Behind Enemy Lines with President Pierce: Principles Over Politics by Marshall DeRosa Blog Post
Mon, 14 Jul 2014 01:59:02 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
States’ Rights versus National Wrongs: The Tenth Amendment Awakening, the Supreme Court be Damned by Marshall DeRosa Blog Post
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 13:33:45 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
The Confederate Constitution of 1861, Part 1 by Marshall DeRosa Blog Post
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 01:26:13 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
The Confederate Constitution of 1861, Part 2 by Marshall DeRosa Blog Post
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 01:27:06 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
Marshall-Wythe School of Law: Preserving What is True and Valuable Blog Post
During the weekend of 15 to 16 February, I had the great honor to represent my law school at the 48th Annual Spong Moot Court Tournament hosted by William & Mary’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law. My team did not fair too well, but I was treated to the wonderful hospitality of the law school’s library team when I inquired about…
Robert McReynoldsMarch 6, 2019
Jefferson as the “Architect of American Liberty” Blog Post
In Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty, (Basic Books, 2017), John B. Boles offers us another biography of Thomas Jefferson. In his brief introduction, he mentions that his aim is to present Jefferson as “politician, party leader, executive; architect, musician, oenophile, gourmand, traveler; inventor, historian, political theorist; land owner, farmer, slaveholder; and son, father, grandfather.” He cautions readers that his portrait…
M. Andrew HolowchakApril 23, 2024
The Fasola Fellowship Blog Post
I’m not deaf to the vibrant Country music chatter. Got opinions, but on social media, I made a vow: don’t discuss the current thing. Yet, the discourse reminded of something. Donald Davidson was a man of tradition. He liked the old way. Saw a kinship between song meant for singing and verse meant for reading, a stance rare among his…
Chase SteelyApril 15, 2024
Republic or Democracy Blog Post
Back in 1966, the conservative activist and F.B.I. operative Dan Smoot produced a short film, A Constitutional Republic, Not a Democracy. Anybody who calls the United States a democracy, he said, is trying to subvert the Constitution of the United States — we’re not a democracy; we’re a republic. Probably because there are supposed to be two political parties here,…
Kevin Orlin JohnsonApril 10, 2024
The Gentleman From Virginia Blog Post
A review of John Randolph of Roanoke (Louisiana State University Press, 2012) by David Johnson One might assume that John Randolph of Roanoke, who may be the most singular individual in American political history, would be the subject of numerous biographies. The earliest attempt to capture something of the man was Powhatan Bouldin’s Home Reminiscences, written in 1878, a book…
John DevannyApril 8, 2024
Self-Evident Truths Blog Post
Armies sometimes crush liberty, but they cannot conquer ideas. Jabez L. M. Curry (Lieutenant colonel, CSA, 1861-1865) From the African continent to the shores of America, the people coercively enslaved were victims of government action, inaction, or a combination of the two. Whether the government is led by a tribal chieftain or a so-called representative government, all governments are political…
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 21, 2024
How Northern Stupidity and Plundering Saved a Southern City Blog Post
Lynchburg, Virginia, today displays many markers of its Civil War history. There are several signs in and around the city that indicate where Confederate forces were placed in defense of the city. There is a statue of a Confederate infantryman at the top of Monument Terrace. In Riverside Park, what is left of the hull of Marshall, which carried the…
M. Andrew HolowchakFebruary 8, 2024
God Bless Texas Blog Post
On Friday, 26 January, Slate magazine ran a piece entitled “GOP Governors Invoke the Confederate Theory of Secession to Justify Border Violations.” Slate has an interesting definition of “border violations.” A sensible, normal person would think that meant crossing the border illegally. Slate uses the phrase to refer to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has taken steps to guard his…
Earl StarbuckJanuary 29, 2024
Lincoln’s Prisoners Blog Post
Within two months of taking office, in the midst of what he termed a “rebellion” and an “insurrection” against the national authority, the President of the United States took an extraordinary action. Sending a letter to the army’s commanding general about the deteriorating situation, the commander-in-chief authorized the suspension of habeas corpus, a legal safeguard that requires a detained citizen…
Ryan WaltersJanuary 11, 2024
The South in the Interpretation of the Constitution Blog Post
Editor’s Note: This chapter is republished from The South in the Building of the Nation series (1909). In the making of the American Nation, the Southern states have played a conspicuous part-a part which has not received proper recognition at the hands of historians at home or abroad. This neglect of the South is largely the result of the views…
J.A.C. ChandlerNovember 17, 2023
The Night of Replaced Glass Blog Post
This week, new stained-glass windows at the National Cathedral of the United States were unveiled. Were these new windows a testament to the saving power of Jesus Christ? Did these windows proclaim peace? Did they show Elijah carried into the clouds, or John the Baptist in the river? Not at all. These four new windows proudly proclaim NO and FOUL…
Sara SassOctober 3, 2023
Divorcing Ourselves from Akhil Reed Amar Blog Post
Editor’s note: This piece originally ran as a five part series at The Independent Institute. Just a month ago, National Review (the supposed Gray Lady of the Right) ran a piece by Yale’s Akhil Reed Amar entitled Declaring Independence from Thomas Jefferson. The piece is a paean to centralized power imbued with presentism as Amar virtue signals and plays the role of Pied Piper as…
William J. WatkinsSeptember 27, 2023
A Confederate Bookshelf Blog Post
Originally printed in The South to Posterity: An Introduction to the Writing of Confederate History (1951) The appended brief Reading List of books on Confederate history is designed for those who do not aspire to become specialists but wish to have a moderate familiarity with the literature. Those who make their first adventure in the field will do well to…
Douglas Southall FreemanJuly 10, 2023
What the South Has Done About Its History Blog Post
From The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Feb., 1936), pp. 3-28. The South has often been referred to as a virgin field for the historian. Other sections of the country have written almost the minutest details of their history or suffered others to do it, even to magnifying the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere’s Ride into…
E. Merton CoulterApril 20, 2023
The Confederate Constitution, Part II Blog Post
From the 2005 Abbeville Institute Summer School. Continued from Part One. Over the course of the 20th Century, the States have been increasingly sidelined. Everything is considered through a national lens and said to have a national scope. Consider, for example, the Seventeenth Amendment, which gave us the direct election of senators. In a recent Supreme Court case, the State…
Marshall DeRosaApril 10, 2023
The Tower on the Tyger Blog Post
“Do fish swim in a whiskey barrel?” was the only logical response when Brandon Meeks, the Bard of Southern Arkansas, asked me to represent the new Southern journal Moonshine & Magnolias at the Upcountry Literary Festival held in Union, SC. You see, Dr. James Everett Kibler was set to receive the William “Singing Billy” Walker Award for Lifetime Achievement in…
Chase SteelyApril 3, 2023
The Confederate Constitution of 1861, Part I Blog Post
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School You know, you should ask yourself, “Why is the Confederacy so important?” Not only from a historical perspective, but also prospectively, what is it about the Confederacy and the leaders of that time that should encourage not only us people with Southern sympathies, but all people who are interested in good government generally,…
Marshall DeRosaMarch 14, 2023
Memorials to a Lie Blog Post
Reconcile: verb – 1st definition: restore friendly relations between; cause to coexist in harmony. Reconciliation: noun –1st definition: the restoration of friendly relations. For years, many beautiful Confederate monuments and sculptures have come under attack and been dismantled and possibly even destroyed. The one presently in the WOKE culture’s cross-hairs is a monument erected in our “national cemetery” – otherwise known as the purloined property of…
Valerie ProtopapasMarch 8, 2023
The No-So-Enlightened Patriarch of Monticello Blog Post
A Review of Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf’s Most Blessed of the Patriarchs (Liveright, 2016) by M. Andrew Holowchak While Pete Onuf’s somewhat incoherent 2007 book on Jefferson, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson—it is mere a rag-tag collection of his thoughts on various topics related to Jefferson—betrays unsubtly a bitter, even angry, Onuf, intent in belittling Jefferson, his 2016 collaboration…
M. Andrew HolowchakMarch 2, 2023
The Evil of Unmitigated Rights Blog Post
What happens when there is no clear “right answer?” What happens when one can be “sort of” right (or wrong)? What is the redress demanded when a strongly declared viewpoint is not nearly as correct as first believed? In other words, what does one do when reality is not so “cut and dried” as one first believed and one has…
Valerie ProtopapasFebruary 28, 2023
It’s Washington’s Birthday, Not President’s Day Blog Post
Cindy L. Arbelbide, a historian of holidays, has written, “Historic dates, like stepping stones, create a footpath through our heritage. Experienced by one generation and recalled by those to come, it is through these annual recollections that our heritage is honored.” The celebration of the birthday of George Washington began during his lifetime and continued after his death. He was…
Timothy A. DuskinFebruary 22, 2023
The 518 Blog Post
The names, below, are a few of the 375,000 Confederate soldiers about whom Union soldier and president of the United States, William McKinley, said: . . . every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity…
Gene Kizer, Jr.February 1, 2023
The Soul of the South Blog Post
My wife is from Atlanta, so we visit Georgia frequently. In addition to downtown Hotlanta with its nauseating CNN Studio Tours and “World of Coca-Cola,” I’ve become acquainted with beautiful old towns in Marietta, Alpharetta, Roswell, and Dahlonega. I’ve explored the Chattahoochee, Stone Mountain, and various historic houses, plantations, and churches across North Georgia. I’ve seen the Braves, the Yellowjackets,…
Casey ChalkJanuary 10, 2023
The Glory Days of the Kanawha Canal Blog Post
Southern essayist and former Lynchburger Dr. George W. Bagby (1828–1883) described departure of one of the bateaux on a trip from Richmond to Lynchburg on the Kanawha Canal, while he was then a lad, in a short piece titled “Canal Reminiscences”: At last we were off, slowly pushed along under the bridge on Seventh Street; then the horses were hitched…
M. Andrew HolowchakJanuary 9, 2023
A Southern Christmas Sampler Blog Post
If you’re like my family, you probably start playing Christmas music as soon as the calendar hits November 1, and you keep it on rotation through the 12 Days of Christmas in January. The classics from the Big Band and post World War II era are staples, but most are written for a distinctively Northern audience. Traditional Christian hymns also…
Brion McClanahanDecember 15, 2022
Virgina First Blog Post
I. THE name First given to the territory occupied by the present United States was Virginia. It was bestowed upon the Country by Elizabeth, greatest of English queens. The United States of America are mere words of description. They are not a name. The rightful and historic name of this great Republic is “Virginia.” We must get back to it,…
Lyon G. TylerOctober 24, 2022
Douglas Southall Freeman Blog Post
From the 2011 Abbeville Institute Summer School. The topic I chose was “Douglas Southall Freeman, a Southern Historian’s Historian.” But I could have all kinds of meanings. It could be he’s a Southern historian’s historian, or he’s a Southern historian’s historian. He’s also a Southern historian’s military historian, because most of the topics that he wrote about were military oriented….
Jonathan WhiteOctober 19, 2022
Driving Through Southern Maryland, Part 3 Blog Post
Part 1 and Part 2 It’s easy to be transported back in time in Charles County. Rural roads meander through woods, across streams and between fields, some adorned with tobacco barns. Sprinkled throughout this typical Southern Maryland countryside are historic sites, villages, and quiet churches. The final resting places of settlers and patriots, churchyards tell their own story of regional…
Brett MoffattOctober 14, 2022
McCulloch v. Maryland Blog Post
Editor’s Note: This essay was written by Spencer Roane under the pseudonym Amphictyon in 1819. I. To the Editor of the Enquirer : SIR: I have read with considerable attention the opinion pronounced by the Chief Justice of the U. S. in the case of McCulloch against the State of Maryland. In that opinion we are informed, First, That it…
Abbeville InstituteAugust 29, 2022
Aunt Elizabeth, the Desert Fox, and General Jackson Blog Post
Raised on a tobacco farm at the edge of the Chinquapin Forest in Southern Maryland, my Aunt Elizabeth for much of her life attempted to divest herself of her rustic upbringing. When she graduated from nursing school, she married and subsequently lived for long spells in South America and Europe. In spite of all this, fortunately, she never succeeded in…
J.L. BennettAugust 8, 2022
Ideas Have Consequences Blog Post
Palatial Porches and Dying Civilizations I take great pains to ensure that the devilish tempo of modern life never breaches my portico. Life should always be in adante, and I like to imagine that the haint blue of the porch repels the unclean spirits of prestissimo. A fine porch can make you feel like King Solomon, and a fine man…
Lafayette LeeJuly 27, 2022
The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals Blog Post
A review of The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals (Regnery History, 2022) by Samuel Mitcham The valor of the Confederate Army is one of the greatest stories in American history. Southerners needed brilliant leaders because they faced such overwhelming odds. They were outnumbered four to one and outgunned a hundred to one. The author’s purpose of the book is to make…
Jeff WolvertonJuly 21, 2022
A View of the Constitution Blog Post
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School. St. George Tucker is a significant member of the Revolutionary generation, the Founding Generation, and he was looked to by Jefferson and Madison as the judge of Jeffersonian democracy, the man who saved the judiciary from false doctrines in his View of the Constitution and his other writings.[1] Tucker’s View was published in…
Clyde WilsonJuly 18, 2022
The Attack on Leviathan, Part 2 Blog Post
I. The Diversity of America Parts of this chapter (along with several others) are from “Sectionalism in the United States,” Hound and Horn, VI (July-September, 1933). The link to Davidson’s “Sectionalism” essay provides some context of its genesis—some of which is a smidge uncomfortable. In The Idea of the American South (1979), Michael O’Brien portrays Davidson as a misfit compared…
Chase SteelyJuly 15, 2022
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Origins of Southern Constitutionalism Blog Post
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School On April 10th, 1606, King James I of England (and VI of Scotland) granted letters of patent to Sir Thomas Gates and others, thereby establishing two companies for the settlement of colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America, which was then called Virginia in honour of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. The…
John GrahamJuly 7, 2022
Randolph Shotwell in War and Prison Blog Post
We live in a regime with an industrial output of lies about Southern history, so we should let our forebears speak for themselves whenever we can. I have been reporting on little known Southern books and here is another. Randolph Shotwell in the 1880s put together some materials for his an account of his extraordinary life, using his diaries, letters…
Clyde WilsonJune 17, 2022
The Confederate Constitution Blog Post
From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School I come from a somewhat different mold and my thought processes on these issues have changed a bit over the last couple of years. I have written on American jurisprudence and I have detected what I would deem to be ominous trends in American case law, and also in international law. I also…
Marshall DeRosaJune 6, 2022
The Anti-Federalists and the Ratification Debates Blog Post
From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School. I’m going to be talking about the Anti-Federalists. The first question we might ask is: “Who were the Anti-Federalists and why did they take the position they took?” Today, historians are never happy just to study the writings, speeches, correspondence, and other documents produced by the protagonists of an era or a battle….
Marco BassaniMay 23, 2022
The Confederate Constitution and the Rule of Law Blog Post
Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaApril 27, 2022
Did the Confederacy Oppose the Rule of Law? Blog Post
Today is Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama. Most Americans believe the War and Southern history are synonymous, so much so that to many, the War has come to define the South. If you are reading this post and have followed the Abbeville Institute for any length of time, you know that our mission to “explore what is true and valuable…
Brion McClanahanApril 25, 2022
Kith and Kin: The Enduring Ethic of the South Blog Post
From the 2016 Abbeville Institute Summer School. So, what I have to say is gonna be, I think, somewhat maybe tedious. I’ve tried to boil down stuff I’ve been working on for years, many chapters of a book project, and sometimes when you boil things down, it’s not like distilling rose petals. You don’t get the fine essence, what you…
Thomas FlemingApril 19, 2022
The Gathering Mystique of Union Blog Post
‘Union’ neither denotes nor explicates a form of government. It is a word estranged in both the commonplace and the legal arts. There is no constraint to the daily rumble of social or personal definition. Any two or more people can form a ‘union’, even without using the word. At law ‘union’ is not a term of art. Rather it…
Vito MussomeliApril 4, 2022
Two Southern Heroes Blog Post
The Adventures and Recollections of General Walter P. Lane, A San Jacinto Veteran (1887) John Salmon Ford, Rip Ford’s Texas (1885, 1963) Our forebears of the antebellum South are being subjected to pervasive dishonest slander (by both left and right) these days. Brave and honourable people who did far more than their fair share in the creation of the United…
Clyde WilsonFebruary 22, 2022
An Able Address Against Conscription Blog Post
Editor’s Note: This speech was delivered in 1917 and was published in the September issue of Watson’s Magazine. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: Deeply impressed with the gravity of this occasion, and an earnest desire to preserve the liberties of my people and our common country, I beg to submit, that — The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United…
H.W. JohnstonNovember 19, 2021
Missouri’s Road to Secession Blog Post
Missouri celebrated her 160th anniversary of her secession from the Union on October 28. It was that day, in 1861, that both chambers of the duly elected Missouri legislature passed an ordinance of secession in extra session in Neosho, Missouri. The ordinance was signed by the duly elected governor three days later, on October 31, 1861. Missouri was officially accepted…
Wes FranklinNovember 4, 2021
Economic Interpretation of American History Blog Post
This article was originally published in the May 1916 issue of the Journal of Political Economy. To turn men away from the “barren” field of political history is one professed object of Professor Charles A. Beard in the two volumes which he has in recent years submitted to the public. Other purposes of these interesting volumes are to call the…
William E. DoddOctober 14, 2021
Eminent Southrons and Cinematic Slander Blog Post
This essay was originally published in the August 1995 issue of Chronicles magazine. Some folks have been kind enough to notice my absence from these pages, and a few have been even kinder and expressed regret at it. The fact is that my wife Dale and I are working on a book. It will be called 1001 Things Everyone Should…
John Shelton ReedOctober 12, 2021
Spencer Roane: The Forgotten Founder Blog Post
A review of Irreconcilable Founders: Spencer Roane, John Marshall, and the Nature of America’s Constitutional Republic (LSU Press, 2021) by David Johnson Of all the leading Jeffersonians of the early Republic—Jefferson, Madison, John Randolph of Roanoke, and John Taylor of Caroline—Spencer Roane is arguably the most obscure. This obscurity is lamentable because while Jefferson and Madison built and led their party,…
Aaron N. ColemanSeptember 30, 2021
Break It Up Blog Post
A review of Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union (Little Brown, 2020) by Richard Kreitner Horrors! Richard Kreitner, a neo-Confederate? How will he, in the stable of Leftist The Nation magazine, founded as a successor to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator, ever publish again! One must admire Kreitner’s gift of writing in…
Terry HulseySeptember 14, 2021
Was the Battle of Liberty Place a “Race Riot”? Blog Post
Although commonly portrayed as one of the largest mob attacks on blacks by white racists during Reconstruction, the so-called 1874 Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans was really a conflict between the militias of two competing state governments. The story begins in 1868 with the election of Carpetbagger Henry Warmoth as Louisiana’s first elected Republican governor. To ensure future…
Philip LeighJuly 22, 2021
Slavery and Agency Blog Post
Reviewers are unrelenting in their praise for the new Amazon streaming television series The Underground Railroad, a magic realist cinematographic depiction of the eponymous book by Colson Whitehead, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A review in ABC News calls the show “a masterpiece that raises series TV to the level of art.” The Washington Post has featured…
Casey ChalkMay 31, 2021
“Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home” Blog Post
Seventy-six years ago, on May 8, 1945, at 2301 hours, Central European Time, World War II in Europe officially ended. Although the war would continue in the Pacific Theatre for several more months, May 8 marked the dramatic end of what was certainly the most horrific and disastrous land war in history. European culture was changed irrevocably. A civilization which…
Boyd CatheyMay 25, 2021
Bad History Masquerading as an Appeal to Peace and Piety: A Response to Allen Guelzo’s “Why We Must Forget the Lost Cause” Blog Post
It is a testimony to the prevalence of anti-Southern sentiment that The Gospel Coalition (TGC), one of the most prominent evangelical parachurch entities, has provided a platform for such sentiments by publishing an article entitled “Why We Must Forget the Lost Cause.” Written by the prominent Princeton University Professor Allen Guelzo, this piece was published in the “Bible and Theology”…
Tom HerveyMay 24, 2021
Did Slavery End on June 19th? Blog Post
After the end of the War Between the States, the Union army established the District of Texas under the command of Major General Gordon Granger. The Emancipation Proclamation had been enforced by the Union army in every other state of the Confederate States of America which it had occupied. Texas escaped Union occupation during the war and the Union army…
Timothy A. DuskinMay 10, 2021
Separate but Equal? Blog Post
A Review of Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation (W.W. Norton, 2019) by Steve Luxenberg In 21st-Century America, there are precious few mediums through which the issue of race can be addressed with even a modicum of rationality. One of the few means still available is the thorough, well-researched work produced by…
Joshua DoggrellApril 13, 2021
Honoring Calhoun Blog Post
Editor’s Note: This speech was delivered before the Senate on March 12, 1910, at the dedication of John C. Calhoun’s statue in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. Address of Mr. (Henry Cabot) Lodge, of Massachusetts, United States Senate, 1910 Mr. PRESIDENT: When the senior Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Tillman), whose illness we all deplore, did me the…
Henry Cabot LodgeMarch 18, 2021
The Confederate Rule of Law Blog Post
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 17:53:19 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
The Confederate Constitution Blog Post
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 17:54:43 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
The Principles of '76 and the New World Order Blog Post
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 17:56:15 +0000 Marshall DeRosa Download MP3
Marshall DeRosaFebruary 24, 2021
Judicial Review? No. Nullification Blog Post
“Acts of congress, to be binding, must be made pursuant to the constitution; otherwise they are not laws, but a mere nullity.” -St. George Tucker “There is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our government by the noiseless, and therefore unalarming instrumentality of the Supreme Court.” -Thomas Jefferson As a pro-life Jeffersonian, I am constantly frustrated…
Earl StarbuckFebruary 22, 2021
“Fight for Old Dixie!” Blog Post
This Thanksgiving, the second of three NFL games will feature one of the oldest (albeit moribund) rivalries in professional football history: the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Football Team, previously known as the Redskins. Since the late 1970’s, the Cowboys, who with the Detroit Lions always play on Thanksgiving, have been nicknamed “America’s Team.” Yet Washington, who under woke capitalist…
Casey ChalkNovember 26, 2020
The Power of the Powerless Blog Post
‘The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.’ – Milan Kundera ‘I personally think…
James Rutledge RoeschNovember 4, 2020
A Neo-Confederate Prediction of Post-Election America Blog Post
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 DeRosaOctober 27, 2020
When Yankees Pack the Court Blog Post
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 WaltersOctober 9, 2020
Was Secession Treason? Blog Post
Recently an acquaintance of mine remarked that the Confederate statue in her hometown should be removed from its present place of honour and relocated to the Confederate cemetery which is presently (and sadly) in a state of neglect. The statue should be moved, she said, because while the boys who fought and died during the Late Unpleasantness deserve to be…
Earl StarbuckSeptember 18, 2020
The Fire Eater Blog Post
Edmund Ruffin, the consummate Fire-Eater, was far greater than the sum of his parts; as Avery Craven, the finest of his biographers, expressed, “as the greatest agriculturist in a rural civilization; one of the first and most intense Southern nationalists; and the man who fired the first gun at Sumter and ended his own life in grief when the civilization…
Neil KumarAugust 26, 2020
“False Story” Historiography Blog Post
“Madam, don’t bring your sons up to detest the United States Government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities and make your sons Americans.” -Lee writing to a Southern mother, with a heart wrenching of hatred towards the North. Source: Proceedings & Debates, 2nd Session of the Seventy-First Congress, United States of America, Vol. LXXII-Part 8,…
Gerald LefurgyAugust 17, 2020
The Remnant, Part III Blog Post
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your land in your presence; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Unless the Lord of Hosts had left to us a…
James Rutledge RoeschAugust 10, 2020
The Atlantic Gets It Wrong, Again Blog Post
I don’t have time to detail everything the piece in question gets wrong, because it’s a lot. I’m sure this will be fodder for Abbeville posts for a long time, so I’m going to focus on the Constitutional issues. Stephanie McCurry writes: “In late February 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, the seven breakaway states formed the C.S.A.; swore in a president,…
Aaron GleasonJuly 28, 2020
God’s Country Shall Not Be Damned Blog Post
In Memory of Dr. Neil Compton, Arkansas Hero, 1912-1999 Neil Compton of Bentonville, Arkansas, my beloved hometown, stands as a paragon of civic virtue. Born in Falling Springs, western Benton County, he lived with his family on Upper Coon Creek until the age of eleven, when he moved to Bentonville upon the election of his father, David, as Benton County…
Neil KumarJune 4, 2020
American Girondins Blog Post
Who should Americans blame for the iconoclasm on display during the “protests” in virtually every American city this past weekend? Not the Left. They are the easy targets, and not without culpability. The washed up hippies teaching in American classrooms at every level have certainly been a major component of the cultural Marxism that now saturates American society. But they…
Brion McClanahanJune 3, 2020
Southern Rock for the Apocalypse, Part VII Blog Post
Ramblin’ Man – Allman Bros This was the biggest hit for the Allman Brothers and it led Lynyrd Skynyrd to Sweet Home Alabama. Every Southern rock outfit wanted to recreate the magic of Ramblin’ Man. The tune was written by Dickey Betts and was one of the last AB songs to feature Berry Oakley on bass. Homesick – Atlanta Rhythm…
Brion McClanahanMay 29, 2020
Southern Rock for the Apocalypse, Part V Blog Post
A series by Brion McClanahan, Tom Daniel, and Jeff Rogers Loan Me a Dime – Boz Scaggs Boz Scaggs rose to prominence after teaming with Steve Miller in the late 1960s on his first two albums. That led to a record contract and a date with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm section in Florence, Alabama in 1969. He knew where to…
Brion McClanahanMay 8, 2020
Southern Rock for the Apocalypse, Part III Blog Post
A list compiled by Brion McClanahan, Tom Daniel, and Jeff Rogers Goin’ Down Slow – Duane Allman When Duane Allman died in 1971, the world lost one of the best slide guitar players in the history of recorded music. By this point, Allman had become famous as part of his Allman Brother Band, but his influence on American music began…
Brion McClanahanApril 24, 2020
Southern Rock for the Apocalypse, Part II Blog Post
A list compiled by Brion McClanahan, Tom Daniel, and Jeff Rogers Blood in the Water – The Jompson Brothers Before Chris Stapleton became Grammy Award winner Chris Stapleton, he was a singer/songwriter from Kentucky who wrote several hits for other musicians and kicked around Nashville as a part of other bands, including the bluegrass outfit The Steeldrivers, a nod to…
Brion McClanahanApril 17, 2020
Southern Rock for the Apocalypse, Part I Blog Post
A list compiled by Brion McClanahan, Tom Daniel, and Jeff Rogers Almost everyone in the United States is quarantined, and while many are working from home, it seems that most people have a bit more time on their hands. What should you be listening to during the COVID apocalypse? Southern music, of course, and if you are a rock fan,…
Brion McClanahanApril 10, 2020
The South in Arms…What Might Have Been Blog Post
Literature, be it works of fact or fiction, might well be described as a window through which the reader is invited to view the world as the author chooses to see it. Between fact and fiction though there is a third world in which the writer is granted literary license to transform the two other worlds into the fantastic realm…
John MarquardtApril 8, 2020
The South Lives Yet Blog Post
I recently wrote that “our South still exists, and not only in our own hearts; dotted throughout the former Confederacy lie pockets of that Edenic idyll our ancestors fought so bitterly to preserve.” On a spring drive from Columbia, South Carolina to Bentonville, Arkansas through Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, God intervened to show me just such a place. As I…
Neil KumarApril 6, 2020
The Duty of the Hour Blog Post
The first thing I learned about Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest was that he had twenty-nine horses shot out from under him in battle; in my fifth-grade social studies class, I remember thinking to myself that the most dangerous thing one could be was one of Forrest’s horses. The unconquerable Tennessean was bold, severe, and uncompromising in the discharge of his…
Neil KumarMarch 25, 2020
The Myth of the Lost Cause Blog Post
A review of The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won (Regnery History, 2015 ) by Edward Bonekemper The late Edward H. Bonekemper III had a bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and a master’s degree in American history from Old Dominion University. He also had a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. He retired…
John C. WhatleyMarch 10, 2020
A Southerner’s Movie Guide Part XI Blog Post
15. Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Southerners: Films for the Family The major movie stars of the 1930s through the 1970s came from the East and Midwest. Nevertheless, there was a strong presence of native Southerners in the top ranks: Oliver Hardy, Ava Gardner, Randolph Scott, Joseph Cotten, Jeffrey Hunter, Miriam Hopkins, John Payne (an almost forgotten Virginian star of film…
Clyde WilsonFebruary 27, 2020
The Steel Woods Blog Post
There’s a Southern accentWhere I come from.The young un’s call it country,And the Yankees call it dumb. Tom Petty, “Southern Accents” (Covered by The Steel Woods) Southern rock and “outlaw country” are experiencing a renaissance of late. Undoubtedly influenced by the rash of bubble gum pop country from Nashville, this darker and more authentic working class music speaks to Americans…
Brion McClanahanDecember 11, 2019
Does the South Exist? Blog Post
A Review of The Idea of The American South, 1920-1941, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979) by Michael O’Brien. I have an invitation to extend to Michael O’Brien, the British author of The Idea of the American South, 1920-1941. At his convenience, I would like Mr. O’Brien to accompany me to a small establishment (one of those notorious Southern “fighting and…
James J. Thompson, Jr.November 19, 2019
What They Don’t Want to Hear Blog Post
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell “Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as…
Ben JonesNovember 4, 2019
Behind Enemy Lines Blog Post
Just before Christmas of 1860, the chain of events that was to soon to lead the nation into four bloody years of undeclared war began with South Carolina exercising its constitutional right to leave the Union and revert to its original status as a sovereign entity. Six of South Carolina’s neighboring States quickly followed her out of the Union and…
John MarquardtOctober 23, 2019
St. George Tucker’s Jeffersonian Constitution Blog Post
One could argue that there are two basic visions for America: the Hamiltonian and the Jeffersonian. The former is nationalist, calling for centralized power and an industrial, mercantilist society characterized by banking, commercialism, and a robust military. Its early leaders had monarchical tendencies. The latter vision involves a slower, more leisurely and agrarian society, political decentralization, popular sovereignty, and local…
Allen MendenhallOctober 11, 2019
A Love of Place Blog Post
Southerners love home. This is true of many people throughout history, but place has, in part, defined the South. The earliest settlers to what became the South championed its Utopian physical qualities: warm weather, a long growing season, bountiful plant and animal life. Bad weather, disease carrying insects, and dangerous wildlife were annoyances to be tolerated if not overcome. Southern…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 20, 2019
Don’t Remove Confederate Monuments Blog Post
This essay was presented at the 2019 Abbeville Institute Summer School on the New South. In 1965 Texas novelist William Humphrey wrote: If the Civil War is more alive to the Southerner than the Northerner it is because all of the past is, and this is so because the Southerner has a sense of having been present there himself in the person…
Philip LeighAugust 30, 2019
Strom Thurmond, the “Dixiecrats,” and Southern Identity Blog Post
This essay was presented at our 2019 Summer School on The New South. James Strom Thurmond, or Strom, was born on December 5, 1902 in Edgefield, South Carolina. This historic county was also the home of Francis Hugh Wardlaw, the author of the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, and Preston Brooks, who caned Charles Sumner in 1856. These three are…
Michael MartinAugust 21, 2019
The Case for the Confederacy Blog Post
This essay was originally published in The Lasting South (Regnery, 1957). Recently when Bertrand Russell was a speaking-guest of the Richmond Area University Center, its director, Colonel Herbert Fitzroy, drove the philosopher from Washington to Richmond over Route One. After some miles the usually voluble Russell grew silent, and nothing would draw him out. Then, as if emerging from deep…
Clifford DowdeyAugust 7, 2019
Driving Through Virginia’s Historic Triangle, Part II Blog Post
George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson trod the roads of this area as the colony of Virginia grew. George Mason, James Madison and Richard Henry Lee sat in the public houses debating political events. British royal governors, the comte de Rochambeau, Marquis de Lafayette and the Baron von Steuben were just a few of the many Europeans passing across…
Brett MoffattJuly 29, 2019
The Place of Nathaniel Macon in Southern History Blog Post
Many who are well acquainted with Southern history are almost entirely unfamiliar with the historical character of Nathaniel Macon. He is often mentioned by the best of authors as a North Carolinian, as a Georgian, or simply as a Southern Democrat. His share in the political development of the South is but vaguely known, yet every southern state has either…
William E. DoddJune 27, 2019
A Jeffersonian Leader: William Branch Giles Blog Post
But Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge is a worshipper of Hamilton, whom Giles hated, and an exponent of broad construction, which Giles bitterly fought.
D.A. AndersonJune 17, 2019
Democracy vs. Aristocracy in Virginia in 1830 Blog Post
There is in some of our libraries a certain book which the writer of this article ventures to believe is not generally as familiar as it should be to the student of politics. For himself, he chanced one day, several years ago, to blow the dust from off its time-worn binding and nine hundred dreary-looking pages of fine print, to…
Jeffrey R. BrackettJune 14, 2019
Abraham Lincoln Crushes Civil Liberties in Maryland Blog Post
Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as one of the nation’s greatest Presidents.[1] He is the subject of at least 15,000 books.[2] A popular poem (later set to music) responded to Lincoln’s call for troops in biblical terms: “We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.…”[3] Upon Lincoln’s death, Bishop Horatio Potter wrote that “[a] glorious career of service and…
Michael SchearerJune 6, 2019
What Did 19th Century Black Americans Think About Confederate Monuments? Blog Post
One argument used by those wanting to remove Confederate statues is that contemporary blacks had little chance to oppose them when they were erected. Aside from anecdotal evidence that blacks joined white crowds to observe the dedication ceremonies, one example in Mississippi provides undeniable evidence of explicit high-level black support. In 1890 the Mississippi legislature voted on a bill to appropriate $10,000 for…
Philip LeighMay 31, 2019
Remembering Mel Bradford Blog Post
A review of A Defender of Southern Conservatism: M.E. Bradford and His Achievements (Missouri, 1999) by Clyde N. Wilson, ed. Clyde Wilson, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun, has assembled and introduced this collection about a man notable, among other things, for his own affinity with Calhoun and…
J.O. TateMay 6, 2019
The Real Cause Blog Post
A review of For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (Oxford, 1997) by James McPherson Miss Emma Holmes of Charleston, SC, and a survivor of the War Between the States, has left us one of innumerable diaries from the South about the conflict of 1861-1865 (see The Diary of Miss Emma Holmes, 1861-1866 edited by John…
W. Kirk WoodApril 30, 2019
The South and the American Union Blog Post
Stretching from the Potomac River across the southeastern quarter of the United States in a broad arc into the plains of Texas is a region known geographically and politically as “the South.” That this region has been distinctive by reason of its climate, type of produce, ethnic composition, culture, manners, and speech is known to every citizen of the country….
Richard M. WeaverApril 22, 2019
Lee, Virginia, and the Union Blog Post
The Hall of Fame recently dedicated at New York University was conceived from the Ruhmes Halle in Bavaria. This structure on University Heights, on the Harlem river, in the borough of the Bronx, New York City, has, or is intended to have, a panel of bronze with other mementos for each of one hundred and fifty native-born Americans who have…
Fred H. CoxMarch 27, 2019
Peter Onuf’s Jefferson Blog Post
A review of Jefferson and the Virginians: Democracy, Constitutions, and Empire (LSU Press, 2018) by Peter Onuf Historian Peter S. Onuf first saw the light as a Connecticut Yankee. Powerful of intellect even in his teens, he met the American Revolution as the subject of serious study in a Johns Hopkins graduate seminar (in which he was the sole undergraduate)…
Kevin R.C. GutzmanFebruary 26, 2019
Podcast Episode 149 Blog Post
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Dec 3-7, 2018 Topics: Agrarianism, United States Constitution, John Marshall, Andrew Johnson, Thomas Johnson
Brion McClanahanDecember 8, 2018
The Problem with Lawyers and the Constitution Blog Post
On November 10, 2018, the Abbeville Institute hosted an event called The Revival of Nullification and Secession in Dallas, TX. The purpose was to educate people on the means by which we can escape the hatred and hostility that is consuming not only headlines, but our very souls. The population of these United States is split pretty much equally in…
Suzanne ShermanDecember 5, 2018
The Man Who Made the Supreme Court Blog Post
A review of John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court (Basic Books, 2018) by Richard Brookhiser John Marshall presents a curious problem for Southern history. How can a man, born and bred in the same State, who breathed the same air and shared the same blood with Thomas Jefferson, have been such an ardent nationalist? The same question…
Brion McClanahanDecember 4, 2018
What if We Listened to the Southern Founders? Blog Post
Mel Bradford’s outstanding tome A Better Guide Than Reason lifted that phrase from a speech John Dickinson made during the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. Dickinson worried that the delegates to what we now call the “Constitutional Convention” were insistent on crafting a document that would reinvent the government of the United States, something James Madison proposed with his now famous…
Brion McClanahanOctober 10, 2018
Was Jesse James a Southern Robin Hood? Blog Post
There is a dichotomy to how people view Jesse James. While some have viewed him as a murdering thief, others have argued that he was like a modern-day Robin Hood. To really understand the man requires an examination of his life and an honest analysis of the events that shaped him in Missouri. WHO WAS JESSE JAMES? Jesse James was…
Michael MartinSeptember 27, 2018
The Legacy of Anti-Federalism Blog Post
A review of The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828 by Saul Cornell (University of North Carolina Press, 1999). The Anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the Constitution have not fared well among American historians and political , scientists. Nothing reveals more starkly the near-complete disinterest in Anti-Federalist thought than a bibliographical check of books and essays on…
James McClellanSeptember 18, 2018
When the Yankees Shut Down the First Amendment Blog Post
Constitutional Violation: Amendment One: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. “Freedom of speech and freedom of the press, precious relics of…
John M. TaylorSeptember 12, 2018
The Southern Muse of Ronnie Van Zant Blog Post
The 1970’s were an interesting time in the South. The 1970’s were the last time Southerners could be Southern without feeling the need to apologize for, or be ironic about, their Southern identity. In fact, in the 1970’s, it seemed to actually go a little beyond this. We shouldn’t push this too far, but in 1970’s America there seemed to…
Jeff RogersAugust 13, 2018
Lost Cause Myth or Yankee Propaganda Blog Post
Whether it’s the Civil War, War Between the States, the War for Southern Independence or Lincoln’s War, this extremely important period of American history continues to resonate powerfully over 150 years later. And with American Veterans monuments and artwork being censored and removed throughout the country, some might even say that Reconstruction and the fight over Jeffersonian ideals vs. Hamiltonianism never…
Lewis LibermanAugust 1, 2018
America Aflame Blog Post
A review of America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation, by David Goldfield (Bloomsbury Press, 2011). Whether or not the American Civil War might have been avoided has long been a subject of debate among historians. Some, like Allan Nevins and Charles and Mary Beard, saw the war as “an irrepressible conflict,” in the words of Abraham Lincoln’s…
Stephen M. KlugewiczJuly 10, 2018
Juneteenth: A Celebration of Nothing Blog Post
On June 19, 1865, Union forces arrived in Galveston, Texas and declared to the population of that state that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed its slaves. Called “Juneteenth,” it was initially celebrated in Texas, but it is now recognized in one way or another by 45 states and the District of Columbia. But what is it a celebration of? President…
Timothy A. DuskinJune 25, 2018
Tom Foolery Blog Post
There are neither Confederate monuments to be torn down in Japan nor Battle Flags to be lowered . . . but if there were, there could well be some Japanese who might wish to protest such symbols. While my wife Rieko would certainly not be among them, when she was attending high school one of her standard 1953 English text…
John MarquardtJune 20, 2018
Killing the Incorporation Doctrine Blog Post
A review of The 14th Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine by David Benner (Minneapolis: Life and Liberty Publishing Group, 2017) Even though I have always been a strong advocate of states’ rights and sovereignty, and for safeguarding the federal system, the “incorporation doctrine” had always troubled me. What is meant by the “incorporation doctrine”? The application, by the federal courts,…
Ryan WaltersMay 22, 2018
Yankee Sanctification Blog Post
“It was my first introduction to damn Yankees,” my oldest sister remarked of her first semester at James Madison University in the fall of 1982. It was here, at this university nestled in the mountains of Virginia and named after one of the state’s most famous sons, that her Northern dormitory suite-mates were horrified by such flagrant abuse of their…
Dissident MamaMay 16, 2018
The United States of Despotism? Blog Post
In an era in which serious concerns are discussed regarding police abuse, government surveillance, standing armies, increasing division and strife and the potential loss of constitutional rights, American Bastille details the accounts of the imprisonment and sufferings of approximately 70 people at the hands of the State (including pastors, Judges, U.S. Senators, Doctors, Farmers, Editors, Foreign Ministers and women) from…
Lewis LibermanApril 27, 2018
Modern Heresy Blog Post
Essayist William Deresiewicz recently lamented that modern college students, and college life in general, have become “profoundly unintellectual.” The “snowflake” generation is the byproduct of educational institutionalization. Will this be on the test, and will I get a study guide? Deresiewicz should also indict the faculty and administration who encourage this “unintellectual” environment. This results in a crop of students…
Donald LivingstonApril 18, 2018
Zombies No More: Secession, Nullification, and the Academy Blog Post
A review of Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought. Sanford Levinson, ed. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2016. The undead walk among us still, or so asserts Sanford Levinson, the editor of an important collection of essays on nullification and secession. Levinson and company are as mainstream a group political scientists, law professors, and historians as one might…
John DevannyApril 17, 2018
I’ll Take My Stand Blog Post
A review of I’ll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners (LSU, 2006). In this age where the homogenization of our culture is nearly complete, thanks largely to widespread media and rampant industrialism, I’ll Take My Stand remains as fresh and relevant as the day it was published more than seventy years ago. Instead of indulging in reactionary daydreams or nostalgia,…
Randall IveyApril 3, 2018
30 Years From Hank Williams Blog Post
This piece was originally printed in Southern Partisan magazine in 1985. Hank Williams has now been dead longer than he lived. And outside of a hundred or more fine songs, his thrity-year-old memory survives best among some of his cousins down in Georgiana, Alabama, about sixty miles south of Montgomery. Among them are Taft and Erleen Skipper (Taft’s daddy and…
Bill KoonMarch 28, 2018
The Lost Tribes of the Irish in the South Blog Post
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I am speaking but the plain truth when I tell you that I would rather be here tonight facing an assemblage of men and women of Irish blood and Irish breeding than in any other banquet hall on earth. For I am one who is Irish and didn’t know it; but now that I…
Irvin S. CobbMarch 19, 2018
Spencer Roane Blog Post
“It has been our happiness to believe, that in the partition of powers between the general and State governments, the former possessed only such as were expressly granted, or passed therewith as necessary incidents, while all the residuary powers were reserved by the latter.” Spencer Roane Had one-time friends John Adams and Thomas Jefferson not had such a high-profile and…
Joe WolvertonFebruary 26, 2018
Lies James Loewen Tells Us Blog Post
Propaganda. It’s a well-known word defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” And, I might add, used for the purpose of demonizing and destroying one’s enemies. The South has had more than its fair share of time in the crosshairs of Yankee propaganda, and…
Ryan WaltersFebruary 16, 2018
Christian Persecution in Missouri Blog Post
Modern American society seems to have little understanding of what really happened before, during and after the War Between the States. To see evidence of this one need look no further than the shocking success in eradicating and censoring Southern monuments and artwork, the names of various buildings and roads, or even symbols of Southern history itself. And while some…
Lewis LibermanJanuary 26, 2018
“White Privilege” or “Yankee Privilege?” Blog Post
White privilege has become a major leftwing talking point and justification for a plethora of progressive initiatives that can best be described as reverse racial discrimination. White privilege is the mirror image of white supremacy. Both are evil ideas based upon race consciousness linked to a political ideology that denies the value of the individual. White supremacy is the outward…
James Ronald KennedyJanuary 17, 2018
They Took Their Stand in Dixie Blog Post
Advance the flag of Dixie For Dixie’s land we take our stand To live or die for Dixie And conquer peace for Dixie Anyone singing the above lyrics from the patriotic Confederate song of 1861, “Dixie to Arms,” would today, as with its earlier counterpart “Dixie,” be considered most politically incorrect and would probably ignite a firestorm of protest demonstrations…
John MarquardtJanuary 10, 2018
Government by Judiciary Blog Post
A review of Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment by Raoul Berger (Second Edition; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1997). Also available online. Raoul Berger was a legal historian who did not fear challenging academic consensus. His 1977 contrarian work Government by Judiciary argued that the Supreme Court radically departed from the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, citing…
Zachary GarrisJanuary 9, 2018
George Mason and Original Intent Blog Post
Every fact bearing upon the character and service of the statesmen whose genius created a model form of human government should receive a warm greeting from those who are proud of the growth, progress, and prosperity of the republic. The harmonious working of the component parts which enter into the life of the country is to-day the result of the…
Fitzhugh LeeDecember 11, 2017
Pickett’s Charge — The Last Attack at Gettysburg Blog Post
A review of Pickett’s Charge – The Last Attack at Gettysburg by Earl J. Hess (UNC Press, 2001). When I was still on active duty with the U.S. Army, the true “Gettysburg” book was Professor Coddington’s The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (1968). But his book was about the entire battle and command and not the attack. Hess mentions several others,…
John C. WhatleyNovember 28, 2017
How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America Blog Post
A review of How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America by Brion McClanahan, Regnery History, 2017. A thinking American must choose between Hamilton and Jefferson, whose contrary visions of the future were contested in the first days of the Constitution. If you are happy with big government, big banks, big business, big military, and judicial dictatorship, then you have Alexander Hamilton…
Clyde WilsonSeptember 19, 2017
10 Objections to Nullification–Refuted Blog Post
Nullification, also known as State interposition, is controversial because it challenges the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation. The argument behind nullification is that the States—as parties to the compact that created the federal government—have a right to interpret the Constitution and veto acts where the federal government exceeds its delegated power. Genuine nullification involves a State’s declaration of unconstitutionality…
Zachary GarrisAugust 31, 2017
Reconsidering Luther Martin Blog Post
A review of Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet, The Life of Luther Martin, by Bill Kauffman, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2008 “Happiness is preferable to the Splendour of a national Government” Luther Martin to the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787, Kauffman at 41 This book takes no prisoners. Nor does it gloss the favored actors. It sides with Martin’s stance at the…
Vito MussomeliAugust 29, 2017
Confederate Case Law: The Rule of Law, Not of Men Blog Post
The mark of an advanced civilization is the rule of law, with the highest being the rule of law that protects life, liberty and property. Based upon this standard, the Confederate States of America embodied an advanced Christian civilization. Accepting this truism goes a long way in understanding why the Confederacy has been demonized to the point of eradicating it…
Marshall DeRosaAugust 23, 2017
New South Voices of the Southern Tradition Blog Post
Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. As scholars dedicated to exploring what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition, we are most often drawn to the antebellum South and the early federal period, the days when Jeffersonian federalism and political economy reigned supreme and Southern statesmen were regarded as the best in the land. We still fight…
Brion McClanahanJuly 28, 2017
“It is history that teaches us to hope” Blog Post
Malcolm X wrote that “History is a weapon.” He was right, and no topic encompasses this truth more than the War of Northern Aggression. And the most practical way we rebels can advance in this post-modern war being waged against the South is simply education. Sounds cliche, right? But how can we expect anyone who doesn’t have a clue about our past, its people and their divergent ancestry,…
Dissident MamaJuly 3, 2017
The Alabama Memorial Preservation Act and the Political Market Blog Post
The political market, as the economic market, has the demand and supply dynamic. Interest groups make demands and the politicians provide the supply. In the case of Confederate memorials, interest groups demand Confederate memorials be dismantled in the public interest; the politicians supply the dismantling. The political market responds to strongest political forces. The strength of interest groups in the…
Marshall DeRosaJune 6, 2017
Understanding Faulkner Blog Post
A Review of: On the Prejudices, Predilections, and Firm Beliefs of William Faulkner. By Cleanth Brooks. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1987. 162 pp. When I think of the state of literary criticism in the academy today, I think of a New Yorker cartoon someone has put up in the liberal arts coffee lounge at Clemson. It shows…
Mark Royden WinchellMay 3, 2017
The Latest 18th Century Fake News Blog Post
The “fake news” pejorative has become commonplace in modern public discourse, so much so that social media outlets have taken it upon themselves to “police” so-called “fake news” stories and warn people about their dangers. This was largely due to the supposed impact “fake news” had on Trump supporters in 2016. To these self-appointed gatekeepers of truth, honesty, and the…
Brion McClanahanApril 27, 2017
The Search for Life After Pac Man Blog Post
I have made a discovery. There does, indeed, exist a place where nobody wants to leave. It is possible to breathe there without worrying about what you are inhaling. This place is not infested with joggers or 300-pound shoulder-strap radios, and when you’re driving along and meet another car or truck on the road, that other driver is very likely…
Harry HopeApril 21, 2017
The South and Her People Blog Post
Originally published at www.circa1865.com The conservative and noble Christian civilization of the South described below has all but vanished as the New South of industrial capitalism, materialism and commercial vulgarity supplanted it. Remarks of J.C.C. Black, at the Unveiling of the Benjamin H. Hill Statue, Atlanta, Georgia, May 1, 1886 (excerpt): “As to us, [secession] was not prompted by hatred…
Bernard ThuersamApril 18, 2017
Why Lee? Why Acton? Blog Post
A prevailing notion throughout the grand land of America is that the constant brouhaha down South among many of us regarding monuments and flags and statues is much ado. . .so forth and so on. . . and that neo confederates (so-called) are living in the past. While not calling myself a neo-confederate (paleo) I certainly live for the past….
Paul H. YarbroughMarch 31, 2017
Yankee Foreign Policy and the Cold War Blog Post
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is rattling his sabers and threatening war against the United States. He blew up an American aircraft carrier in one propaganda video and has goaded the Trump administration in several other statements, ostensibly to create the image of manly firmness to his people. Obviously, high profile assassinations and executions along with staged videos showing Jong-un…
Brion McClanahanMarch 30, 2017
Jefferson the Man Blog Post
Thomas Jefferson, Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America. Kevin R. C. Gutzman (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2017). The challenge a historian faces when writing about Thomas Jefferson is which Jefferson does one choose? The choices of “Jeffersons” include: Jefferson the radical, Jefferson the democrat, Jefferson the philosophe, Jefferson the scientist, Jefferson the statesman, and Jefferson the planter, just…
John DevannyMarch 20, 2017
Things as They Are Blog Post
William S. Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America: An Old Republican in King Andrew’s Court (The University of Alabama Press, 2016). Sometimes a professional historian gets it right. William Belko has produced a quality tome that both expands and enhances our understanding of American history. While most academics write about the same subjects and regurgitate fashionable theories with “new”…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 6, 2017
Save Federalism, Save the Electoral College Blog Post
Discussing immigration and sanctuary cities, Bill O’Reilly began speaking of the coming clash of two “sovereignties”, the States individually and the national government, but never got to finish his sentence. Speaker Gingrich interrupted to say, “there is one sovereignty” in America and that’s the national government. “The Civil War settled the sovereignty question.” Unfortunately, the Speaker is correct. We need…
Vito MussomeliDecember 1, 2016
Up at the Forks of the Creek: In Search of American Populism Blog Post
Editor’s note: With the rise of “populism” around the world, we should revisit the history and origins of American populism. In “Populism” we are confronted with a term that raises so many different connotations in different minds that we well may wonder if the term is usable at all. It is not quite as bad, in this respect, as democracy—a…
Clyde WilsonNovember 16, 2016
The Legacy of Francis Butler Simkins Blog Post
A biographer defined Francis Butler Simkins as “one of the most interesting intellectual forces of his generation.” As a scholar who questioned conventional thinking he “helped lay the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, when these momentous events of the 1950s and 1960s challenged the traditional order in the American South, Simkins discovered much…that he believed should be conserved…
Grady McWhineyNovember 8, 2016
Essential Reading: The Confederate Constitution of 1861 Blog Post
This review was first printed in Southern Partisan magazine in 1995. Marshall DeRosa: The Confederate Constitution of 1861: An Inquiry into American Constitutionalism (University of Missouri Press, 1991). Let there be no doubt, my friends. Marshall DeRosa addresses a serious and important issue. He claims the struggle for American independence was renewed and, in a sense, reached a peak during…
Robert Martin SchaeferSeptember 8, 2016
Who Won the Webster-Hayne Debate of 1830? Blog Post
The dominant historical opinion of the famous debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina which took place in the United States Senate in 1830 has long been that Webster defeated Hayne both as an orator and a statesman. According to the legend, Webster managed in the course of the debate to isolate the South,…
H. A. Scott TraskAugust 30, 2016
The Inside War Blog Post
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at The Southern Literary Review and is an interview with author Robert J. Ernst by Allen Mendenhall covering Ernst’s book, The Inside War. APM: Thanks for taking the time to sit down for this interview, Bob. Your novel The Inside War is about an Appalachian mountain family during the Civil War. How long…
Allen MendenhallAugust 5, 2016
The Free State of Jones: History or Hollywood? Blog Post
Hollywood has struck again with another “Civil War” movie that, unsurprisingly as it may seem, does not do justice to the real Southland or the Confederacy. The latest episode is an epic by director Gary Ross, “Free State of Jones,” starring Matthew McConaughey as the film’s hero, Newt Knight. “Free State of Jones” tells the story of a Knight-led rebellion…
Ryan WaltersJuly 12, 2016
Musings of a Southern Antifederalist on the Presidential Election Blog Post
The one consolation of the Antifederalist persuasion is telling everyone you meet “I told you so.” Granted, this does not go down well in most circles, be they progressive, socialist, conservative, neo-conservative, constitutionalist, et al. At best, some of these folk will agree that the Antifederalists were correct about the consolidation of power in the federal government, the excesses of…
John DevannyJuly 8, 2016
A Character Sketch: John Randolph of Roanoke Blog Post
Editor’s Note: This piece is, at times, harsh in its assessment of Randolph’s character and motives, but the anecdotes and language make it a fun read. Randolph was eccentric, perhaps the greatest orator Virginia ever produced. That is saying much. He was a one man army against unconstitutional federal overreach, and as the author, Frederick William Thomas, notes spent much…
Frederick William ThomasJune 2, 2016
The Battle in Virginia Over the Constitution Blog Post
This essay is reprinted in honor of Patrick Henry’s birthday, May 29, from Moses Coit Tyler’s Patrick Henry. The great convention at Philadelphia, after a session of four months, came to the end of its noble labors on the 17th of September, 1787. Washington, who had been not merely its presiding officer but its presiding genius, then hastened back to…
Moses Coit TylerMay 30, 2016
Southern Voices Blog Post
Southern Voices: Poems by William H. Holcombe, M. D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1872. We hail this volume as a beautiful presage of the future of the South in the department of poetry In saying that it is worthy of the author, who, for several years past, has been a brilliant star in the literary firmament of the…
Albert Taylor BledsoeMay 17, 2016
April Top Ten Blog Post
The top ten articles for April 2016: 1. Andrew Jackson: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by James Rutledge Roesch 2. Confederaphobia: An American Epidemic by Paul C. Graham 3. Why the War Was Not About Slavery by Clyde Wilson 4. The Cause of Jackson is the Cause of Us All by James Rutledge Roesch 5. Lies My Teacher…
Brion McClanahanMay 1, 2016
Healing the Wounds of War Blog Post
Over the years, countless thousands the New Yorkers have passed by monuments in their city that were dedicated to two eminent physicians who were related by marriage, but there is little doubt that few of them, until recently at least, had ever realized that the statues were erected in memory of former Southerners. The two men of medicine were Dr….
John MarquardtApril 22, 2016
The Confederacy’s Rule of Law Blog Post
As Southern States seceded from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, the matter of transitioning the US Judiciary into the CSA Judiciary required both skill and determination. Issues of jurisdiction, personnel, legal codes, records, writs and ongoing processes had to be considered. Rather than starting de novo, the CSA Provisional Constitution mostly[i] adopted the structure of…
Marshall DeRosaApril 19, 2016
The Sovereign States Blog Post
This essay is the introduction to Mr. Kilpatrick’s The Sovereign States (Regnery, 1957). AMONG the more melancholy aspects of the genteel world we live in is a slow decline in the enjoyment that men once found in the combat of ideas, free and unrestrained. Competition of any sort, indeed, seems to be regarded these days, in our schools and elsewhere,…
James J. KilpatrickApril 8, 2016
Vale Res Publica Blog Post
Once again, it is politicking time in the good ol’ US of A. The Democrats, the party of youth, vision, and vigor, present to the country a senile old socialist who doesn’t believe that poor white people exist, and a former first lady rejected by Netflix central casting for a role in House of Cards (It was the looks, not…
John DevannyMarch 24, 2016
The Muckraker and the War Blog Post
It was the spring of 1865 . . . the remnants of what once had been Confederate regiments had stacked their arms, the tattered battle flags were furled, the cause which had been so gallantly defended was lost and one by one the Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of Tennessee and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi were disbanded. Those…
John MarquardtMarch 10, 2016
Executive Usurpation Blog Post
Mr. President, during the special session of the Senate in March last, when seven States had withdrawn, by the action of their people, from the Federal Union, disclaimed all allegiance to the Government, and organized a separate common government, I took occasion, before the public mind had become excited, to express fully my views of the structure of our Government,…
James A. BayardFebruary 16, 2016
James Iredell Blog Post
One of the greatest legal minds of the founding generation was also one of the most reserved and unobtrusive. On many levels, he differed from his peers. Outspoken Federalist from New York, John Jay, became the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Prominent Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph was selected by George Washington to be the first Attorney…
Dave BennerFebruary 12, 2016
The Principle of Secession Historically Traced Blog Post
This essay is taken from The South in the Building of the Nation Series, Vol. 4 The Political History. THE political theory on which the Southern states in 1860 and 1861 based their right to withdraw from the Union was not the sudden creation of any one man, or of any one group of men. Like other ideas that have…
George PetrieFebruary 11, 2016
Lee the Philosopher Blog Post
This essay was originally published in The Georgia Review, Vol. II, No. 3 (Fall 1948), 297-303. As the Civil War assumes increasingly the role of an American Iliad, a tendency sets in for its heroes to take on Fixed characterizations. Epithets of praise and blame begin to recur, and a single virtue usurps the right to personify the individual. In…
Richard M. WeaverJanuary 22, 2016
The Confederate Rule of Law Blog Post
Marshall DeRosa on “The Confederate Rule of Law: An American Patrimony Worth Fighting For, Then and Now,” from the October 2015 Abbeville Institute Conference in Stone Mountain, GA.
Marshall DeRosaDecember 31, 2015
When I Was Little: A tale of life in Mississippi during the War Blog Post
This story was originally published at Alabama Pioneers and comes from the book Alokoli : the Choctaw County. “Tell us about when you were little” was the oft repeated request of two lovely wee girls, my grandchildren and now comes the request that I put it down in writing. Viewed from their own childhood of peace and plenty mine seemed…
Clemmie Parker WilcoxNovember 9, 2015
Virginia First Blog Post
I. THE name First given to the territory occupied by the present United States was Virginia. It was bestowed upon the Country by Elizabeth, greatest of English queens. The United States of America are mere words of description. They are not a name. The rightful and historic name of this great Republic is “Virginia.” We must get back to it,…
Lyon G. TylerNovember 6, 2015
The Queen City Humbled Blog Post
In 1865, a writer for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine described Charleston, South Carolina, contrasting her condition before the war, and after four years of siege, blockade and bombardment: Not many years ago, Charleston sat like a queen upon the waters, her broad and beautiful bay covered with the sails of every nation, and her great export, cotton, affording employment to…
Karen StokesOctober 23, 2015
Hiding from History Blog Post
When I moved to Wilmington, North Carolina as a retiree over twenty years ago, I brought much of the Yankee historical baggage—as written by the victors—of the War Between the States, or Lincoln’s War as many Southerners know it. I’ve always been interested in history, so naturally I wanted to understand more about the Southern views of the war. I…
R.E. Smith, Jr.October 15, 2015
September Top 10 Blog Post
Our top ten articles for the month of September. Read ’em again and pass ’em along. 1. John C. Calhoun and States Rights by James Rutledge Roesch 2. The War for Southern Independence: My Myth or Yours? by Clyde Wilson 3. Revisiting 25 Years of Revisionist Claptrap by Gail Jarvis 4. Apostles of Racism by Brion McClanahan 5. Life in…
Brion McClanahanOctober 6, 2015
Pride Blog Post
Variation on a theme by Chekhov “Oh, Eldridge. Well. Ain’t seen you in a week. I thought they must have re-routed you or something, boy.” Eldridge Sartor had spotted Mr. Hitt moseying from his front door to the mailbox as soon as he pulled up. “Naw, sir,” Mr. Sartor replied. Even though Mr. Hitt was now standing no more than…
Randall IveySeptember 29, 2015
Destruction of the City of Columbia, South Carolina: A Poem by a Lady of Georgia. A True Statement of Facts. Blog Post
About the author: Elizabeth Otis Marshall Dannelly (1838-1896), a native of Madison, Georgia, was a published poet significant enough to be included in the book Living Writers of the South (1869). During the War Between the States, she lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where her husband Dr. Francis Olin Dannelly (1823-1880) was on duty as Chief Surgeon. Mrs. Dannelly was…
Karen StokesSeptember 15, 2015
Promoting Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day Observance in South Carolina, 1827-1837 Blog Post
In the eighteenth century, each of the British North American colonies that later formed the United States of America had statutes that regulated the observance of the Christian Sabbath, or the Lord’s day. The two motivating concerns were, first, religious worship; and, second, commercial or business activity on the weekly rest day. While the high regard of New Englanders for…
Forrest L. MarionSeptember 8, 2015
Judah P. Benjamin: Able Statesman, Forgotten Patriot Blog Post
If you showed the average American pictures of famous figures from Confederate States of America, there is a good chance many would recognize Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Pressed further, some may even identify Alexander Stephens. All were influential men, and important to the establishment and development of the Confederacy. However, none of them assisted the Confederate cause in…
Dave BennerSeptember 4, 2015
Trump: A Southern Conservative Perspective Blog Post
There are several attributes of Donald Trump’s bid for the U.S. Presidency that this Paleo-Conservative finds to be interesting. To follow is an adumbration of the more salient. His campaign style is refreshing. The absence of teleprompters, which results in spontaneity, which in turn reveals the unvarnished candidate in contradistinction to the coached, stale, and unconvincing political hacks, is refreshing….
Marshall DeRosaSeptember 2, 2015
Caitlyn Jenner and the New South Blog Post
It is not necessary to detail Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner. Suffice it to say that we have been informed that Bruce’s inner self was at war with his physical self. With the assistance of modern medicine, Bruce was physically modified into Caitlyn. This is not to say that Bruce the male was transformed into Caitlyn a female. Nevertheless,…
Marshall DeRosaJuly 2, 2015
South Carolina’s “Long Train of Abuses” Blog Post
Just as we have always been told that America was founded by Pilgrims in search of religious freedom, we have also been told that Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence was based on British philosopher John Locke’s theories of “natural rights” and “social contract”. Jefferson was influenced by Enlightenment ideas and ideals but the indictments against the king…
Becky CalcuttJune 30, 2015
Way Down in the (Southern State of) Missouri Blog Post
“Way down in Missouri…Journey back to Dixieland in dreams again with me…” – Lyrics from the “Missouri Waltz” (The Official Missouri State Song) by James Royce Shannon. A cultural identity crisis can be an absolutely terrible thing that can often have ramifications that transcend the time in which it was spawned. Such a trend can lead to the cultural destruction…
Travis ArchieJune 23, 2015
Abel P. Upshur Blog Post
This essay is published in honor of Abel P. Upshur’s birthday, June 17, 1790. Today, States’ rights are remembered as a legalistic excuse for the preservation of slavery – a part of the past best forgotten. One historian scoffs at the notion of “loyalty to the South, Southern self-government, Southern culture, or states’ rights,” declaring that “slavery’s preservation was central…
James Rutledge RoeschJune 17, 2015
“Hang the Usurpers” Blog Post
On November 21, 1793, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill titled “An Act declaratory of certain parts of the retained sovereignty of the State of Georgia.” It’s unclear as to whether or not the Georgia Senate concurred. The bill was in response to the Chisholm v. Georgia [2 U.S. 419 (1793)], the case resulting in the ratification of…
Marshall DeRosaJune 15, 2015
Judge Story’s Position On The So-Called General Welfare Clause Blog Post
This speech was delivered before the annual meeting of the Georgia Bar Association at Tybee Island on June 2, 3, and 4, 1927. Mr. PRESIDENT and gentlemen of the Georgia Bar Association: I make no apology for presenting to you today as the subject of my address a technical and abstruse question, be cause it involves the foundation stone of our form…
Henry St. George Tucker IIIJune 12, 2015
The Old and the New South Blog Post
Delivered as the commencement address for South Carolina College, 1887. What theme is most fitting for me present to the young men of the South, at this celebration of the South Carolina College ? What shall one, whose course is nearly run, say to those whose career is hardly begun ? In my retrospect I deeply sympathize with you in…
John Randolph TuckerJune 11, 2015
A Discourse on the Genius of the Federative System of the United States Blog Post
This speech was given to the Young Men’s Society of Lynchburg, August 26, 1838. I Appear before you, gentlemen, in compliance with an invitation which deserves my grateful acknowledgments. To have been deemed capable of offering one thought proper to guide your minds in the pursuit of truth, is an honor which I beg you to believe I highly appreciate….
Nathaniel Beverley TuckerJune 10, 2015
St. George Tucker Blog Post
St. George Tucker’s “View of the Constitution of the United States” was the first extended, systematic commentary on the new constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. Published by a distinguished patriot and jurist in 1803, it was for much of the first half of the…
Clyde WilsonJune 8, 2015
The Tuckers of Virginia Blog Post
If any American today were to listen to the nationalists in charge of either the political class or American education at large, they would get the sense that it is settled science that the American Union is comprised of one people held together by a national government with uncontested sovereignty over all matters foreign and domestic. Certainly, States and local…
Brion McClanahanJune 8, 2015
Confederate Connections Blog Post
A friend of mine, a scholar of international reputation and a Tar Heel by birth, was visiting professor at a very prestigious Northern university a few years ago. In idle conversation with some colleagues, he happened to mention that his mother was an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. His…
Clyde WilsonJune 4, 2015
Jefferson Davis and The Lame Lion of Lynchburg Blog Post
This piece was originally published June 3, 2014 at the Abbeville Blog. Senator John Warwick Daniel (1842-1910) of Lynchburg, Virginia was a gentleman’s gentleman. Daniel served in the U.S. Senate from 1887 until his death in 1910 and was known as “The Lame Lion of Lynchburg” after being severely wounded in the War for Southern Independence. He was shot through…
Brion McClanahanJune 1, 2015
Ludwell Johnson: Master Southern Historian Blog Post
Life and Work Why Read Ludwell Johnson? Both Ludwell Johnson’s style of work and choice of subject matter strongly recommend him to our consideration. As a working historian he is calm and measured, with just the degree of detachment that historical work ideally requires. As he puts it, “trying to identify cause and effect is, to me, the very…
Joseph R. StrombergMay 26, 2015
New From Southern Pens, Part 2 Blog Post
Maryland Redeemed Everybody knows that our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was written by Francis Scott Key as he watched the British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor during the War of 1812. Almost nobody knows the rest of the story. In 1861, Key’s grandson, Francis Key Howard, was locked up in Fort McHenry. Howard wrote: “The flag which…
Clyde WilsonMay 8, 2015
Yet Another Uneducated, Baseless Attack on the South Blog Post
A so-called “writer” for al.com, Charles J. Dean, in an article entitled Today Alabama officially observes Confederate Memorial Day: Shame on us seems to be making a living these days off of feeble attempts at denigrating the South by misconstruing the history of the Confederate soldier, his cause and the situation that compelled him to war. This is his second…
Carl JonesApril 30, 2015
Politics and Patriotism Blog Post
These are challenging times for the Christian patriot, as evidenced by controversies over recent renditions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. The mere fact that these State legislative attempts to restore religious freedom are even necessary speaks volumes. For example, the First Amendment mandates that the “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free…
Marshall DeRosaApril 28, 2015
Does the Just War Tradition Need Selective Conscientious Objection? Blog Post
INTRODUCTION It is dangerous to attempt an article on a topic so relevant and current. As I drafted this article, President Obama has recently ordered air strikes on ISIS, and troop levels are again rising in Iraq. We are in a challenging position, considering the Just War Tradition (JWT) in such a context. We could go through the typical just…
Jacob ShatzerApril 21, 2015
What Makes Southern Manners Peculiar? Blog Post
Southerners live in the 18th century. This common charge is not altogether false, since the peculiar habits, customs, and meanings of words found often in the American South are found also in 18th century English authors. Such a word is manners. Most English-speaking people and some Southerners use the word now in the only senses current during the past two…
Ward S. AllenApril 7, 2015
Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XV Blog Post
They call it progress, but they don’t say where it is going. –Faulkner Nothing occurs except the heaping up of tyranny and insult from Washington by the meanest most cowardly and unprincipled lot of men ever assembled together to curse any people. –Mary Custis Lee, 1868 Nothing is more ruinous to a nation than the defective education of its populace….
Clyde WilsonApril 3, 2015
True American Whiggery: John Tyler and Abel P. Upshur Blog Post
This piece is taken from Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson Forgotten Conservatives in American History. Two dates changed the course of American political history. On 13 September 1841, the Whigs expelled President John Tyler from their Party, outraged over his “betrayal” of what they considered true Whig political and economic principles. Shorty over two years later, on 28 February 1844,…
Brion McClanahanMarch 31, 2015
A Sympathy for Disunion Blog Post
A Sympathy for Disunion “This, Mr. President, is not a government founded upon compact; it is founded upon the power of the people. They express in their name and their authority, “We the People do ordain and establish,” etc, from their ratification alone it is to take its constitutional authenticity; without that it is no more than tabula rasa. “I…
Vito MussomeliFebruary 24, 2015
Luther Martin Revisited Blog Post
As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and as an eminent lawyer and statesman, Martin defended state sovereignty and the diffusion of political authority. He is usually identified as an Antifederalist. Martin was responsible for proposing several key components of the new government at the Convention, including the Electoral College, as well as earning a lasting reputation as a trial…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.February 20, 2015
When the Yankees Come: Former South Carolina Slaves Remember the Invasion Blog Post
Introduction As we are now in the midst of the sesquicentennial of the Union Army’s march through South Carolina—the climax being the burning of the city of Columbia on 17 February 1865—I thought it might be interesting to employ a rather unorthodox, but extremely interesting source to broaden the understanding of this infamous event: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of…
Paul C. GrahamFebruary 17, 2015
German Federalism as Punishment or Fiction Blog Post
Is Germany Sovereign? In the wake of revelations of pervasive NSA snooping in Germany, Germans have been asking whether or not their country is actually sovereign. In a country filled with foreign armies since 1945, this seems a reasonable question. There is a related constitutional question: Was the 1949 Grundgesetz (Basic Law) any kind of constitution (Verfassung) at all? Barely…
Joseph R. StrombergFebruary 10, 2015
Sidney Lanier Blog Post
BECAUSE I believe that Sidney Lanier was much more than a clever artisan in rhyme and metre; because he will, I think, take his final rank with the first princes of American song, I am glad to provide this slight memorial. There is sufficient material in his letters for an extremely interesting biography, which could be properly prepared only by…
William Hayes WardFebruary 3, 2015
January Top Ten Blog Post
Thank you for making January one of the most visited months in the history of the Institute. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Here are the top ten articles from last month: 1. The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover Up: The Railroading of James Earl Ray by Marshall DeRosa 2. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True…
Brion McClanahanFebruary 3, 2015
The Cause of Jackson and Lee Blog Post
Delivered at the Blount County Courthouse, January 19, 2015. Robert E. Lee said “Everyone should do all in his power to collect and disseminate the truth, in the hope that it may find a place in history and descend to posterity. History is not the relation of campaigns and battles and generals or other individuals, but that which shows…
Carl JonesJanuary 21, 2015
The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-Up: The Railroading of James Earl Ray Blog Post
John Avery Emison, Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-Up, The: The Railroading of James Earl Ray. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2014. The assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, has its various storylines that continue to this day. The recently disclosed 1964 FBI letter to King manifests the establishment’s disdain for King and its attempt to relegate…
Marshall DeRosaJanuary 20, 2015
Ten Things About Alabama You Might Not Know Blog Post
I’m still a little chapped about that recent story from Chicago where it’s considered racist to listen to Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” As a child growing up in Alabama, we were always made aware of our troubled past, but we preferred to focus on the positive aspects of our beloved home state as much as possible. Whenever one of…
Tom DanielJanuary 9, 2015
John Taylor and Construction Blog Post
States’ rights may have been the defining force in Antebellum America, but modern, mainstream historians would have you believe that they were nothing more than a wicked creed cooked up by a few corrupt slaveowners. A review of a recent biography of John Taylor of Caroline referred to his “opprobrium” as the “premier states’ rights philosopher.” It would have been…
James Rutledge RoeschDecember 19, 2014
Nathaniel Macon and North Carolina Independence Blog Post
Although I have been in exile many years, I am a Tar Heel born and a Tar Heel bred, and when I die I will be a Tar Heel dead. Nathaniel Macon is a perfect subject for a Tar Heel. He is not well-known today, but he is the best possible example of the true spirit of North Carolina. And…
Clyde WilsonDecember 17, 2014
Infanticide and Hobby Lobby Blog Post
The US Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014) has uncovered a somewhat disturbing reality. Consider the following. In 1993 Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The law stipulates that government may not burden a person’s free exercise of religion unless the burden furthered a compelling governmental interest…
Marshall DeRosaDecember 15, 2014
Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! Blog Post
A modern student of American literature would be hard pressed to find anything written on or about Henry Timrod in a current anthology of American poetry. Bob Dylan and Langston Hughes will have text dedicated to their work, but not the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy, a man whose verse sparked men to action and whose sweet sorrow at the…
Brion McClanahanDecember 8, 2014
The Transformation of American Citizenship via the Crucible of War Blog Post
Citizenship in these United States has consistently been in a transformative mode. From early American settlers, through the colonial period to Statehood and nationhood, and through transition from territorial to Statehood status, citizenship was a phenomenon appreciated but not necessarily understood. It was loosely defined, but yet highly valued. This was tolerable within the framework of limited government and widely…
Marshall DeRosaDecember 3, 2014
They Dared to Die Blog Post
Address of Colonel Edward McCrady, Jr. before Company a (Gregg’s regiment), First S. C. Volunteers, at the Reunion at Williston, Barnwell county, S. C, 14th July, 1882. It is with divided feelings, my comrades, that we meet upon this occasion. It is indeed doubtful which emotion is the stronger, that of pleasure in once more grasping the hands of those…
Edward McCrady, Jr.December 1, 2014
The Underlying Realities of Obama’s Amnesty Blog Post
Focusing on the cultural, political and economic long-term consequences of President Obama’s amnesty executive action obscures placing attention on a more fundamental problem lurking in the shadows of American culture and politics. That problem can best be described as political cowardness. The primary source of this pathetic state of affairs stems from the socialization of the American people regarding race….
Marshall DeRosaNovember 24, 2014
Son of the South Blog Post
Today, November 13, is the birthday of one of the Troubadours of Southern Rock, Toy Talmadge Caldwell of The Marshall Tucker Band. Toy was born in 1947, grew up in Spartanburg, and like his Father, served in the US Marine Corps, where he saw action and was wounded in Vietnam. He had begun playing guitar as a teen and after…
Carl JonesNovember 13, 2014
The Political Economy of John Taylor of Caroline Blog Post
Part III of a Five Part Series. Part I, Part II. 1. Republicanism and Liberalism Revisited As noted previously, 18th-century Anglo-American opposition writers employed several political languages. One of these, classical republicanism, asserted reciprocal causal relations between power and property such that a republic secures stability and liberty by way of a “mixed constitution” resting on a broad class of…
Joseph R. StrombergNovember 6, 2014
John Taylor on Federal and Constitutional Questions Blog Post
Part II of a Five Part Series. Part I 1. Liberalism Taylor stood on liberal ground in holding that men were a mixture of good and evil. Self-interest was the only real constant in human action.43 He broke with archaic-republican ideas of mixed constitutions and social balance. His key idea was to divide power up so many ways, federally and…
Joseph R. StrombergOctober 14, 2014
Ron Paul and Secession Redux? Blog Post
Ron Paul recently opined about Scotland’s recent flirtation with seceding from the United Kingdom. He wrote that the: possibility that people will break away from an oppressive government is one of the most effective checks on the growth of government. It is no coincidence that the transformation of America from a limited republic to a monolithic welfare-warfare state coincided with…
Marshall DeRosaOctober 3, 2014
James Jackson: Forgotten Founding Father Blog Post
This essay appears in Clyde Wilson and Brion McClanahan, Forgotten Conservatives in American History and is reprinted here in honor of Jackson’s birthday, Sept 21. James Jackson did not sign the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. But his heroism in the War of Independence and his exemplary integrity and republican statesmanship in the first days of the U.S. government…
Clyde WilsonSeptember 22, 2014
Best “Unknown” Southern Rock Tunes Blog Post
Part I of a Two Part Series A few months ago, Tommy Daniel and I posted two pieces on the Best Southern Rock Bands and the Best Southern Rock Albums. Most casual Southern music lovers have heard of the “big six” Southern rock bands–Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers Band, the Charlie Daniels Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, Blackfoot, and Molly…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 16, 2014
On Granted Powers Blog Post
To the Editor of the Enquirer: According to the regular course of legal proceedings I ought, in the first place, to urge my plea in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court. As, however, we are not now in a court of justice, and such a course might imply some want of confidence in the merits of my cause, I…
Spencer RoaneSeptember 1, 2014
Reconstruction Blog Post
Reconstruction. There is no part of American history in which what is taught these days is more distorted by false assumptions and assertions. For leftists, Reconstruction can be celebrated as a high point of revolutionary change and egalitarian forward thrust in American history. This interpretation is untrue in the terms in which they portray it, but that is the dominant,…
Clyde WilsonSeptember 1, 2014
Southerners Not Welcome Blog Post
California AB 2444 has cleared all legislative hurdles by overwhelming majorities (71 to 1 in the Assembly and 33 to 2 in the Senate) and is now on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk awaiting his certain signature. The bill mandates that “The State of California may not sell or display the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, also referred to as the…
Marshall DeRosaAugust 28, 2014
Righteous Cause Mythology Blog Post
From April to July of 1863 British Lieutenant Colonel Arthur J. L. Fremantle visited all but two Confederate states. He entered at Brownsville, Texas and finished by observing the battle of Gettysburg from the Rebel side where he was a character in both Michael Shaara’s novel, The Killer Angels, and the corresponding film, Gettysburg. About 140 years later one of…
Philip LeighAugust 26, 2014
Rights of the States and of the People Blog Post
This is Part I of four letters that originally appeared in the Richmond Enquirer in 1819 under the nom de plume Hampden. They could have been written yesterday. To the Editor of the Enquirer: By means of a letter to you, sir, I beg leave to address my fellow citizens. I address them on a momentous subject. I address them…
Spencer RoaneAugust 21, 2014
Ferguson Blog Post
Events over the past several days in Ferguson, MO, should not surprise those familiar with the motives of the political class operationalized by Mr. Lincoln. We know that the the rhetoric utilized to justify the so-called American Civil War was a ruse to conceal the money-making opportunities concommitant with centralized political power. The slave qua freedman was and is nothing…
Marshall DeRosaAugust 19, 2014
State’s Rights Vol. 2: St. George Tucker’s Views on the Constitution Blog Post
To most historians, states’ rights are nothing more than a treasonous rationale for chattel slavery. One historian, in a purportedly definitive history of “disunion,” takes the incredible liberty of having prominent Fire-Eater Robert B. Rhett curse Thomas Jefferson (“St. Thomas”) in his head, along with “inalienable rights,” “rights of revolution,” and “the principles of 1776,” claiming “the South had revolted…
James Rutledge RoeschJuly 17, 2014
Those People Part 2 Blog Post
The flag which he [my grandfather, Francis Scott Key] had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal despotism as modern times have witnessed. —Francis Key Howard, a prisoner of Lincoln at Fort McHenry, 1861 Slavery is no more the cause of this war than gold is the cause…
Clyde WilsonJuly 15, 2014
Slavery and State’s Rights Blog Post
Speech of Hon. Joseph Wheeler, of Alabama. From the Richmond, Va., Dispatch, July 31, 1894 Causes Of The War. Opposition of the Southern Colonists to Slavery, and Their Devotion to the Union–Advocates of Secession. On Friday, July 13th, 1894, the House of Representatives being in Committee of the Whole, on appropriations and expenditures, and having under consideration the bill to…
Joseph WheelerJune 27, 2014
John Taylor’s Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States, Part 2 Blog Post
We now approach the heart of Taylor’s Inquiry: recent times had created a new type of privileged order exercising dominion in a new way. This was the “paper and patronage aristocracy,” a form of government that had been perfected by England. John Adams had completely failed to notice the new type of regime (although, in fact, he actually wrote most…
Clyde WilsonJune 26, 2014
The Republic of Alabama Blog Post
The Republic of Alabama existed for a little less than a month in 1861. When the popularly elected Alabama Secession Convention of 1861 voted to secede from the Union, the State operated as a sovereign political community and freely joined the Confederate States of America as an independent State. The Confederate Constitution recognized the sovereignty of each State in its…
Brion McClanahanJune 24, 2014
When Good Men Do Nothing Blog Post
On June 18, 1954, Albert Love Patterson, attorney general nominate for Alabama, was gunned down while getting into his car in a dark ally in Phenix City, Alabama. He had campaigned for months on a pledge to clean up corruption and organized crime in the State, but principally in Phenix City, a town once called the “wickedest city in America.”…
Brion McClanahanJune 20, 2014
John William Corrington: A Literary Conservative Blog Post
This essay originally appeared at the Front Porch Republic. Marietta, GA. It was the spring of 2009. I was in a class called Lawyers & Literature. My professor, Jim Elkins, a short-thin man with long-white hair, gained the podium. Wearing what might be called a suit—with Elkins one never could tell—he recited lines from a novella Decoration Day. I had…
Allen MendenhallJune 12, 2014
De Tocqueville and the South Blog Post
I’ve been perplexed about Tocqueville’s posture towards the South for quite some time. On the surface, he seems to have a rather dismal view of the South. However, a more penetrating reading of Democracy In America* opens up new possibilities. Consider the following: First, according to Tocqueville, the “seed of complete democracy” has its origin in New England. But there…
Marshall DeRosaJune 6, 2014
Rethinking the War for Southern Independence Blog Post
(13th Annual Gettysburg Banquet of the J.E.B. Stuart Camp, SCV, Philadelphia) We human beings are peculiar creatures, half angel and half animal, as someone has said. Alone among creatures we have a consciousness of ourselves, of our situation, and of our movement through time.We have language, and by symbols can communicate knowledge to one another and across generations. We can…
Clyde WilsonMay 14, 2014
Devolution Blog Post
Equipped with an abundant knowledge of history, Michael Tuggle has cast a discerning eye on the trends of the present. Not the ‘trendy’ trends but the real ones, those which can guide our steps into the future (as far as the future can be known to us mortals). The trends suggest to him something very hopeful – the probability and…
Clyde WilsonMay 14, 2014
A Bostonian on the Causes of the War, Part III Blog Post
Part III from a section of Dr. Scott Trask’s work in progress, Copperheads and Conservatives. Part I. Part II. Warnings of the Wrath to Come Southerners were by no means alone in deprecating the antislavery agitation. The northern anti-abolition movement was far stronger than the movement it opposed. Many northern leaders accurately forecast the consequences of agitation. In his annual…
H. A. Scott TraskMay 13, 2014
A Bostonian on the Causes of the War, Part II Blog Post
Part II from a section of Dr. Scott Trask’s work in progress, Copperheads and Conservatives. Part I. Historical Survey Lunt believed that the celebrated Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in the territories north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, had been a mistake. It was not because he believed slavery could have been profitably introduced…
H. A. Scott TraskMay 6, 2014
Cliven Bundy and American Politics Blog Post
Cliven Bundy recently stepped in it with his impolitic racial comments. The unfortunate comments are nevertheless an opportunity to learn some important lessons about American politics. First, the punditry’s reaction to the comments manifests the success of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in shaping public discourse and policy. CRT maintains: that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the…
Marshall DeRosaMay 5, 2014
Reconstruction…of a Football Team? Blog Post
In my article from last week entitled “1865 and Modern Relevance” I asserted that the outcome of the War for Southern Independence was as relevant today as it was 150 years ago. Just a few days after publication an incident involving Clemson University proved this point. A group of atheists calling itself the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” has leveled allegations…
Carl JonesApril 28, 2014
The Eighteenth Century to the Twentieth Blog Post
Judged by the quality of the men it brought to power the eighteenth-century Virginia way of selecting political leadership was extremely good; but judged by modem standards of political excellence, it was defective at nearly every point. As for voting qualifications, there was discrimination against women, poor men, and Negroes. There was no secrecy in voting, and polling places—only one…
Charles S. SydnorApril 23, 2014
Top Southern Rock Albums Blog Post
In light of Tom Daniel’s post “Top 11 Southern Rock Bands,” I thought I would create a list of my top Southern rock albums. Many of these records are from the bands he mentions, but I included several others. How did I choose? I selected albums that have stood or will stand the test of time and that can be…
Brion McClanahanApril 16, 2014
