A Revolution Too Far Blog Post

A review of Southern Reconstruction (Yardley PA: Westholme, 2017) by Philip Leigh Today, when partisans of America’s two corrupt political parties throw simpleminded “history lessons” at one other, Philip Leigh has written something quite remarkable: a sober and measured account of Reconstruction. This is all the more noteworthy since Reconstruction has been a sacred cow for five or more decades….

Joseph R. Stromberg
September 19, 2023

The Southerner as Historian and Vice Versa Blog Post

(*first published at First Principles Journal online, April 30, 2008) Publication of a second collection of essays by Southern historian Clyde N. Wilson — Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture[1] — provides us with an occasion for surveying Wilson’s larger contributions to American and Southern history, and to the conservative movement. A native of North Carolina in the…

Joseph R. Stromberg
August 29, 2023

Agrarianism After Taylor Blog Post

I was not here for Dr. Fleming’s talk, but I imagine he made the point he often likes to make: the term “agrarian” is problematic, because in European and general political terms “agrarian” suggests a group of wild-eyed radicals who want to seize and divide up other peoples’ property. Of course, this not what our Agrarians are about, but I…

Clyde Wilson
July 3, 2023

A Suburb to Nothing Blog Post

I. The Fall of Richmond In 1930, that caustic fellow H.L. Mencken wrote that if the war of 1861-1865 had gone otherwise, “Richmond would be, not the dull suburb of nothing that it is now, but a beautiful and consoling second-rate capital, comparable to Budapest, Brussels, Stockholm or The Hague.”[i] I had occasion to be in downtown Richmond for a…

Joseph R. Stromberg
February 16, 2022

The South and America’s Wars for Righteousness Blog Post

Delivered at our 2011 Scholar’s Conference, The South and America’s Wars Well, good morning, and I wonder if you have the stamina for a third hour? Prop yourself up here and I’ll try to keep us all awake. My thanks to Don Livingston for his invitation to speak to you today and for all of his work organizing and hosting…

Richard M. Gamble
February 7, 2022

A Primer on Secession Blog Post

A review of  Secession, State & Liberty, (Transaction, 1998) edited with an introduction by David Gordon. If there is a single book you should read on the subject of secession, Secession, State & Liberty is the one. Best of all, this collection of essays is entirely free, here: https://mises.org/library/secession-state-and-liberty The key point of the book is the demonstration that secession…

Terry Hulsey
May 18, 2021

Industrial Combinations Blog Post

From The Land We Love, V, no. I (May 1868), 25-34, edited by Joseph S. Stromberg. Combinations for the prosecution of industrial pursuits are the characteristic of our age. They now enjoy almost universal favor, and are extending themselves, in old and new directions, every year. In the delight which is inspired by their efficiency for money-getting, people seem unsuspicious…

Robert Lewis Dabney
September 25, 2020

The Janitor in Chief as Lord of the Cosmos Blog Post

Once upon a time, somewhere near here, there were thirteen sturdy proprietors. They lived within haling distance of one another and things weren’t so bad. There was a fourteenth proprietor as well, a rascally fellow called Vermotte, but no one liked him or visited him. Anyway, a couple of these householders got a bad case of Condo-maniacal Vision and began…

Joseph R. Stromberg
May 22, 2020

Southern Anticolonialism Blog Post

A review of Burden of Dependency: Colonial Themes in Southern Economic Thought (Johns Hopkins, 1992) by Joseph Persky An Under-Appreciated Book In 1973, the young economist Joseph J. Persky wrote piece in Southern Exposure with a promising title: “The South: A Colony at Home.” He recalls thinking at the time that he was in “some sort of “vanguard.”[1] I read…

Joseph R. Stromberg
December 17, 2019

How to Run the American Revolution: Belated Advice Blog Post

In the spirit of historical course correction, I herewith submit some thoughts to those who may find themselves in an American Revolution between 1774 and 1783. 1. Rule number one. Don’t cooperate with any leaders, even if you appointed them. If you do, such cooperation will later be taken as proof that you were just obeying the commands of some…

Joseph R. Stromberg
November 23, 2018

The North’s Colonial Empire Blog Post

The Setting Postcolonial studies have been all the rage for many decades. A great number of contributors to the field have come from India and their work wrestles (in part) with the socio-psychological situation of Indian bureaucrats in the British Raj. These functionaries were, after all, Indians of some kind working for His Majesty’s Government – not the one in…

Joseph R. Stromberg
December 20, 2017

Hate the South Week Blog Post

‘Just a post, just a post, just a post on a blog, just a post, just a post, and the war has begun’ (To the tune of “Sloth,” Fairport Convention, ca. 1978) General Uncivil Background Blessed as we are — so the economists say (they never lie) -– with relentless, inescapable digital bother and cyber-mania, any one of us might…

Joseph R. Stromberg
December 13, 2017

The Imperial and Momentary We Blog Post

This piece was originally published in Chronicles Magazine, October 2012. “O Fame, O Fame! Many a man ere this Of no account hast thou set up on high.” —Boethius “It is a kind of baby talk, a puerile and wind­blown gibberish. . . . In content it is a vacuum.” —H.L. Mencken on Warren G. Harding’s speeches Americans are a…

Clyde Wilson
May 13, 2016

Dilorenzo and His Critics Blog Post

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln has provoked the utterly predictable torrent of abuse from state worshipers and self-appointed prophets of The True American Way. All DiLorenzo has done (and this does not in the least detract from his courage, eloquence, and insight) is to analyze Honest Abe as a historical figure just like any other, rather than treat him…

Clyde Wilson
February 17, 2016

Life In The Old Land Yet Blog Post

There is life in the old land of Dixie yet. There seems to be no end of talent and knowledge coming forth in our defense against the South-hating jihadists who seem to dominate the American scene these days.   Valiant and wise people continue the daunting task of educating our fellow citizens about the truth of American history. The end of…

Clyde Wilson
September 16, 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. Stromberg
May 26, 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. Stromberg
February 10, 2015

John Taylor of Caroline: Liberal, Radical, and Reactionary Blog Post

Part V of a Five Part Series.  Part I, II, III, and IV. 1. Taylor as a Liberal “Individualist” Taylor writes that society not made up of individuals is a pointless abstraction: ‘Society exclusively of individuals, is an ideal being, as metaphysical as the idea of a triangle. If a number of people should inclose themselves within a triangle, they…

Joseph R. Stromberg
December 10, 2014

John Taylor on War, Peace, and Imperial War Finance Blog Post

Part IV of a Five Part Series. Part I, Part II, Part III 1. War Finance Disillusioned by the policies of his Republican allies, who had leapt unprepared into the War of 1812, Taylor writes: “War is among the most plausible means used to delude a nation into the errour of anticipation,” or living on credit: ‘Yet it cannot bring…

Joseph R. Stromberg
November 17, 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. Stromberg
November 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. Stromberg
October 14, 2014

John Taylor: Republicanism, Liberty, and Union Blog Post

Part 1 of a Five Part Series 1. The Relevance of John Taylor John Taylor of Caroline (1753-1824) has a secure, if minor, place in the history of American political thought. Charles A. Beard considered him “the philosopher and statesman of agrarianism” and “the most systematic thinker” of the Jeffersonian Republican party. Indeed, Beard’s writing on Taylor, early in the…

Joseph R. Stromberg
September 12, 2014

A Compact Theory? Blog Post

States’ rights are anathema to the historical profession, viewed as nothing more than a specious pretext for chattel slavery. A prominent, Pulitzer-winning court historian of the “Camelot” Administration dubbed states’ rights a “fetish.” Another Pulitizer-winning scholar of what he outrageously terms the “War of Southern Aggression” claims that to Southerners, “liberty” was just a code word for “slavery.” A past…

James Rutledge Roesch
May 29, 2014

State Sovereignty and Centralism in 19th-Century Argentina Blog Post

Introduction: Centers and Peripheries A look at the early history of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata — a political structure ancestral (partly) to the modern-day Argentine nation-state — reveals many interesting parallels with our own experience in the United States. The European empires’ settler colonies in the New World had much in common: their European-derived populations…

Joseph R. Stromberg
April 14, 2014