A review of Rebirthing Lincoln, A Biography (Southern Books, 2021) by Howard Ray White I have always been skeptical of historical mysteries. We know that there have been people who…
Read More
Daybreak in Dixie: Poems of the Confederacy by Linda Lee. Privately published, 2019. For those of us who value the history of our Southern people, these are the worst of…
Any fool can write history, and many do. Please do not assume that I mean by this statement to vaunt the “expert” and slight the amateur. In writing history the…
“The Burning of Atlanta,” 82 minutes. Produced and directed by Christopher Forbes. 2020. I have written a great deal on the Abbeville Institute site in the past on the portrayal of…
According to a recent poll, 72 per cent of Americans think that we are now in the “worst” period of American history. Polls are dubious things and the great historian…
The South Was Right! by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy. New Edition for the 21st century. Shotwell Publishing, 2020. In 1991 the Kennedy brothers first published The South Was Right!, a…
The pattern for modern American politics was set by Lincoln and his cronies in the 1850s—1870s, although it took an immense war against other Americans to make it stick. The…
A review of Cleburne: A Graphic Novel (Rampart Press, 2008) by Justin S. Murphy and others. The graphic novel is a major feature of literature in these times. Southerners can…
A series by Clyde Wilson MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR (1798-1859) of Texas moved from his native Georgia to the Texas Republic in 1835. He took a conspicuous part in the Texas…
A Series by Clyde Wilson THEODORE O’HARA (1820-1867) of Kentucky. “The Bivouac of the Dead” is often thought of as related to The War of 1861-1865. Like the “Star-Spangled Banner”…
A Series by Clyde Wilson EDGAR ALLAN POE, Part 2 Sonnet – To Science Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.Why preyest…
I caught a snatch of news the other day that, even with all that is happening in our time, stunned me. It seems that Hollywood is gearing up its machinery…
A series by Clyde Wilson EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809–1849) of Virginia was the great creative genius of 19th century American literature in poetry, fiction, and criticism. Although accidentally born in…
“Southerners who still value their heritage but don’t know what to do about it in such a hostile environment. They are our audience.” DM: What is your best short answer…
A series by Clyde Wilson EDWARD COOTE PINKNEY (1802-1828) of Maryland was born and partly raised in England where his father, William Pinkney, was the U.S. Minister. After publishing a…
A series by Clyde Wilson RICHARD HENRY WILDE (1789–1847) of Georgia gave up a successful career as lawyer and Congressman to pursue the Muse in Europe. This poem, though perhaps…
A series by Clyde Wilson WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779–1843) of South Carolina was one of the most important of early American painters. The first two poems were written in response to…
A series by Clyde Wilson FRANCIS SCOTT KEY (1779-1843) of Maryland. The story is well known how Key composed “The Star-Spangled Banner” after he witnessed the repulse of the British…
A series by Clyde Wilson Homage to Revolutionary Heroes DOLLEY PAYNE MADISON (1768—1849) was the wife of President James Madison. Lafayette Born, nurtured, wedded, prized, within the pale Of…
A Series by Clyde Wilson UNKNOWN WRITER, 1781 The Battle of King’s Mountain ‘T was on a pleasant mountainThe Tory heathens lay,With a doughty major at their head,One Forguson, they…
EBENEZER COOKE (fl. ca. l 680s–1730s?) of Maryland is a major figure in Colonial American literature. He is best known for the long satirical poem “The Sot-Weed Factor.” (The sot-weed…
JOHN COTTON (fl. 1660s – 1720s) was an early settler of Virginia, never to be confused with the awful Cotton family of Massachusetts. In 1814 an anonymous poem about Bacon’s…
A Series By Clyde Wilson If the South would’ve won, we’d’ve had it made.” –Hank Williams, Jr., of Alabama “The South’s gonna do it again.”–Charlie Daniels of North Carolina 1…
21. Faulkner in Film Southern viewers must naturally be interested in what Hollywood has done with America’s greatest 20th century writer, William Faulkner of Mississippi. **Intruder in the Dust (1949). …
19. Our Speech The experts will tell you that there is more than one Southern accent. This is true, but they all gather together as a marker of Southern that…
18. World War II and Other Wars “To deliver examples to posterity, and to regulate the opinion of future times, is no slight or trivial undertaking; nor is it easy…
16. EXECRABLES. The Worst Movies about the South: A Small Selection The competition here is fierce. We can only provide a sample of some of the worst. A few examples…
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…
12. Southerners in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries **The Yearling (1946). This is an all-time favourite about family life on the Florida frontier and a troublesome pet deer. …
A review of How to Study History When Seeking Truthfulness and Understanding: Lessons Learned from Outside Academia by Howard Ray White Howard White has written a dozen or so highly original…
11. Post-bellum and Westerns There are two interesting, important, and little noticed features of films about the South in the period after the War for Southern Independence. First, until recent…
10. Spielberg’s Lincoln (X) Spielberg’s Lincoln. Life is short. Although I am a devoted if amateur student of Hollywood’s treatment of the great American War of 1861-65, I intended to…
9. Confederate Hollywood From the beginnings to rather recent times portrayals of Confederates have been a mainstay of American cinema. After all, the Confederacy is a rather large and interesting…
8. The War for Southern Independence (continued): Fantasy and Fraud Scorcese’s Gangs of New York (2002) Martin Scorcese, in an interview, candidly described his Gangsof New York, as an “opera.” …
Symbols Used ** Indicates one of the more than 100 most recommended films. The order in which they appear does not reflect any ranking, only the convenience of discussion (T) …
Symbols Used ** Indicates one of the more than 100 most recommended films. The order in which they appear does not reflect any ranking, only the convenience of discussion (T) …
5. Spielberg’s Amistad (1997) If Amistad is not yet a household word like ET or Jurassic Park, it soon will be with the power of Steven Spielberg behind it. (When…
Symbols Used ** Indicates one of the more than 100 most recommended films. The order in which they appear does not reflect any ranking, only the convenience of discussion (T) …
A man only has room for one oath at a time. I took an oath to the Confederate States of America.” John Wayne, The Searchers “We are going to hit…
A Review of The Everlasting Circle: Letters of the Haskell Family of Abbeville, South Carolina, 1861—1865. (Mercer University Press, 2019) Edited by Karen Stokes. Participants in the Old South and…
Those of us whose experience goes back a way into the last century, can remember when “democracy” was the main theme of American discourse. A million tongues proudly and repeatedly…
I recently read a report of a professor who declared that he had come sadly to the conclusion that the Founding Fathers had been all wrong in the government they…
A review of The C.S.A. Trilogy (Independent, 2018) by Howard Ray White. A beautiful thought experiment for Southerners. The year is 2011, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the…
A review of Punished with Poverty: The Suffering South-Prosperity to Poverty & the Continuing Struggle (Shotwell, 2016) by James Ronald and Walter Donald Kennedy This is one of the most…
J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power, 1966 and The Price of Empire, 1967 Robert C. Byrd, Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency, 2004 Known and celebrated as…
A review of Louisiana Poets: A Literary Guide, (U. Press of Mississippi, 2019) by Catharine Savage Brosman and Olivia McNeely Pass. The poet and the scholar are reportedly different sorts…
A Review of Doniphan’s Expedition, Containing an Account of the Conquest of New Mexico . . . by John T. Hughes. Cincinnati, 1847 and Reid’s Tramp, or a Journal of…
A Review of Historical Consciousness, or The Remembered Past (Schocken Books, 1985) by John Lukacs In the introduction to the new edition of his Historical Consciousness (first published in 1968), Professor…
The dominant powers in American discourse today have succeeded in confining the South to a dark little corner of history labeled “Slavery and Treason.” This is already governing the public…
The presidential election of 2016 gave promise to be a watershed in American politics. Donald Trump appeared, a non-politician and rich enough to support his own campaign without selling himself…
A review of Division and Reunion: America, 1848-1877, by Ludwell H. Johnson, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978. 301 pages; and The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist…
There is a popular theme embraced by many that the uniqueness of Southern culture is explained by its “Celtic” origins in opposition to the “Anglo-Saxon” foundations of the North. This…
From the beginnings to rather recent times, sympathetic portrayals of Confederates have been a mainstay of America cinema. An astounding number of major stars without any Southern background have had…
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…
The current pogrom against Southern history and symbols ignores the influence the South and the institution of slavery had on most American presidents. American history would not be the same…
Most of the world knows of the Hollywood Celebrity “Martin Sheen,” (born and baptized Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez). Much of the world knows that he portrayed General Robert E. Lee…
Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. You are deplorable. It is worse than that. If you are Southern or interested in the South you are the most deplorable…
Foreword for A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate General, American Legend, by Lochlainn Seabrook, Sea Raven Press, 2010. There is a story that a year or…
Anyone who has been paying attention has heard many times the assertion that the flag of the Southern Confederacy is equivalent to the banner of the Nazi German Reich. That…
A review of Music from the Lake and Other Essays by Catharine Savage Brosman (Chronicles Press, 2017). Catharine Savage Brosman is a treasure of Southern literature. Although much of her…
Statement about the “slavery the sole cause of the war” plaque affixed to the Confederate soldier monument in Gainesville, Florida. I have been asked to comment on the recent fad…
A Review of M.E. Bradford, A Better Guide Than Reason: Studies in the American Revolution. 1979. The world’s largest, most ancient, and most exemplary republic observed its bicentennial not long…
As the slow process of excavating the marvel continues, more and more revelations are coming to light about the technical sophistication of the H.L. Hunley, the world’s first successful submarine….
A Review of The Imperial Presidency, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973. 504 pages. The title gives us a fleeting but instructive glimpse at the curious…
A review of All Clever Men, Who Make Their Own Way: Critical Discourse in the Old South, edited with an introduction by Michael O’Brien. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. 1982….
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. — THOMAS JEFFERSON A Review of In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Noble E….
Those who still think of conservatives as people who clip coupons are badly out of date. Among other things, such a stereotype betrays a lamentable ignorance of the Rockford Institute…
Order of the Southern Cross Banquet, Sons of Confederate Veterans National Reunion, Asheville, North Carolina, August 1, 2003 As the direct descendant of a private in the 42nd North Carolina…
Want to learn about one of the greatest statesmen that the United States has ever produced? Then get hold of John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Coit. When this…
Like it or not, movies are the main art form of our time, the story-telling medium that reaches the largest audience and captures the attention of us all, high and…
The Fiction of Mr. Simms gave indication, we repeat, of genius, and that of no common order. Had he been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately…
The great body of the nation has no real interest in party. — James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat, 1838 The American presidency offers many fascinating questions for historical exploration….
I am always glad to talk about my favourite subject–-John C. Calhoun. I think it will become apparent that what he has to say has some relevance to our topic…
It seems that out in California an impressively large number of people are petitioning for a referendum on secession. While I don’t think much of their motive, I say more…
A review of Understanding Mary Lee Settle, by George Garrett, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1988, 187 pages. One useful way to distinguish between types of novelists is to…
Every historian has a viewpoint, shaped by his own background, values, and perception of the present. The relationship between background and viewpoint is not necessarily simple. As in the case…
How much better off the American people would be if they could learn the difference between: *investors and speculators *the Constitution ratified by the people of the States and the…
An article by a Canadian historian in a recent issue of the North Carolina Historical Review lays to rest an old canard—the charge that during the War for Southern…
Dr. Clyde Wilson on “American Culture: Virginia or Massachusetts?” at the 2016 Abbeville Institute Summer School.
—there was no television; and then when there was one station on two hours a day. —newspapers were locally owned, had lots of locally written literate material, and even had…
A review of Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South, By Helen P. Trimpi, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 380 pp. Someone, perhaps it was Thomas Carlyle, wrote…
The terms “liberal” and “conservative” were usable signs in a society in which the state was governed by politics. They are of little use the in 21st century United States…
Show me a nasty feminist and I will show you a little girl with a disappointing father. The Transportation Safety Administration confiscated my two-inch cigar cutter at the airport the…
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…
The History Channel’s recent presentation of “Sherman’s March” has been rightly drawing a lot of criticism from those of us who care about such things. In theory, historical events should…
Martin Scorcese, in an interview, candidly described his new film, “Gangs of New York,” as an “opera.” He had been asked whether the events portrayed were true to history. I…
A few of us now decrepit pre-Reagan “conservatives” can remember the brief flicker of hope of saving the republic that we had around 1980. Around about that time we were…
An American president can wreck his country and blow up the world, but he cannot recreate either of them. —Chilton Williamson A recent book on the George W. Bush presidency…
Chronicle’s most distinguished contributing editor, can be relied upon, always, to tell it like it is. He is doing just that when he writes in a blurb to Reinventing the…
The polls show that 33 per cent of the public still gives Dubya Bush a favourable approval rating. Who could these people be? Some of them, no doubt, are well-meaning…
William Faulkner of Mississippi was the greatest writer produced by the United States in the 20th century. His craft was fiction, but like any great writer he was a better…
The mission of the Abbeville Institute, to redeem what is worthwhile in the Southern tradition, is an embattled one. The dominant powers in American discourse today have succeeded in confining…
(13th Annual Gettysburg Banquet of the J.E.B. Stuart Camp, SCV, Philadelphia) ****How Should 21st Century Americans Think about the War for Southern Independence? **** We human beings are peculiar creatures,…
Call me simple… But I don’t understand: Why the government spends billions on welfare but people keep saying hunger is a big problem. Why the government spends billions on education…
Twenty-three Republican Senators joined a large majority of Democrats to vote for the Bush bill to amnesty millions of present and future illegal aliens. The bill passed the Senate 62–36….
World War II has provided a vast amount of material for cinema in Europe, America, and Japan. Some if this is superb. Much of it is hokey entertainment and propaganda….
The Homeland Security apparatus has garnered quite a bit of attention lately for a paper that identified anti-abortionists, anti-immigrationists, and war veterans as terrorist suspects. (I thought “profiling” was forbidden,…
General Lee was a soldier and leader of men, not a politician. Although several of his decisions as soldier had an important political impact in American history, he seldom discussed…
Delivered at the 2016 Abbeville Institute Summer School. A Frenchman has observed that the qualities of a culture may be identified by two characteristics— its manners and its cuisine. If…
Perceptive and insightful people have known through the centuries that William Shakespeare could not possibly have written the plays and sonnets that had been attributed to him, beginning with certain…
Transcend yourself and join in the universal struggle to bring about the self-transcendence of all men! –Karl Marx Culture, as the term is used in America in our times, covers…
A Review of The American Counter Revolution: A Retreat From Liberty, 1783-1800, by Larry E. Tise, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1999, 634 pages. A good historian ought to make it…
Q: What can I read that can give me a serious overview of the true impact of the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 on South Carolina? A: I think the…
In fact, capitalists have no objection to federal meddling. They just want it to be such meddling as puts money in their pockets. Nothing more. Ever.–Fred Reed The market is…
A Review of The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800, by Conor Cruise O’Brien, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, 367 pages. What a marathon of Jefferson-bashing…
These Haters seem to want to destroy anything and anyone they can tie to slavery. . . . Let’s bulldoze the Washington monument and the Jefferson Memorial.–Henry Eversole I just…
A pioneer creates a new country from foresight, courage, and hard work. An immigrant takes advantage of what the pioneer has created. I suppose now we really are “a nation…
I am not a Catholic, but I just have to admire all of this Pope’s meticulously photographed and internationally broadcast acts of humility.–Conservative Pundit Do you think the Civil Rights…
I believe that the American South, the last bastion of Christianity in the West, will have a special role in the final chapter of history.–Anne Wilson Smith I just may…
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…
Southerners who honour their Confederate forebears have often been admonished: “Get over it. You lost!” The admonishers often do not follow their own advice. As a modest but earnest advocate …
Moving from arrogance to masochism, Europeans have endeavoured to chase away their old feelings of ethnocentrism , all the while flattering similar sentiments in other races and cultures. Great efforts…
A new contribution to Southern literature from one or both of the Kennedy brothers, authors of the classic The South Was Right! and other good books, is always a cause…
Thomas Jefferson’s birthday went virtually unnoticed earlier this year (1993), the 250th anniversary of his birth. Nothing is more indicative of how badly we Americans have squandered our moral capital…
The Western intellectual knows, or rather thinks he knows, what others do not. He rarely considers reality as such. . . . He thinks in terms of concepts and abstract…
In a PC world, humor is a capital offense. –Taki Happiness is never an accident. It is the prize we get when we chose wisely from life’s great stores. –Irene…
Education is a vast sea of lies, waste, corruption, crackpot theorizing, and careerist logrolling. –John Derbyshire A lie can travel half way around the world while truth is still putting…
John C. Culhoon. Culhoon is the right pronunciation by the way. John C. Culhoon was an upcountryman. We upcountry people tend to suspect Charlestonians, like Dr. Fleming, of being somewhat…
“My name’s Anderson. They call me Bloody Bill. Going to Kansas to kill Red Legs. Want to come along?” Clint Eastwood replies: “I reckon I will.” –“The Outlaw Josey Wales” The…
Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861—1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment…
This talk was delivered on Friday, February 26, 2016 at the Abbeville Institute Conference “The PC Attack on the South.” We are here to deal with the PC attacks on…
A friend’s encounter with a clergyman: His mission, he says, is Social Justice. Our South Carolina governor, when she removed the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds, had “a Jesus…
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…
The death of the spirit is the price of progress. –Eric Voegelin The Athenians know what is right, but will not do it. –Cicero Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?…
I promised to keep you updated on our government’s radio ads. In the latest, the Department of Justice offers you its benevolent services for any problem you might be experiencing…
Throughout most of American history region has been a better predictor of political position than party. That aspect of our reality has been neglected and suppressed in recent times as…
“And the cause of all these things was power pursued for the gratification of avarice…..” — Thucydides Lee made few political statements, as befits a soldier. When he did it…
Totalitarianism, defined as the existential rule of Gnostic activists, is the end form of progressive civilization.–Eric Voegelin The South is the foe to Northern industry—to our mines, our manufactures, and…
A review of Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, by Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, 447 pages; and Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slavemasters…
Introduction This is James Johnston Pettigrew’s only book, privately printed in Charleston in the first weeks of the War between the States and here for the first time published. In…
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter — Winston Churchill Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other kind that has…
A Review of A Plague on Both Your Houses, by Robert W. Whitaker. New York: Robert B. Luce, 1976, 208 pages. Hardly anyone has commented upon the seeming disappearance from…
“There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians.” — Barnard Elliott Bee A Review of Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies…
The American President began as Cincinnatus, a patriot called to the temporary service of his country (a republican confederation). The President ends as Caesar, a despot of almost unlimited power,…
The further a society strays from the truth, the more it hates people who tell it. –George Orwell When the South lost we all lost. –historian Paul Hoar (New England-born)…
Statement of College and University Professors in Support of the Confederate Battle Flag Atop the South Carolina Statehouse, drafted just before the legislative “compromise.” To the General Assembly and People…
The main problem with America today is the increasing scarcity of Americans. –Clyde Wilson The motive of those who have protested against the extension of slavery has always been concern…
Several generations after his lifetime Jefferson became best known, as he still is, of course, for these words “All men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator…
There was a popular ragtime song in the 1940s and ‘50s, derived from an old minstrel tune, that went like this: Is it true what they say about Dixie? Does…
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.–Jefferson When did the South ever lay its hand…
Introduction to Chronicles of the South: In Justice to So Fine a Country “The South” is a Problem. A Big Problem. This has been true at least since the 1790s…
Declining prosperity is now a settled fact of American life. Prosperity is not measured by the day’s average of stock speculation, or the profits of bankers, or the munificence of…
A man has only got room for one oath at a time. I gave mine to the Confederate States of America. –John Wayne, “The Searchers” Going back is the quickest…
Thanks for the “Amateurs” “Amateur” has come to mean “inferior” to most people today. But the term originally meant someone who was as good as a professional but did not…
Wherever you bluebellies go you cause trouble. . . . Yankees always lie. –Clint Eastwood, “Ambush at Cimarron Pass,” 1958. For every right wing lunatic in a cabin in Idaho,…
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…
A friend who sells high-end real estate tells the story of a well-heeled Northern couple who were enchanted by the idea of owning an antebellum Southern mansion. He met them…
In the antebellum era, Matthew Carey, Philadelphia publisher and journalist, was the most zealous and articulate advocate of a protective tariff to raise the price of imported goods so high…
“. . . and bank-notes will become as plentiful as oak leaves.” —Thomas Jefferson “They [the people], and not the rich are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve…
In 1866 Margaret Junkin Preston of Lexington, Virginia, a sister-in-law of Stonewall Jackson, wrote a poem she called “Regulus.” Regulus was a Roman hero who was tortured by the Carthaginians…
It has been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names,…
Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals can believe them. –Orwell I believe you love me—God knows why? –Yates Snowden Even if the GOP can’t see the light they…
Your other lecturers have pleasant and upbeat subjects to consider. I am stuck with economics, which is a notoriously dreary subject. It is even more of a downer when we…
The Confederate battle flag is protean. It is a powerful symbol that has entered the world’s consciousness. “Protean,” going back to the classical Proteus, is defined as “readily taking on…
Why in the recent “The Factory” does a serial killer from Buffalo, New York, have a Southern accent? Come to think of it, why do serial killers and vicious gang…
In one of Henry James’s less unreadable novels, The Bostonians, the hero is Basil Ransom, an impoverished ex-Confederate from Mississippi who is trying to make his way professionally in the…
The awful Obama is pushing terrible things on our country like socialised medicine, big spending, corporate bailouts, affirmative action, and amnesty for illegal aliens. He must be defeated so the…
The Report from Dogwood Mudhole Franklin Sanders is a well-known Southern leader and spokesman. In 1995 Sanders, his wife, children, and grandchildren moved lock, stock, and barrel to Wayne County,…
This piece was originally published on 3 July 2014 and is reprinted in light of current events. Are you puzzled and irritated by the viciousness and falsity of most of…
“The Father of Waters now flows unvexed to the sea,” Lincoln famously announced in July 1863. He was, according to a reporter, uncharacteristically “wearing a smile of supreme satisfaction” as…
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…
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…
A review of Division and Reunion: America, 1848-1877, by Ludwell H. Johnson, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978. 301 pages; and The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist…
I want to look at Southerners going back to Europe long after the roots were planted, especially in the period before the second War of Independence began in 1861. The…
It seems my mission here is to bring to your attention unfamiliar and unfashionable truths about American history. Let me give you another one. The American West, the frontier, was…
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…
When our ever-wise leader set up a program on the American West, he obviously had in mind the geographic west of North America—the Great Plains, mountains, and Pacific coast beyond…
This essay served as the introduction to Why the South Will Survive(University of Georgia Press, 1981). OF THE MAKING of books about the South there is no end. This one…
Abbeville scholar Clyde Wilson recently received this charming from Ms. Joscelyn Dunlop of Edenton, North Carolina. It neatly ties together Southern life in the WBTS, the 1930s, and today. Dear…
Karen Stokes’s Reconstruction Novel Awhile back it was theorised by some that Southern literature’s era of greatness was coming to an end with the changes taking place in our region. …
In 1809 Thomas Jefferson yielded up the Presidency and crossed into Virginia. In the 17 active years remaining to him he never left it. The first volume of Malone’s masterpiece,…
What to say in brief compass about the South?—a subject that is worthy of the complete works of a Homer, a Shakespeare, or a Faulkner. The South is a geographical/historical/cultural…
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…
In talking about the Southern political tradition, it is most appropriate to point to the North Carolina Regulators and the Battle of Alamance Creek. This event was, in fact, only…
There seemed to be little interest among audience members [at a scholarly meeting] in whether the ideas I had presented were true, only whether their application would bring about results…
“When it comes to be once understood that politics is a game; that those who are engaged in it but act a part; that they make this or that profession,…
This selection was originally printed in Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson, Forgotten Conservatives in American History (Pelican, 2012). Of the Great Triumvirate who dominated American public discourse from the War…
Your ordinary run-of-the mill historian will tell you that John C. Calhoun, having defended the bad and lost causes of state rights and slavery, deserves to rest forever in the…
There is no group I would rather receive recognition from than the John Randolph Club. I want to thank my valued comrade-in-arms Tom Fleming for this occasion. Tom is the…
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!” —Robert Burns Not long ago, a well-known conservative historian lamented that the American public had…
I have seen enough of publick men to come to the conclusion, that there are few, indeed, whose attachment to self is not stronger, than their patriotism and their friendship….
The History Channel’s recent presentation of “Sherman’s March” has been rightly drawing a lot of criticism from those of us who care about such things. In theory, historical events should…
Review of the new film Field of Lost Shoes: I have written before here and here about the treatment of the South in film. A new entry into that dubious…
The American Enterprise magazine, a slick-paper, coffee-table arm of the neocon publishing empire, has recognized the premiere of the Civil War film epic “Gods and Generals” by devoting its March…
I have called M.E. Bradford the Agrarian Aquinas. He did not write a Summa, but his work as a whole enriched and carried into new territory the message of I’ll…
John Chodes, Destroying the Republic: Jabez Curry and the Re-Education of the Old South. New York: Algora Publishing. 332 pp. $29.95 (quality paperback) Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry of Alabama (1825–1903)…
I am honoured to be back in my native State (North Carolina) where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great. We are here on this occasion both to…
South Carolina will preserve its sovereignty, or be buried beneath its ruins. –Governor Robert Y. Hayne, 1832 I have lived too long not to know how reluctantly the clearest proposition…
“. . . a republican government, which many great writers assert to be incapable of subsisting long, except by the preservation of virtuous principles.” — John Taylor of Caroline The…
Experience has taught me, that in politicks, it is much more easy to gain the battle, than to reap its fruits. –Calhoun I had not realized how offensive the plain…
It has been a rule with me, from which I have rarely departed, to pass in silence the misrepresentations to which I have been subject, in the discharge of my…
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….
What are people for? –Wendell Berry I do not view politicks as a scramble between eminent men; but as a science by which the lasting interest of the country…
If we want to understand the origins and nature of Southern culture we must consider it from the standpoint of the West. Because the South was the West of Britain,…
A review of Henry Timrod: A Biography by Walter Brian Cisco, Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickison University Press, 2001. 168 pages. Henry Timrod died in 1867 at the age of…
In an ideal world the separate studies of history and literature would enlighten one another. A historian—whether of republican Rome, seventeenth century France, the Old South, or any other subject—would…
It is not in the power of any single, or few individuals to preserve liberty. It can only be effected by the people themselves; by their intelligence, virtue, courage, and…
It is the very genius of a consolidated Government to elevate one portion of the Community, while it corrupts the other. –Calhoun Generally, however, the secession movement was a remarkable…
“To parties of special interests, all political questions appear exclusively as problems of political tactics.” I want to take a look at this strange institution we know as the Republican…
“Your enemy is not a criminal just because he is your enemy.” —Saying credited to the founder of Israeli intelligence. “How could we help falling on our knees, all of…
In the early days of the United States, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton remarked: “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment.” The common…
That is Bobby Bare on Detroit and Dwight Yoakam on Los Angeles. Sometimes there are significant movements in history that go unnoticed because they take place slowly over a long…
The Constitutional power of the President never was or could be formidable, unless it was accompanied by a Congress which was prepared to corrupt the Constitution. –Calhoun Devolution is not…
The final part in this installment is a lecture entitled, “Reconstruction in the Experience of the Southern People,” delivered at the 2009 Summer School. Violence is a big subject in…
When did the South ever lay its hand on the North? –Calhoun The body of a Confederate soldier was discovered near here a few days ago. I think I will…
I never claimed a victory, though I stated that Lee was defeated in his efforts to destroy my army. –Gen. George G. Meade, Union commander at Gettysburg The army did…
A good dog needs no pedigree, and if a dog ain’t any good, a pedigree don’t help him none. –Havilah Babcock Southerners are the world’s worst record-keepers. –Havilah Babcock It…
Reality is what continues to exist whether you believe in it or not. –Philip K. Dick There is but one rule if you want to be a man—absolutely but one—and…
These 40 questions have been carefully designed to test your qualifications as a citizen. The test is self-administered, but please be honest. Answer each question with “Agree” or “Disagree.” The…
When I first heard of the topic “Small is Beautiful,” I thought of the wonderful motto of Chilton Williamson’s friend Edward Abbey: “Growth is the Enemy of Progress.” Abbey went…
“Sic Semper Tyrannis.” — from the Great Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia “I want everybody to hear loud and clear that I’m going to be the president of everybody”…
In honor of William Faulkner’s birthday (Sept 25), Clyde Wilson discusses Faulkner as a conservative. This essay first appeared in Clyde Wilson and Brion McClanahan, Forgotten Conservatives in American History…
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…
Swagger and ferocity, built on a foundation of vulgarity and cowardice, those are his characteristics, and these are the most prominent marks by which his countrymen, generally speaking, are known…
This essay originally appeared in Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture. In the previous chapter we discussed the early stages of the North American War of Secession of…
While I could never with safety repose confidence in a Yankee, I have never been deceived by an Indian. —Daniel Boone That cold-blooded demon called Science has taken the place…
How do you achieve peace and normal life after a civil war? Of course the War to Prevent Southern Independence was not really a civil war since the South did…
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…
The burden of our endeavour in this conference is to examine the great morality play of Northern Good versus Southern Evil that is the conventional history of anti-slavery in the…
One of the cultural markers that has identified that which we call Southern from the undistinguished mass of American nonculture is language. Obviously pronunciation is involved here, but also words,…
Expert testimony in several federal court cases: Scholars in every field in the humanities and social sciences have long recognized that Southerners have formed a distinct people within the body…
The real U.S. Constitution, which was scrapped long ago, does not permit judges to be its final interpreters, executive orders, coercion of the people of a State by the federal…
We Sons of Confederate Veterans are charged with preserving the good name of the Confederate soldier. The world, for the most part, has acknowledged what Gen. R. E. Lee described…
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…
*What American President launched a massive invasion of another country that posed no threat, and without a declaration of war? *What President raised a huge army at his own will…
One of the greatest men in American history was born on this date (July 13) in 1821 near the town of Chapel Hill, Tennessee, then known as Bledsoe’s Lick. It…
Last in a six part series. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. As we all know, in recent times, Southerners, so far as Hollywood is concerned,…
The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern States. —Charles Dickens, 1862 Slavery…
The North is full of tangled things . . . . —G.K. Chesterton A meddling Yankee is God’s worst creation; he cannot run his own affairs correctly, but is constantly…
The history of the South is yet to be written. He who writes it need not fear for his reward. Such a one must have at once the instinct of…
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…
The “positive good” speech of February 6, 1837, is vintage Calhoun, an exercise of his conception of the proper role of a statesmen placed in the highest deliberative body of…
In what became the United States, servitude of people of the black African race existed for about two and a half centuries. The subject of American slavery is today so…
(Part 5 of a 6-part series on the South in cinema) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. As you know, the folks who dominate the American movie industry…
Part 4 in a 5 part series. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. In 1902 the Philadelphia aristocrat Owen Wister published what has been called “the first true Western novel.”…
Hermann Keyserling was an Austrian writer quite well-known internationally in the early 20th century for his philosophical works and travel accounts. After an extended visit to the U.S., he published…
Recent Comments