jr.

Few political figures in the 20th century confronted communist subversion and federal overreach as aggressively as Martin Dies Jr. of Texas. Born in Colorado City, Texas on November 5, 1900, Dies emerged from the Lone Star State's conservative Democratic tradition to become one of the century's most consequential congressional investigators. His father, Martin Dies Sr., served as a Democratic congressman…
Jose Nino
May 28, 2026
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Native American Music and the South

Frequently, I have described Southern music as a blending of influences. The interaction between Scots-Irish settlers and enslaved Africans produced a musical synthesis that is audible, traceable, and well documented. One can easily point to specific features to prove it. There are ballad forms, fiddle repertory, banjo construction, and rhythmic sensibility to reasonably identify their origins in Southern music. The…
Tom Daniel
May 27, 2026
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What Did Jefferson Mean by “Empire of Liberty”?

The American Revolution, those who were the major movers in it recognized, was an event singular in the history of the world. That the colonies could have both come together in unanimity to uprise against England and win its independence from their mother country through a sanguinary war were sufficiently singular happenings. After winning the war, the problem the Colonists…
M. Andrew Holowchak
May 26, 2026
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‘Tis Not Our War

A review of 'Tis Not Our War: Avoiding Military Service in the Civil War North (Stackpole Books, 2024) by Paul Taylor Since the infamous 2020 "Summer of Love" riots and political escapades that resulted in a new wave of Confederate iconoclasm, Americans have reconsidered including Confederate heroes as worthy company in Memorial Day celebrations. This is ironic because without the…
Brion McClanahan
May 25, 2026
Blog

No One is Coming to Save You

Social media has exploded in recent weeks with outrage over the approval of massive corporate data centers. While local residents have overwhelmingly opposed these projects, county commissioners and state legislators have turned a blind eye. Incidents like this fuel a growing sensation that events and institutions are accelerating completely beyond the control of ordinary citizens. The convergence of rapid technological…
Nicole Williams
May 22, 2026
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Northern Malice Justified Secession

Let’s consider a man who falls in love with a woman, and proposes to her that they enter the union of matrimony. Things go well until he discovers that she is transferring his wealth to her brothers and other family members. He remains in the marriage, but the final straw comes when he learns that she is even trying to…
John Vinson
May 21, 2026
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Daniel Donato and Cosmic Country

What would you call it if you created a band with Buck Owens, Don Rich, Duane Allman, Gram Parsons, Clarence White of The Byrds, and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead? Daniel Donato of Nashville calls it Cosmic Country, and it might be the most intriguing thing you’ve heard in a long time. Daniel Donato is one of the more…
Tom Daniel
May 20, 2026
Blog

Farewell!

A Review of Wendell Berry’s Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story by Randall Ivey I have never worked on a farm.  My paternal grandparents did.  They were cotton farmers and dabbled some in tobacco, although their chief means of subsistence was work in the textile plants that used to occupy the South Carolina upcountry like kudzu.  I have gotten…
Randall Ivey
May 19, 2026
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Modern Industrialism Is Betraying Us

We are near 100 years after I'll Take My Stand emerged into the zeitgeist – a salvo at the leviathan hyper industrial economic system rapidly encroaching into all regions of the United States. The 12 Southern authors could perhaps divine what level of societal destabilization would happen by the year 2030 at the trajectory in 1930, but I'd wager modern…
Matthew Conard
May 18, 2026
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Calculating the Value of Union

At our March 2026 conference on the Declaration of Independence, Daniel Miller, President of the Texas Nationalist Movement, explained how he asks one simple question when confronted by doubters and naysayers on secession: If your State was currently independent and with all that you know about the current government in Washington D.C., would you join the Union today? He said…
Brion McClanahan
May 15, 2026
Blog

The Rebel Outlaw

There’s much more to the story of Josey Wales than what you saw in the hit movie starring Clint Eastwood. The novel is an underrated gold mine of adventure, Southern history, and human pathos. The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales by Forrest Carter was published in 1972, and later republished as Gone to Texas. The movie The Outlaw Josey Wales was…
Mike C. Tuggle
May 14, 2026
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David Allan Coe

David Allan Coe died. If you’re looking for a clean, agreeable tribute, this ain’t it. Those are easy to find, and they all follow the same predictable pattern of dates, albums, controversies, and a polite nod about his influences. That kind of writing treats a musician like a museum exhibit: labeled, contained, and ultimately harmless. David Allan Coe was a…
Tom Daniel
May 13, 2026
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A Government of Kudzu

One of my favorite writers, who has long passed, Charley Reese, wrote an editorial for the Orlando Sentinel 25 years ago. I believe it was his final effort for the O.S. It is in no way dated. It could have been written yesterday, and it would fit perfectly with the current horrid simulation in Washington, D.C of the so-called government…
Paul H. Yarbrough
May 12, 2026
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A Model of Government Stewardship

Thomas Jefferson had, in his first term as US president, one of the most successful presidencies in US history. Knowing the pricelessness of books, he sanctioned the Library of Congress and helped to build it. He purchased the Louisiana territories for 10 million dollars—a pittance—and doubled the size of the country. He began a course to reduce the US debt, and despite purchasing the Louisiana lands, the…
M. Andrew Holowchak
May 11, 2026
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The Contrarian Mind of Zora Neale Hurston

She was the most celebrated Black woman novelist of her generation and died penniless in a Florida welfare home, buried in an unmarked grave. She trained in anthropology at Columbia under Franz Boas and defended voluntary segregation in the pages of the Orlando Sentinel. Zora Neale Hurston spent her life refusing the categories others tried to impose on her. Hurston…
Jose Nino
May 8, 2026
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Lessons on Liberty from the States’ Rights Democrats

In the 1940s, the Democratic Party was fractured by a dispute that eventually split the party into factions. On the surface, as described by the New York Times in 1939, the issue concerned the specifics of the New Deal. The moderates or “conservatives” supported limited federal interventions, while the “liberals” were pushing for a much more expansive interventionist program. The…
Wanjiru Njoya
May 7, 2026
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The Good President

Walk through the biography or history section of any bookstore and you will likely see many works on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man with a severe handicap who overcame the odds to serve as the nation’s chief executive for more than a dozen years, a president who saved American democracy, as well as capitalism, the leader who, during a major…
Ryan Walters
May 6, 2026
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Crying Out in the Wilderness

A review of Joseph Scotchie, Samuel T. Francis and the Revolution from the Middle (Shotwell, 2025) by Jack Trotter In the Old Testament, the prophet Samuel is called three times by God to “listen to the voice of the people.” In these latter days, his namesake, Samuel Francis (1947-2005), is often described as a “prophet,” even by some of those who reviled…
Jack Trotter
May 5, 2026
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Contrasting Unionists

A Brief Look at Samuel Mitcham’s The Encyclopedia of Union Generals Once upon a time, the American Civil War was widely regarded as a national epic.  Not a divinely-mandated Unionist crusade against wicked slavedrivers, but something akin to the terrible Trojan War as recounted by Homer. Under this tragic perspective, a special place might be accorded to figures such as…
Jerry Salyer
May 4, 2026
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The South Will Always Do It Again

I live in Alabama, and I see what’s happening to the South with my own eyes. Through the Abbeville Institute, I also stay connected with fellow Southern thinkers, so I read about the same things happening elsewhere. We are not experiencing cultural mass hysteria, because what’s happening is real. Institutional erosion, demographic churn, homogenized media, and the steady replacement of…
Tom Daniel
May 1, 2026