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Abbeville Institute

What if South Carolina Really Seceded to Protect Slavery? Blog

What if South Carolina Really Seceded to Protect Slavery?

From the Jefferson Davis X Account. (Let’s Play Devil’s Advocate and Watch the Whole Argument Collapse Anyway) Look, I’ll bite. Let’s pretend—just for the sheer entertainment value—that South Carolina’s secession in December 1860 was nothing but a cold-blooded plot to safeguard the institution of slavery. No states’-rights talk. No tariff gripes. No constitutional compact theory. Just pure, unadulterated slave-power paranoia.…
Abbeville Institute
August 7, 2026
Distorting the Declaration Blog

Distorting the Declaration

No "conservative" has done more damage to the interpretation of the American past than Harry Jaffa. He spent his career attaching the conservative movement to Abraham Lincoln and more importantly to a distorted version of the Declaration of Independence. Modern conservatism relies on Jaffa's version of the Declaration, and with the 250th anniversary of the adoption of Jefferson's work this…
Abbeville Institute
April 7, 2026
Rethinking the Southern Tradition Blog

Rethinking the Southern Tradition

Nullification is in the news, but not because the American right considers it to be a viable response to federal overreach. Mainstream conservatives have decided that classifying their leftist opponents as “neo-Confederates” interested in nullification will win political points at the next election. Victor Davis Hanson makes this a central theme of his ongoing attack on the Democratic Party. You…
Abbeville Institute
December 2, 2025
Defending Dixie’s Land Blog

Defending Dixie’s Land

Are you interested in knowing the actual history of your country, or are you content with the propagandized version the winners of wars conjure up to feed school children? When it comes to the story and tradition of the U.S. South, and especially the events surrounding the Civil War (1861–1865), you may need to brace yourself. What you think you…
Abbeville Institute
October 29, 2025
South Carolina was Not an Oligarchy Blog

South Carolina was Not an Oligarchy

In the heated political rhetoric of the mid-19th century, Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) famously lambasted South Carolina's government in his 1856 speech "The Crime Against Kansas," portraying it as an oligarchy where political power was confined to an elite few, specifically requiring legislators to own "a settled freehold estate and ten negroes." This claim, however, was a deliberate distortion of…
Abbeville Institute
September 22, 2025
Debunking Kevin Levin’s Distorted Assault on the Reconciliation Memorial Blog

Debunking Kevin Levin’s Distorted Assault on the Reconciliation Memorial

Kevin Levin's recent Substack screed, "Stop Referring to the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery as a 'Reconciliation Monument,'" is a masterclass in selective historical cherry-picking, ideological bias, and outright fabrication. Levin, a self-styled Civil War memory expert whose work has been accused of perpetuating an anti-Southern narrative that borders on hostility, peddles the absurd notion that the Arlington Confederate…
Abbeville Institute
August 18, 2025
Debunking Myths: The True Story Behind Charlottesville’s Lee Statue Blog

Debunking Myths: The True Story Behind Charlottesville’s Lee Statue

Originally published as an essay on X by the "Jefferson Davis" account. In the wake of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, activists and some "historians" propagated a series of claims about the city's Robert E. Lee statue, framing it as a symbol of white supremacy, Jim Crow, and racial intimidation. These narratives often distorted historical facts,…
Abbeville Institute
August 8, 2025
Havin’ A Large Time Blog

Havin’ A Large Time

Reporter Bill King discusses his decade of work covering the Southern music scene from 1976-1986. We're havin' a large time. You can pick up his book, Large Time: On the Southern Music Beat, 1976-1986, and enjoy more detailed stories. https://youtu.be/cxMqZTfhqSM The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily the views of the Abbeville Institute.
Abbeville Institute
July 30, 2025
Joint Salvation Blog

Joint Salvation

South Carolina author Perrin Lovett’s recent Christian novel Judging Athena (Shotwell Publishing) has attracted international attention. Below, Lovett is interviewed about the book. This interview/review was originally published at LiteraryTitan.com Judging Athena follows a humble and kindhearted research assistant who meets a curator at an art gallery, and what begins as a chance encounter over a necklace for a young…
Abbeville Institute
July 9, 2025
Patrick Henry
Why not “We the States”? Blog

Why not “We the States”?

Editor's Note: Henry delivered this speech in June, 1788 at the opening of the Virginia Ratifying Convention and is reprinted here in honor of his birthday, May 29. EXTRACT FROM SPEECH ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. THE preamble and the two first sections of the first article of the constitution being under consideration, Mr. Henry thus addressed the convention: MR. CHAIRMAN:…
Abbeville Institute
May 30, 2025
White Sulphur Manifesto Blog

White Sulphur Manifesto

Editor's note: In 1868, former Union General William Rosecrans approached Robert E. Lee about making a statement in support of the Democratic ticket for the 1868 presidential election. The Republicans stirred fear among the Northern electorate that a Democratic victory would destroy race relations and subject black Southerners to harsh treatment at the hands of their former masters. This was…
Abbeville Institute
May 26, 2025
I Ain’t Apologizing Blog

I Ain’t Apologizing

Jon Harris has been affiliated with the Abbeville Institute for nearly a decade. He was one of our Summer School students, has been responsible for some of our video work, and was the editor and producer of our 1607 Project documentary. He hosts the popular YouTube channel Conversations That Matter and published two books on social justice and Christianity. He…
Abbeville Institute
January 3, 2025
Secession and Reconciliation Blog

Secession and Reconciliation

Modern activist historians think "reconciliation" is a pejorative, but for most Americans in the early 20th century, it was a necessary part of healing. This included histories written by Southerners. We discuss one of those books on this episode of The Essential Southern Podcast. https://youtu.be/ZMkmCr8u7V8
Abbeville Institute
November 1, 2024
Reconstruction BlogMedia Posts

Reconstruction

Reconstruction is one of the most important topics in American history. It used to be a complex story, and as one historian called it a "tragic era." Historians now call it an "unfinished revolution." What changed? Only interpretation. https://youtu.be/KRbQjvano1s
Abbeville Institute
September 20, 2024
Ghosts of Grandeur Blog

Ghosts of Grandeur

Historic Southern antebellum homes are disappearing, and those that still remain are being reinterpreted by activist historians. Author Mike Kitchens joins us to talk about his book "Ghosts of Grandeur" and the current woke assault on Southern home museums and historic sites. https://youtu.be/7WE9RdCkFY8
Abbeville Institute
August 21, 2024
From the Archives–Livingston v. Guelzo Blog

From the Archives–Livingston v. Guelzo

In September 2010, the University of Virginia hosted a debate between Abbeville Institute founder Don Livingston and Professor Allen Guelzo, recognized to be one of the foremost Lincolnian scholars in the United States, on the topic "Is Nullification Constitutional?" Guelzo is as committed to the Lincolnian position of an "indestructible Union" as Livingston is to the compact fact of the…
Abbeville Institute
July 30, 2024
Spencer Roane, Part 2 Blog

Spencer Roane, Part 2

Continued from Part 1. When the Democrats came into power, the need of a Democratic paper was felt in Virginia. The newspaper had now become one of the most important methods of political warfare. Each party maintained one at Washington, in which articles advocating the one and maligning the other were published. These were read throughout the country, and in…
Abbeville Institute
July 26, 2024
Spencer Roane, Part 1 Blog

Spencer Roane, Part 1

Written by Edwin J. Smith in 1905 and published in the John P. Branch Historical Papers of Randolph-Macon College. The formative period of our national existence is the one which, more than any other, produced great men. Great issues arose which had to be settled. Great battles were fought and won in the arena of public life-battles on which depended…
Abbeville Institute
July 25, 2024
John Tyler, Son of Virginia Blog

John Tyler, Son of Virginia

From the Confederate Veteran, January 1916: John Tyler, distinguished Virginian and tenth President of the United States, has received fitting, though long-deferred, honor from the country he served. Fifty-three years after his death the United States government has erected a handsome monument at his last resting place, in the shades of beautiful Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond, Va., that sacred and…
Abbeville Institute
July 3, 2024
The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment Blog

The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment

On Friday, March 15, the Abbeville Institute hosted a webinar on the legal scholar Raoul Berger and the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Brion McClanahan hosted legal scholars Allen Mendenhall, William Watkins, and Jesse Meriam for a round table discussion on the Berger, the amendment, and Reconstruction. If you want to learn more about the fraudulent "ratification" of the…
Abbeville Institute
March 20, 2024
South Carolina Debates the Union Blog

South Carolina Debates the Union

Editor's Note: This 1830 speech from Whitemarsh B. Seabrook shows that South Carolina's commitment to the original Constitution was not solely based on arguments against slavery. Mr. Chairman—I am not aware that I ever attempted to address you with feelings like those which now influence me. The momentous character of the controversy between this state and the federal government, the…
Abbeville Institute
December 19, 2023
No to War Blog

No to War

Editor's Note: On 5 April 1917, Representative Claude Kitchin of North Carolina rose and delivered a manly speech in opposition to Woodrow Wilson's call for a declaration of war against Germany. He was one of five Southern members of Congress who opposed the war resolution. Kitchin prophetically predicted that if she became involved in the war, America would be forced…
Abbeville Institute
November 13, 2023
David Blight, Neo-Confederate Blog

David Blight, Neo-Confederate

Editor's Note: On May 9, 2023, Art History Professor Erin Thompson published a piece at The Nation gleefully announcing that Arlington Cemetery will finally be rid of its "racist" Confederate monument. The piece is indicative of the current level of scholarship by modern mainstream academics. Most of it centers on Tweets that attacked her public joy--also through a Tweet--at the…
Abbeville Institute
May 15, 2023
The Arlington Confederate Monument BlogMedia Posts

The Arlington Confederate Monument

The Naming Commission has recommended the removal of the Arlington Confederate Monument. This would not only be a historical travesty and a barbaric leveling of art, it would lay waste to the very message the monument was intended to convey: fraternity, healing, and reconciliation. Tell your Representative you want to stop this heinous act of cultural destruction. https://youtu.be/IwST0QslHLs
Abbeville Institute
November 9, 2022
Shermanized Blog

Shermanized

Editor's Note: This poem was delivered by Miss Lucy Powell Harris at a concert give by the pupils at the Houston Street Female High School in Atlanta, Georgia, May, 1st, 1866. It was originally written by L. Virginia French, the daughter of a prosperous Virginia family. She relocated to Tennessee and became a teacher after her mother died and her…
Abbeville Institute
October 21, 2022
Old State Rights Blog

Old State Rights

From Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics by Charles Henry Ambler Ritchie was not a genius. Either of the others of the great "Democratic Triumvirate" of political editors, Francis P. Blair of the Washington Globe, or Edwin Croswell of the Albany Argus, was his equal in natural ability. Possibly John Hampden Pleasants, Duff Green, and even others surpassed him…
Abbeville Institute
September 6, 2022
Jefferson Davis on Robert E. Lee Blog

Jefferson Davis on Robert E. Lee

Remarks of President Davis at the Meeting of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors held at the First Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia, November 3, 1870, for the purpose of organizing the Lee Monument Association, as reported in the Richmond Dispatch for Nov. 4, 1870. Robert E. Lee was my associate and friend in the military academy, and we were friends until…
Abbeville Institute
August 30, 2022
McCulloch v. Maryland Blog

McCulloch v. Maryland

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 Institute
August 29, 2022
The Achievements of M.E. Bradford Blog

The Achievements of M.E. Bradford

By Forrest McDonald and Clyde Wilson. These essays were originally published in the Fall 1982 issue of Southern Partisan. A review of M.E. Bradford, A Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution. Marlborough, NH: Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1982 and M.E. Bradford, A Better Guide Than Reason: Studies in the American Revolution. La Salle, Ill.: Sherwood…
Abbeville Institute
February 3, 2022
American Monuments Blog

American Monuments

Editor's Note: Former Abbeville Institute summer school student Jon Harris and his Last Stand Studios produced this original documentary about American monuments and the ongoing American iconoclasm. It features Abbeville Institute scholars Donald Livingston, Brion McClanahan, Bill Wilson, Philip Leigh, and Kirkpatrick Sale. From the website: "Our next project, American Monument, will explore the good, true, and beautiful qualities represented…
Abbeville Institute
November 8, 2021
A Defense of Lee Blog

A Defense of Lee

Three years ago, Woke General Ty Seidule of West Point addressed the students and faculty at Washington and Lee University on the life and character of Robert E. Lee. He aimed to tarnish Lee's reputation and primacy at the institution and insisted that Lee's name and legacy be removed from the campus. Some responded that Seidule was "speaking truth to…
Abbeville Institute
April 5, 2021
A Southern Poetry Sampler Blog

A Southern Poetry Sampler

The Soiling of Old Glory by Stanley Forman When I See That Flag Flying by John Parker When I see that flag flying I see my people dying Defending their land From its invasion. When I see that flag waving I feel my people's craving For the short-lived Independence which That flag took away. When I see that flag blowing…
Abbeville Institute
October 25, 2019
Nationally Acclaimed, Locally Detested Blog

Nationally Acclaimed, Locally Detested

The Tricentennial celebration of New Orleans has stirred much interest into different facets of the city’s history. The search for the quintessential old New Orleans novel yields few results. The rich culture of New Orleans makes it one of America’s great cities. The Crescent City has served as muse for a litany of writers, accomplished and rising, yet it remains a near impossible place…
Abbeville Institute
July 23, 2018
A Poetry Sampler Blog

A Poetry Sampler

Editor's note: Three recent poetry submissions, the first two by Walt Garlington, the third by Stephen Borthwick. The Patriarch’s Clan The patriarch’s clan By the lake is gathered To honor again Their common father: The matriarch with Her circle of friends, Cousins, with new wives' and husbands' And newer children, The bond of kinship Strengthened in their meeting. Traditions are…
Abbeville Institute
July 17, 2017
Listening in Autumn: “Thin Time” in North Louisiana Review Posts

Listening in Autumn: “Thin Time” in North Louisiana

Two Poems by Robert Peters and David Middleton Who Will Hear? From distant ridge to distant ridge hunting horns serenading with stories before great fires; Bobbing over hill and into hollow the fox hounds’ course voices; The pitch of the pack rising with the tiring of the stag; Watery break singing with a million mosquitoes; Chip marrying the widow with…
Abbeville Institute
February 7, 2017
Two Aristocracies Review Posts

Two Aristocracies

Editor's note: This piece was originally printed as an unsigned piece in DeBow's Review in 1866. The author had already recognized that the deal struck between Midwestern farmers and Northeastern merchants would in short order ruin agriculture and by default a more Jeffersonian economy in the "farm belt" of America. His call for Southern and Midwestern farmers to unite against…
Abbeville Institute
October 5, 2016
John Tyler Son of Virginia Blog

John Tyler Son of Virginia

From the Confederate Veteran Magazine, Volume 4, 1916, pages 4-5. John Tyler, distinguished Virginian and tenth President of the United States, has received fitting, though long-deferred, honor from the country he served. Fifty-three years after his death the United States government has erected a handsome monument at his last resting place, in the shades of beautiful Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond,…
Abbeville Institute
April 2, 2015