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October 18, 2021

Our Solemn Task as Southerners

Over the past several years I have been writing essays for several publications and media outlets regarding Southern and Confederate history and heritage, and, in particular, about the growing assault…
Boyd Cathey 0
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BlogPodcast
October 16, 2021

Podcast Episode 283

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 11-15, 2021 Topics: Southern Tradition, Southern Politics, Southern Culture, Southern History https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-283
Brion McClanahan 0
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October 15, 2021

The Father of Representative Government in America

It is not the purpose of this article to set forth any new discovery, nor to present any reflections which are especially startling or original. The purpose is, to emphasize…
William Robertson Garrett 1
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October 14, 2021

Economic Interpretation of American History

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…
William E. Dodd 0
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October 13, 2021

Beautiful Losers

When T.S. Eliot said that there are no lost causes because there are no won causes, he probably was not thinking of American conservatism. Nearly sixty years after the New…
Sam Francis 2
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October 12, 2021

Eminent Southrons and Cinematic Slander

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…
John Shelton Reed 3
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October 11, 2021

Who Are Confederate Monument Critics Really Targeting?

The routine removal of Confederate statues signifies a new stage in the evolution of political progressives. Their vision for a new order that can provide social justice for the so-called…
Philip Leigh 2
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BlogPodcast
October 9, 2021

Podcast Episode 282

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 4-8, 2021 Topics: Southern tradition, Wokism, Political Correctness, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-282
Brion McClanahan 0
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October 8, 2021

On the Wane

“Aggressive abroad and despotic at home.” --Robert E. Lee The empire Lincoln built is on the wane. Those who know history can see the signs— And even those with ears…
Thomas Riley 0
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October 7, 2021

Steppin Back

The locusts descend upon the land. Not the literal ones, but a kind much worse, in my estimation. The urbanites, long disenchanted with the social upheaval of late, have begun…
Travis Holt 2
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October 6, 2021

The Reparations Rip-Off

      In the dis-United States today, far too many of its people have now lost all sense of proportion and as movie magnate Richard Rowland said over a…
John Marquardt 6
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October 5, 2021

White Rice is Racist

The latest major study issued by a blue-ribbon commission on racism infecting American culture comes on the heels of other startling examples which “woke” academia, government and the media have…
Boyd Cathey 5
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October 4, 2021

Our Marxist Revolution

Thomas Carlyle said that it takes men of worth to recognize worth in men (1). Among the many worthy men across Western Civilization who recognized the worth of General Robert…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 2
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BlogPodcast
October 2, 2021

Podcast Episode 281

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Sept 27 - Oct 1, 2021 Topics: Confederate monuments, War for Southern Independence, Reconstruction, United States Constitution, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-281  
Brion McClanahan 0
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October 1, 2021

Once Upon a Time

The following is an excerpt from an article by a man named Troy Cauley. It is titled “Hindsight” and was first printed in the Southern Partisan over 30 years ago.…
Paul H. Yarbrough 3
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Review Posts
September 30, 2021

Spencer Roane: The Forgotten Founder

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,…
Aaron N. Coleman 0
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September 29, 2021

The National Archives Labels the Constitution “Racist”

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all it was completely logical, the inevitable result of the insane “woke” political correctness that has been building and raging, largely unabated,…
Boyd Cathey 0
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September 28, 2021

Lincoln’s Total War

Who has not heard of Wounded Knee? Most know at least the general facts surrounding what is acknowledged as an atrocity committed by the army of the United States. On…
Valerie Protopapas 1
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September 27, 2021

“Shrines The Heart Hath Builded”

My wife, Elizabeth, comes from a village called Greenwich in northern New York state. Among the keepsakes preserved by her family is a box of letters from her great-great uncle…
Barton Cockey 2
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BlogPodcast
September 25, 2021

Podcast Episode 280

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, September 20-24, 2021 Topics: Southern tradition, Southern history, Southern monuments, Southern music https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-280
Brion McClanahan 1
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September 24, 2021

Terrorists with Planes and Cranes

A lot has happened in the last 20 years.  Reflecting on the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, aka the “Twin Towers” 20 years this week puts recent  history into…
Lola Sanchez 2
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September 23, 2021

The Voices

We’ve all heard some cliché joke about ‘voices in our head’, usually posted over and over again on Facebook or quoted by someone who hasn’t quite figured out just how…
Travis Holt 0
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September 22, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–The Balfa Brothers

In a significant departure for this series, the 9th installment of What Makes This Musician Great will focus on a band instead of one musician, and more appropriately, a band…
Tom Daniel 0
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Blog
September 21, 2021

A Good Southerner is Hard to Find

Perhaps it was after watching yet another film depicting the South as irredeemably backwards and bigoted. Or perhaps it was after reading yet another round of commentaries denigrating Robert E.…
Casey Chalk 2
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September 20, 2021

I Will Make My Lineage Known

Regarding Afghanistan. There is nothing to say that has not been said better by those, both believers and heretics, better versed in the theology of the “American century,” the “rules-based…
Enoch Cade 3
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BlogPodcast
September 18, 2021

Podcast Episode 279

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Sept 13-17, 2021 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Southern Symbols, Woke Culture, Southern Education https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-279
Brion McClanahan 0
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Blog
September 17, 2021

Writing History Books Without History

The numerous declarations among "right-wing" websites, blogs, and print publications usually present a conundrum of any given thoughts among them. It is like a string of firecrackers exploding. They are…
Paul H. Yarbrough 8
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Blog
September 16, 2021

The Uneducated Antebellum South?

Conditions and Limitations of Southern Educational Efforts. In the discussion of educational interests and educational work in the various parts of the Union, from the colonial period to 1861 and…
Robert Burwell Fulton 0
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September 15, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Freddy Fender

Freddy Fender?  You mean that Mexican fella?  No, I mean the Southern musical pioneer from Texas who served in the U.S. Marines, and successfully merged Tejano music with Country music…
Tom Daniel 1
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Review Posts
September 14, 2021

Break It Up

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,…
Terry Hulsey 6
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Blog
September 13, 2021

Lee Memorial Ode

This piece was originally published in the Confederate Veteran, Vol. 22, Issue 2, 1914. Replies to the inquiry about the lines, “He did not die that day in Lexington; Fame…
James Barron Hope 2
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BlogPodcast
September 11, 2021

Podcast Episode 278

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Sep 6-10, 2021 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Southern Tradition, Wokism, Southern Music, Southern History https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-278
Brion McClanahan 0
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Blog
September 10, 2021

Against the Cruise Ship Historians

The court historian is as old as history itself. Early states were based on the monopolization of information—accounting tablets at first, for taxation, but then “official” histories so that rulers…
Jason Morgan 1
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Blog
September 9, 2021

The Journey from Canaan to Carolina

Biblical history tells us that Abrahamic monotheism, the foundation of not only Judaism but Christianity and Islam as well, began some four thousand years ago in Ur, the ancient land…
John Marquardt 0
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September 8, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Bill Monroe

As I talk to people about American music and Southern music, I’ve noticed that many folks mistakenly assume that Bluegrass is an old genre stretching back into the hills for…
Tom Daniel 0
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Blog
September 7, 2021

The Unwanted Southern Conservatives

  No discussion of Southern conservatism, its history and its relationship to what is termed broadly the “American conservative movement” would be complete without an examination of events that have…
Boyd Cathey 3
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Blog
September 6, 2021

If We Don’t Take Our Stand Now, It Will Be Too Late

It seems clear to many of us that there are two rising tides in American life these days. One has been called by many names: Political Correctness, “Wokeism”, Cultural Marxism,…
Ben Jones 1
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BlogPodcast
September 4, 2021

Podcast Episode 277

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 30 - September 3, 2021 Topics: Southern humor, Southern music, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-277
Brion McClanahan 0
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Blog
September 3, 2021

Gaul Was Divided in Three

Editor's note: The following story was told by "Private" John Allen, a Congressmen from Mississippi from 1885-1901. "I want to tell you of the greatest legal victory of my life,"…
John M. Allen 0
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September 2, 2021

The Blessings and Security of Self Government

THOMAS JEFFERSON TO ROGER C. WEIGHTMAN MONTICELLO, June 24, 1826. RESPECTED SIR: The kind invitation received from you, on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to…
Thomas Jefferson 1
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September 1, 2021

Washington vs. Lee

L. Q. C. LAMAR TO THE VICKSBURG COMMITTEE OXFORD, Miss., Dec. 5, 1870. To Col. William H. McCardle, and others, Committee, etc., Vicksburg, Miss. GENTLEMEN: When, on the occasion of…
Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar 2
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Blog
August 31, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Robert Johnson

The sixth Southern musician to be examined in this series of What Makes This Musician Great will be a bluesman that was so good he became a ghost story –…
Tom Daniel 0
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Blog
August 30, 2021

The Carolina Couch Controversy

Originally published in the March 1998 issue of Reason magazine. Local busybodies target the front porch. In the small-town American South porch sitting was once a nearly universal pastime. As…
John Shelton Reed 3
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BlogPodcast
August 28, 2021

Podcast Episode 276

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Aug 23-27, 2021 Topics: Southern tradition, Southern music, Jefferson Davis. Slavery, Southern religion, the War. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-276
Brion McClanahan 0
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August 27, 2021

The Last Address

The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, The Last Words, The Farewell Addresses of Union and Confederate Commanders to Their Men at the End of the War Between…
Michael R. Bradley 2
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August 26, 2021

Jefferson Davis on Slavery in the Territories

The modern academic narrative says that the South’s purpose in secession and war was to “preserve and extend slavery.” Any other purpose is labeled a post-war “Lost Cause Myth.” In…
Rod O'Barr 3
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August 25, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Carl Perkins

In this fifth installment of the series “What Makes This Musician Great,” we will travel back to the cultural hurricane in the early days of Rockabilly music, and celebrate the…
Tom Daniel 0
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Review Posts
August 24, 2021

Our Comfort in Dying

A review of Our Comfort in Dying (Sola Fide Publications, 2021), R. L. Dabney and Jonathan W. Peters, ed. Dabney “was fearless and faithful in the discharge of every duty.…
Forrest L. Marion 0
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August 23, 2021

Staying Home

Americans have a weird relationship with their roots. Most folk want to be from somewhere, but they often don’t want to be in that somewhere. As someone who has unusually…
Casey Chalk 4
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Blog
August 20, 2021

American Aurelius

Esteem you for your genius? Just a little— But most of all your people loved the peace That stood behind your fury. In the middle Of your much-troubled heart, there…
Thomas Riley 0
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August 19, 2021

So, it was a Civil War after all…

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. . .” Abraham Lincoln ~ First Inaugural Address I have always believed—reasonably, I…
Valerie Protopapas 1
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August 18, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Maybelle Carter

When I was a kid, we had a bully in school who delighted in picking on the girls, for some reason.  No matter what they accomplished, this moron always chimed…
Tom Daniel 0
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Blog
August 17, 2021

You Lost. Get Over It

The opponents of Southern heritage often repeat the trope: “You lost, get over it.” One of them told me that it was “ironic” that we honor both the US and…
Rev. Larry Beane 2
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Blog
August 16, 2021

Can the South Rise Again?

Growing up in mostly-rural North Carolina, most of my friends and especially their parents could go on a bit about their family backgrounds, about their familial histories. Most of my…
Boyd Cathey 3
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Blog
August 13, 2021

The Truth About Tariffs and the War

During the past thirty years most historians claim that slavery was the dominant cause of the Civil War. They increasingly insist that the South’s opposition to protective tariffs was a…
Philip Leigh 1
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Blog
August 12, 2021

Historical Context Explains Secession

That Southern secession was ultimately about independence with or without slavery is easily determined by primary sources. Often I hear that the primary sources I quote in defense of Southern…
Rod O'Barr 1
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Blog
August 11, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Ray Charles

In this third installment of the series “What Makes this Musician Great,” I will try my best to explain Ray Charles, but I may already be in over my head. …
Tom Daniel 0
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Review Posts
August 10, 2021

Chaining Down Leviathan

A review of Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776-1865 (Abbeville Institute Press, 2021) by Marco Bassani How is it that America became a “strong but limited” government,…
Dave Benner 0
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Blog
August 9, 2021

The South’s Monument Man

The Ten Commandments of the Old Testament (Exodus 20:2-17) are the creed of both Christians and Jews, but the Second Commandment posed a special dilemma for Jews in relation to…
John Marquardt 3
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Blog
August 6, 2021

An ode to the Waccamaw

My heart bled along the Waccamaw, where ancient warriors reigned. I wonder if their spirits saw as I kneeled there, pained. Carolina! She beckoned me to rise, and her warm…
Demetrius Garland Bowman 0
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Blog
August 5, 2021

The Old South and the New

This essay was originally published in the February 1936 issue of The American Review. Years ago, during the World War, I traveled from Chicago by way of Cincinnati to Montgomery,…
Frank L. Owlsley 0
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Blog
August 4, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great?–Hank Williams

This is the second installment of the series ‘What Makes this Musician Great,” and will focus on the man from Butler County, Alabama – Hank Williams.  In this ongoing series,…
Tom Daniel 1
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Blog
August 3, 2021

What It Means to be a Southerner

Editor's Note: In an effort to "explore what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition," we offer an explanation of what it "meant to be a Southerner" in 1958.…
Robert Y. Drake 0
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Blog
August 2, 2021

The End of America?

I have a good friend who continually asks me what I think are the prospects for sensible, conservative—that is, normal—folks in these parlous times, what I think will happen to…
Boyd Cathey 2
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Blog
July 30, 2021

The Wild Man

At the top of the hill where my great-grandparents lived, there was a dusty, black and white picture on a shelf. It could’ve been my grandpa or great-uncle, but it…
Travis Holt 0
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July 29, 2021

Daniel Webster on the Expansion of Slavery

Daniel Webster was one of the most notable Northern statesmen of his day. He was an American lawyer who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress.  His list of…
Rod O'Barr 0
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Blog
July 28, 2021

Disunion Sentiment in Congress in 1794

John Taylor was born in Orange County, Virginia, in 1750, one year before James Madison, and the boys were neighbors; but Taylor afterwards moved to Caroline County, where he lived…
Gaillard Hunt 1
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July 27, 2021

What Makes This Musician Great? – Duane Allman

Recently, I started looking into the connections between musical preferences and personality types.  In the early and middle parts of the 20th century, there were some questionable and unfortunate attempts…
Tom Daniel 3
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Blog
July 26, 2021

Who’s Your People?

“Who's your people?” Though now somewhat rare, one still hears that question in Dixie, usually uttered from the lips of older or rural Southerners. Much is implied by the question.…
Casey Chalk 3
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Blog
July 23, 2021

Monuments

Their carven words all testify Of then and now and future time That these were they who kept the cause Was given them by fathers past And living still in…
James Everett Kibler 0
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July 22, 2021

Was the Battle of Liberty Place a “Race Riot”?

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…
Philip Leigh 0
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July 21, 2021

Conservatism’s Dixie Roots

It is maddening to listen to people who attempt “conservative thought” with but a shallow mentality for the concept.  True conservative thought comes from the seeds of agrarians and various…
Paul H. Yarbrough 1
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Blog
July 20, 2021

Responding to the Scalawags

If timid and pacified Southerners needed more proof that we are a defeated and occupied people, then indisputable proof was recently provided by the United States House of Representatives. At…
James Ronald Kennedy 1
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Blog
July 19, 2021

How Southerners Committed Cultural and Political Suicide

Many Southerners are familiar with James “Ron” Kennedy and his brother, Walter “Donnie” Kennedy, who are prolific writers and staunch defenders of (what is left of) Southern tradition and heritage.…
Boyd Cathey 1
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Blog
July 16, 2021

Monuments According to Pliny the Younger

“To those who are ignorant of the jurisprudence of their country can have no taste for reasoning…” Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus was born roughly 61 A.D, to…
Justin Pederson 1
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Blog
July 15, 2021

Rules for Northern Immigrants

With the onset of the latest leftist government regime, many Americans are migrating South to escape oppressive taxes and gain other income advantages. Some of you may even be moving…
Leslie Alexander 6
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Blog
July 14, 2021

The Amendment That Never Was

The date of the latest federal holiday, June 19th, was touted as the one marking the end of slavery in America. While few today would argue with the idea of…
John Marquardt 0
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Blog
July 13, 2021

The Cyclic March of History

Hit mus’ be now de kingdom comin’, an’ de year ob Jubilo! ... (1) "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" has come down to us as the lofty rallying-cry of the French Revolution,…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 1
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July 12, 2021

The Star that is Called Wormwood

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and…
Enoch Cade 1
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July 9, 2021

The Happy Land of Cannan

The happy land of Caannan may be a Biblical story, but for some of us, it truly was fact. Growing up on the land my ancestors settled in the 1850s…
Travis Holt 0
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July 8, 2021

The True Cause of the War Between the States

I have been studying the War Between the States for 53 years. In all those years, the one quotation I have read which summarizes the true reason for the differences…
Timothy A. Duskin 0
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July 7, 2021

John Pelham and the “Myth of the Lost Cause”

Some twenty years ago I had planned to write a full-length study of John Pelham—known in the South as the Gallant John Pelham—and the making of myth. The business of…
Thomas Hubert 2
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July 6, 2021

Aristotle vs. Hobbes–The Cause of the Great War

The "ultimate cause" of the War of Secession was two mutually exclusive understanding of government. The South embraced the view of Aristotle that government was a natural outgrowth of communal…
Valerie Protopapas 4
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Blog
July 5, 2021

Independence Day and the Preservation of History

July 4, “Independence Day,” has become for most Americans little more than another holiday, a day off from work, and a time to barbecue with family and friends. Yet, the…
Boyd Cathey 2
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July 2, 2021

A New 4th of July Resolution

The solution offered by Mr Vivek Ramaswamy to the destructive ideology of the Woke Social Justice Warriors could not be stranger: The antidote isn’t to fight wokeness directly. It can’t…
Walt Garlington 2
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July 1, 2021

Cousin Lucius

The Southern version of Thoreau’s Walden may be considered I’ll Take by Stand, by Twelve Southerners, with its subtitle, The South and the Agrarian Tradition.  It was published in 1930…
Charles Stewart Roberts, MD 0
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June 30, 2021

When Bing Crosby Sang Dixie

In past columns I have written about some classic films, some of which have been effectively banned or “cancelled” by our contemporary cultural gatekeepers. The case of the immortal Disney…
Boyd Cathey 0
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Review Posts
June 29, 2021

Lincoln and the Border States

A review of Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (University Press of Kansas, 2014) by William C. Harris. William C. Harris has set before him the admirable task…
Terry Hulsey 0
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Blog
June 28, 2021

Facebook and Old Glory

Facebook canceled the Abbeville Institute. I was notified on June 10 that the Abbeville Institute Facebook page had been unpublished due to “repeated community standards violations.” Our offenses? We used…
Brion McClanahan 6
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Blog
June 25, 2021

Requiem for a Hell Raiser

We all, as we go through life, encounter people that who deserve to be remembered. Everyone does, in a sense. But all these people, their good and bad characteristics, are…
Travis Holt 3
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Blog
June 24, 2021

A Plague on the South

While the current worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has also wreaked havoc throughout the South, there was an even more deadly epidemic that attacked a number of Southern states almost a century…
John Marquardt 1
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June 23, 2021

The Latin South

“The Hispanic community understands the American Dream and have not forgotten what they were promised,” declared Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who fled their native land…
Casey Chalk 0
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Blog
June 22, 2021

When Did We Have a Civil War, Virginia?

God’s guidance and blessing began in Virginia. But Civil War is where we are today.  For those who have had the usual blather from a contemporary public-school education, a little…
Paul H. Yarbrough 0
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June 21, 2021

The Righteous Cause Myth Strikes Again

As most Americans have learned by now, in their rush to do something politically correct, Congress passed, and the president signed, a bill making “Juneteenth” a federal holiday.  Some of…
Samuel Ashwood 0
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June 18, 2021

Grave Robbers

Grave Robbers are the new norm in Southern city government.
Sarah Sass 0
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June 17, 2021

Defending the West Against the Barbarians

Sometimes readers will ask me: “Why did you write on that? What were you trying to say?” My response has always been that just about everything I attempt to convey, to…
Boyd Cathey 0
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June 16, 2021

The Real VMI: A Little Meritocracy, 1839-2021?

On June 1, 2021, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) – historic, meritocratic, renowned for rigor and its graduates’ service, and, for decades as color-blind as any institution may reasonably expect…
Forrest L. Marion 0
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June 15, 2021

Rebirthing Lincoln

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…
Clyde Wilson 0
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June 14, 2021

A Southern Song, A Southern Heritage–Canceled

“When we talk about the War it is our history we are talking about, it is a part of our identity.  To tell libellous lies about our ancestors is a…
J.L. Bennett 0
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June 11, 2021

Secession Was Not About Slavery

Original in the possession of the Minnesota Historical Society. First some context. The South did not secede to “preserve and extend slavery.” Its “pro-slavery“ arguments were not in response to…
Rod O'Barr 0
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June 10, 2021

The Lincoln Assassination Plot–An Alternate History

A review of The Retribution Conspiracy: The Rise of the Confederate Secret Service (Scuppernong Press, 2021) by Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. In a world full of ever arising new…
James Ronald Kennedy 0
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June 9, 2021

Abraham Lincoln and the Misinterpretation of American History

The Federalist online magazine has a problem. It’s a condition that characterizes and infects almost the entirety of the present national conservative media. This hit home for me on May…
Boyd Cathey 0
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June 8, 2021

Western Civilization-Post Scriptum

I once wrote an article on the problems arising from what I termed “group condemnation.” I believed that in attempting to warn people of dangers lurking in the culture, those…
Valerie Protopapas 0
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June 7, 2021

Fighting for 5 Miles

As Memorial Day approaches, I am thinking of a man I never met. His name is Charles Willis Kessler; he was a young, second Lieutenant from the small town of…
Averyell A. Kessler 0
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June 4, 2021

A Cascadian Confederacy?

Nearly two weeks ago, five counties in Oregon voted to approve a measure to secede from the state and join its neighbor Idaho. The counties of Malheur, Sherman, Baker, Grant,…
Cole Branham 0
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June 3, 2021

Is Secession Treason?

And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crimeAre pronest to it, and impute themselves…Tennyson, from Idylls of the King (1) The US Supreme Court, in Texas vs. White, ruled…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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June 2, 2021

On “Good Uses” for the Confederate Flag

One of my colleagues in the ministry of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS) recently wrote that among "good uses" for the Confederate battle flag are "diaper, shop rag,…
Rev. Larry Beane 2
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June 1, 2021

Academy of Southern Music

My name is Tom Daniel, and I’m a happy guy.  I’m naturally optimistic, and I love talking about all the good things that come from the South.  I get discouraged…
Tom Daniel 0
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May 31, 2021

Slavery and Agency

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…
Casey Chalk 0
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May 28, 2021

Time

“How time changes everything.” This quote came from the lips of a fairly surprised man of around 80, my dear great-uncle Carl Ray, as we descended into the valley of…
Travis Holt 0
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Blog
May 27, 2021

Faust and the Devil–Teachers, Histrionic Historians

Why bother with opening the schools, if all that you’ll have is the same uneducated blowhards filling the minds of children with the same monstrous mush that is conjured by…
Paul H. Yarbrough 0
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May 26, 2021

The 19th Century Roots of Black Liberation Theology and Critical Race Theory

While Critical Race Theory and Black Liberation Theology are 20th century creations, the cultural and theological roots of these ideas find a clear path back to the mid 1800’s. Black…
James (Jim) Pederson 0
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May 25, 2021

“Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home”

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…
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May 24, 2021

Bad History Masquerading as an Appeal to Peace and Piety: A Response to Allen Guelzo’s “Why We Must Forget the Lost Cause”

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…
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May 21, 2021

Listening to Miss Eudora

For Christmas, I gave my granddaughter a compilation of Eudora Welty’s novels. She’s an avid reader and tore into the book as soon as she unwrapped it. The short stories,…
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May 20, 2021

Make History History Again

In the 1986 comedy film Back to School, Rodney Dangerfield’s character, Thornton Mellon, a wealthy, middle-aged father, decided to attend college with his young son. Never serious about the endeavor,…
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May 19, 2021

The Attack on Marco Bassani

Originally posted at LewRockwell.com You may remember a meme circulating widely after the U.S. presidential election last November with a picture of Kamala Harris and the following comment: “She will…
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May 18, 2021

A Primer on Secession

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,…
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May 17, 2021

The Professor and the Proposition

As the “Exceptional Nation” totters and pratfalls further toward perdition, some on what is commonly, if not entirely accurately, known as the “Right” are calling for the various factions to…
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May 14, 2021

The Statues Should Stay Up

During the ongoing debate regarding the removal of the monuments honoring Confederate Generals, those in support of the statues often say in defense, “The statues are part of America’s history;…
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May 13, 2021

Angers Away

Over half a century before the Imperial German Navy launched its new and deadly method of undersea warfare against the Allied navies and merchant shipping in World War One, the…
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May 12, 2021

Robert E. Lee: The Educator

Continued from Part 3.  “And of all the officers or men whom I ever knew he came (save one other alone) the nearest in likeness to that classical ideal Chevalier Bayard…And…
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May 11, 2021

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

In the early 1870s, a young pre-law student at Howard College was inspired by classmate and future wife, Mamie Friend. James Alan Bland would listen to the homesick sentiments of…
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May 10, 2021

Did Slavery End on June 19th?

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…
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May 7, 2021

Conservative as “Defender of Liberty”

In 1960, the great Southern political philosopher Richard Weaver penned an essay titled “Conservatism and Libertarianism: The Common Ground.” Most people considered Weaver to be a “conservative,” and he accepted…
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May 6, 2021

Wokeism is Like Kudzu

Wokeism is a bit like kudzu. It’s not indigenous to the South, but once it starts growing… brother you better believe it will be hard to contain. And soon enough,…
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May 5, 2021

Robert E. Lee: The Soldier

Continued from Part 2. “He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring…a Christian without hypocrisy…He…
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May 4, 2021

Southern Orthodoxy

A review of Preachers with Power: Four Stalwarts of the South (Banner of Truth, 1992) by Douglas F. Kelly I first became aware of Douglas F. Kelly through some videos…
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May 3, 2021

The Disappearance of Southern Conservatism

Abraham Lincoln has become, for most mainline conservatives, an icon, and, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., no opportunity is lost—it seems—on Fox News or in the establishment “conservative press,”…
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April 30, 2021

Contemplation in an Evil Time

Written in the Year 2021 Hampton, our stalwart Wade,             As wily as Odysseus in warAs full of rage for truth in time of fraud             As any celebrated Greek,He saw his…
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April 29, 2021

Twitter Historians Distort History, Again.

Marjorie Taylor Greene forced the political left into an apoplectic rage two weeks ago when they discovered she intended to form an “America First Caucus” based on “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”…
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April 28, 2021

Robert E. Lee: The Father

Continued from Part I. “He was a superb specimen of manly grace and elegance…There was about him a stately dignity, calm poise, absolute self-possession, entire absence of self-consciousness, and gracious…
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April 27, 2021

Daybreak in Dixie

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…
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April 26, 2021

Reconstruction is America’s Longest War

On April 14, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden announced that, beginning May 1, the United States would begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. The project to extract the Yankee Empire from…
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April 23, 2021

The Knight of Melrose

Ah! My Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?For now I see the true old times are dead…        Tennyson, from Idylls of the King…
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April 22, 2021

Robert E. Lee: The Believer

In the Year of Our Lord 2021, it is fashionable for American Christians to despise the antebellum South. Many Christian leaders, Evangelical and otherwise, have defended or even applauded the…
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April 21, 2021

Robert E. Lee: Educator and Conciliator

Robert E. Lee considered reconciliation and education to be his highest duties after the War. While many other Confederate leaders left the United States, Lee remained in Virginia and worked…
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April 20, 2021

Abundant Acreage Available

Like many traditional-minded people of this era, I have become disenchanted with products of the modern movie industry which are mostly either filth, silliness, or formulaic pablum. To my fortunate…
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April 19, 2021

Equality is NOT America’s Founding Principle

Our “conservative” punditry go forth daily in what seems increasingly to be an already lost battle against the agenda of the left and its progressivist minions in and outside the…
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April 16, 2021

Remembering John C. Calhoun

The spring of 1850 is an ominous perpetrator. Notwithstanding the crisis our country faced during those trying years leading to the so-called compromise of 1850, March 31st marks the death…
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April 15, 2021

The Postwar Lee at Washington College

Robert E. Lee's tenure as President of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) should be regarded as one of the most important events in American educational history, and it…
Philip Leigh 0
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April 14, 2021

Foxes in the Henhouse

During the past half century, there has been an ever-increasing tide of derogatory comments about the South in general and the Confederacy in particular.  In more recent years, what began…
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April 13, 2021

Separate but Equal?

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…
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April 12, 2021

The “First Shot” Revisited

We have been told that the first shot fired in the "Civil War” was fired by the Confederacy at Fort Sumter in response to the Lincoln government’s attempt to rearm…
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April 9, 2021

The Yankees Take Up the White Man’s Burden

Take up the White Man’s burden –    Ye dare not stoop to less –Nor call too loud on Freedom    To cloak your weariness;By all ye cry or whisper,    By all…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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April 8, 2021

Woke Capitalism Guns for the South

Major League Baseball on 2 April announced that both the All Star Game and the draft would no longer be held in Atlanta as retribution for Georgia’s recent election laws.…
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April 7, 2021

Only A House Divided Within Itself Will Stand

On the Ingraham Angle recently, guest, Craig Shirley offered an opinion that should cheer the people who have read (best seller) The South Was Right.  Even those who haven’t read…
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April 6, 2021

Robert E. Lee and Me

A review of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (St. Martin's Press, 2021) by Ty Seidule A number of good historians…
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April 5, 2021

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…
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April 2, 2021

Searching for a Literary Market in Southern Cities

“Take but degree away, untune that string,And hark! what discord follows! Each thing meetsIn mere oppugnancy”—Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida One of William Gilmore Simms’ abiding concerns was the almost complete…
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April 1, 2021

Dixie Ball

It’s strange to think that until 1962 — when the Houston’s Colt .45’s enjoyed their inaugural season as an expansion team — the only baseball teams in the South were…
Casey Chalk 0
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March 31, 2021

Gomer Pyle and the Music of Southern Poverty

Sometimes, you need to go halfway around the world in order to make a point, especially if the point to be made is not a simple one.  This is one…
Tom Daniel 0
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March 30, 2021

John C. Calhoun: American

No American is more vilified than John C. Calhoun. A recent biography has labeled him the American "heretic," and it has become fashionable to blame every political problem in American…
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March 29, 2021

Beginning with History

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…
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March 26, 2021

Southern Reflections on Being Neighborly

A white house sits on the outskirts of a small town in upstate South Carolina. It is modest in both size and appearance, and rather old, and in front of…
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March 25, 2021

Our Other Man in Charleston

Published in 2016, the book Our Man in Charleston tells the story of Robert Bunch (1820-1881), the British consul in Charleston, South Carolina, who is described in the subtitle as…
Karen Stokes 0
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March 24, 2021

Dixie, Quo Vadis?

Many today feel that true Southerners living in the eleven States of the former Confederacy are, in many ways, once again fighting for their very existence and face the dismal…
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March 23, 2021

Secession’s Magic Numbers, Part II

A serial review of books numbering the States after a dissolution of the Union. A review of Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy (W.W. Norton, 1993) by…
Terry Hulsey 0
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March 22, 2021

Robert E. Lee and (Woke General) Please Like Me

Ty Seidule's mea culpa memoir, Robert E. Lee and Me, has generated the predictable supporters: mainstream media outlets, leftist dominated history departments, and neoconservative "intellectuals." This says more about Seidule…
Philip Leigh 0
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March 19, 2021

I Listen

I read this piece to the Jackson Writers Guild a year ago. Since then, we’ve not been able to meet. Here it is again. A southern writer can collect more…
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March 18, 2021

Honoring Calhoun

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…
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March 17, 2021

Firetrail

For some time now I have had a passion for classic films, in particular those films that portray sympathetically and with historical accuracy the Southland, and, more particularly, events of…
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March 16, 2021

The Greatest of All Leathernecks

A review of The Greatest of All Leathernecks (LSU Press, 2019) by Joseph Simon. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in eastern North Carolina along the Atlantic shore…
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March 15, 2021

Crimes Against Humanity

It is time to consider the crimes committed against Southern prisoners of war by their federal captors. In 1903, Adj. Gen. F. C. Ainsworth estimated that more than 30,000 Union…
Valerie Protopapas 0
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March 12, 2021

The Termite Infestation of American History

As part of its campaign to pander to the important and urgent needs of African-Americans with extremely divisive yet ultimately performative identity politics, the Biden-Harris administration has announced that it…
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March 11, 2021

Yankees 38, VMI 3

The Virginia Military Institute, ever the underdog. . . . For longtime VMI football fans, the above score may be all-too-painfully reminiscent. I recall the first time I heard of…
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March 10, 2021

Now Is The Best Time To Be Southern

These past several years, we Americans have been living in an accelerating anti-cultural vortex. Day by day the Yankee juggernaut gains steam. Once content with carpetbombing Hanoi and Baghdad, the…
Jason Morgan 0
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March 9, 2021

A Yankee Who Understood Southerners

“Dear me, what’s the good of being a Southerner?” asks one of the characters on the very first page of Henry James’ nineteenth-century novel The Bostonians. Though this question may…
Casey Chalk 0
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March 8, 2021

German POWs and Civil Rights

I have written here before about my beloved hometown of Tuskegee, Alabama.  Forgive me if you’ve read this before, but Tuskegee was unique among small rural Southern towns because of…
Tom Daniel 0
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March 5, 2021

A Look Into Our Future

Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which He hath made crooked? Ecclesiastes 7: 13 Scott Howard, in his book The Trans-gender Industrial Complex, says on pages 164-5:…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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March 4, 2021

Power School Wisdom

During last week’s ice storm misery, I thought a lot about my southern upbringing and the good things I’ve received from my small, poor state with a jagged past and…
Averyell A. Kessler 0
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March 3, 2021

The Lord Gives

It was a late night in Boone County, Arkansas when me and my newly married wife attended a party not far from our home in Lead Hill. The ol' boy…
Travis Holt 0
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March 2, 2021

Total War in Georgia

In June 1863, Fitzgerald Ross, a British military man who was collecting information about the war in America, paid a visit to Richmond, Virginia, the capital city of the Confederacy.…
Karen Stokes 0
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March 1, 2021

Racism and Reputation

Two terms that are tossed about with great liberality today are “racist” and “white supremacist.”  Like other words with specific definitions, such as “fascist” and “Nazi,” these labels are losing…
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February 26, 2021

Don’t Watch This Film

“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…
Clyde Wilson 0
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February 25, 2021

The Big Monochrome Picture

The principal character in Joyce Maynard’s 1992 novel “To Die For” said that if you look too closely at a black and white photograph, all you see are a series…
John Marquardt 0
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February 24, 2021

The Death of the Museum of the Confederacy

In May of 2008, I became embroiled in a situation that had developed with the former Museum of the Confederacy. Having received an e-mail sent to the membership from Director…
Valerie Protopapas 0
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February 23, 2021

Secession’s Magic Numbers, Part One

A serial review of books numbering the States after a dissolution of the Union. American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard;…
Terry Hulsey 0
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February 22, 2021

Judicial Review? No. Nullification

“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…
Earl Starbuck 0
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February 19, 2021

You Lie Down With Dogs, You Get Up With Fleas

Sometime back in the early sixties—climaxed in 1964 with Barry Goldwater’s efforts—the South with its conservative measure, almost En Masse wanted (and needed) a place to go other than the…
Paul H. Yarbrough 0
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February 18, 2021

Industrialization and the Survival of the Peculiar Institution

Coming out of the American Revolution, the nation faced a slave problem that most today could scarcely imagine and that was unemployment. The Slave labor force had grown from reproduction…
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February 17, 2021

A Night to Remember

The diary of Emma LeConte is one of the best known documents chronicling the sack and destruction of Columbia, South Carolina. On February 17, 1865, the city surrendered to the…
Karen Stokes 0
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February 16, 2021

Cajun Music

If these were normal times, we’d all be unpacking our Mardi Gras gear right about now.  Purple, yellow, and green would be everywhere, and I would be writing about how…
Tom Daniel 1
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February 15, 2021

For Dove and Flag: Grandpa Connelly’s Mules

I hope Grandfather fed them wellFrom out his meager store of cornOr fodder pulled by Mother'Neath a blazing autumn sun--So hot sometimes she saidThat she and sister sickenedTo the vomit…
James Everett Kibler 0
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February 12, 2021

Fast Money

On a late November evening in 1970, I rolled into the “Big Easy” on an L&N freight with my pockets jingling. Hitching a ride to Canal Street - and letting…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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February 11, 2021

A Fig for the Constitution

“A fig for the Constitution” if it does not protect our most basic rights was John Randolph’s nineteenth century estimation of the value of the Constitution. In 2021 his words…
James Ronald Kennedy 0
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February 10, 2021

An Independent Investigation of Racism at VMI?

As one pastor in his sixties mentioned recently, “I would have thought VMI to be one of the last bastions,” meaning, of course, among those institutions most committed to preserving…
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February 9, 2021

The Last “Insurrection” According to the Political Establishment

The Washington establishment, led by a senile 78-year-old man who can barely speak in complete sentences and seems permanently fighting mad, is hell- bent on labeling virtually all Americans who…
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February 8, 2021

Hillbilly Thomists

What would you give in exchange for your soul? Bluegrass greats Bill Monroe and Doc Watson asked that question in one of their most memorable live recordings. It’s also the…
Casey Chalk 0
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February 5, 2021

Reforming the Southern Man

I am not from where I live, yet I have a deep fear that where I live won’t be where I live for very much longer. The god of progress…
Rev. Benjamin Glaser 0
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February 4, 2021

Defining Southern Conservatism

Southern conservatism is considered an enigma when juxtaposed against the bipartisan political configuration having been imposed upon us since the beginning of the American experiment. The candor of its echoed…
Brad Pond 0
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February 3, 2021

What Can Be Done?

The year 2020 was brutal for the friends of the South.  Monuments and statues of Southerners, not just Confederates, disappeared from the urban areas of the Southand beyond.  The lockdowns…
John Devanny 0
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February 2, 2021

Followin’ the Cotton

(Mrs. Holley was the third generation of a Southern family in California.  She wrote this on being able to return permanently to the South.) The cotton fields grow row after…
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February 1, 2021

President Without A Party

A review of President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler (LSU Press, 2020) by Christopher Leahy “His Accidency.” That’s the nickname given to John Tyler, earned, as it…
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January 29, 2021

From Eternity into Time

From Eternity into Time Mighty the Wizard Who found me at sunrise Sleeping, and woke me And learn’d me Magic! Great the Master, And sweet the Magic, When over the…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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January 28, 2021

The Bad Theology of America’s “Original Sin”

Slavery, we are repeatedly told, is America’s “original sin.”  But unlike the effects of Biblical original sin, there is no possible atonement.  The Left and its racial Grievance Factory will…
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January 27, 2021

Rock ‘n Roll has a Southern Accent

Rock ‘n Roll may be the most significant cultural export in American history.  There is no doubt that American culture, for good and bad, has had an enormous impact on…
Tom Daniel 0
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January 26, 2021

The Abraham Lincoln Problem

America has a Lincoln problem. Professor Tom DiLorenzo explains why our nearly deification of "Honest Abe" presents a fundamental problem for our understanding of both the American past and the…
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January 25, 2021

The Wind

I find myself sitting on the bank of a lake, not far from where I grew up. Being in an extremely rural and poor area of Arkansas, we hang on…
Travis Holt 0
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January 22, 2021

The New Face of “Liberation”

It is a sad thing that it should fall to a junior representative from New York to tell the truth about the South’s position in national politics and culture. Ms.…
Tom Hervey 0
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January 21, 2021

American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God

The old saying: “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God” certainly applies to me. I’m an ethnic Southerner who was raised in the north – but who, for…
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January 20, 2021

Conservatism and the Southern Tradition

A review of Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition (All Points Books, 2018) by Sir Roger Scruton. There is no such thing as conservatism, according to Sir Roger Scruton’s…
Duncan Killen 1
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January 19, 2021

A Good Reason to Honor Robert E. Lee

Yesterday’s melee in Washington provides good reason to honor Robert E. Lee because he demonstrated how he maintained dignity in defeat while convincing many resentful Southerners to reconcile with their…
Philip Leigh 0
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January 18, 2021

Whatever Happened to History?

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…
Clyde Wilson 0
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January 15, 2021

The Yankee Quarantine of Southern Blacks

Legendary financier J. P. Morgan once said: “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.” His meaning is that our public explanation…
Philip Leigh 0
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January 14, 2021

Pretenses

You might call it propaganda, state lies, fraud, illusions or delusions. I prefer pretenses which afford the peddler thereof and the hapless fool who buys into them just the degree…
Robert Peters 0
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January 13, 2021

The Tarnished Tarheel

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1851 phantasmagorical image of slave life in the South has long been regarded as one of the sparks that ignited the War Between the States.  However, a…
John Marquardt 0
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January 12, 2021

Deep Water

A review of Deep Water: The Mississippi River in the Age of Mark Twain (LSU Press, 2019) by Thomas Ruys Smith In Deep Water: the Mississippi River in the Age…
Jason Stewart 0
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January 11, 2021

A Southern Critique of Radical Chic

“The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence,” observed Southern Gothic author and native Georgian Flannery O’Connor. But what about those weaknesses that don’t? Well, then…
Casey Chalk 0
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January 8, 2021

A (Maryland) Southern Hero

Early in the civil war President Lincoln had Federal Troops occupy the State of Maryland.  Though the power vested only with the US Congress, Mr. Lincoln also took it upon…
Paul Callahan 0
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January 7, 2021

VMI Test Case for the Country

In May of this year, George Floyd died; seven months later, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) removed its statue of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson from its prominent position at the…
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January 6, 2021

Meditations on a Couple of Old Postcards

I saw a pile of household goods on the side of the road a couple of days ago, as I was picking up a friend to take him to the…
Cliff Page 0
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January 5, 2021

Trimming Ourselves to Fit the World

“Black identity-mongers…are creating a phoney history and phoney traditions as escapes from very real problems of drugs, violence and social degeneration in the ghettos of the 1990s.” So wrote black…
Joshua Doggrell 0
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January 4, 2021

What 2020 Means for Southerners

During the past couple of months, from shortly after the presidential election until now, seven installments in the MY CORNER series have been picked up and (re)published, and while most…
Boyd Cathey 0
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December 28, 2020

Who Owns America Now?

From the 2020 Abbeville Institute conference on "Who Owns America?" October 16-17, 2020 in Charleston, SC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5G4NWbkjJA&feature=youtu.be
John Devanny 0
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December 24, 2020

The Postbellum South as an Exploited Colony

From the 2020 Abbeville Institute conference on "Who Owns America?" October 16-17, 2020 in Charleston, SC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiiqzceHS6I&feature=youtu.be
Philip Leigh 0
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December 23, 2020

Agrarianism, Republicanism, and Laissez Faire

From the 2020 Abbeville Institute conference on "Who Owns America?" October 16-17, 2020 in Charleston, SC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcuQ9wavo0w&feature=youtu.be
Joseph R. Stromberg 0
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December 22, 2020

Who Owns America? Populism, Political Economy, and Corporate Personality

From the 2020 Abbeville Institute conference on "Who Owns America?" October 16-17, 2020 in Charleston, SC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB2W7qsoZr0&feature=youtu.be
Jack Trotter 0
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December 21, 2020

I’ll Take My Stand: Farming, Poetry, and Resistance

From the 2020 Abbeville Institute conference on "Who Owns America?" October 16-17, 2020 in Charleston, SC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP5v7_4jM58&feature=youtu.be
Jason Sorens 0
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December 18, 2020

The Blundering Generations and the Crisis of Legitimacy

Crises of legitimacy are rarely resolved without some resort to violence. The European experience in the seventeenth century is generously populated with examples: The English Civil War, Le Fronde I…
John Devanny 0
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December 17, 2020

Virginia and Alabama

Lexington, Virginia January 2002 Driving up, then down the mountain hairpins into Lexington,By daylight, moonlight, headlight (only one),I smell the moist ancient earth rising up to greet meThis January evening…
Thomas Hubert 0
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December 16, 2020

The South in Retreat

Editor's Note: This lecture was delivered at our 2019 Summer School on the New South. Carey Roberts explores the relationship between the Old Whig faction in the South--e.g. Alexander H.…
Carey Roberts 0
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December 15, 2020

A Grandfather’s Love

Most all of us who were fortunate enough to know our Grandfather has experienced his love. It may be expressed in many ways, whether it be a spoken ‘Well done’…
Travis Holt 0
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December 14, 2020

A Red and Blue Divorce?

The red and the blue—states that is-- are as different as the colorless black and white landscapes absent from the color spectrum. The concept of separate states for separate cultures…
Paul H. Yarbrough 0
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December 11, 2020

The Elephant in the Room

There are very few human symbols that find absolute approval or, in the alternative, disapproval. Symbols are called that because they represent something far larger than themselves. An unknown symbol…
Valerie Protopapas 0
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December 10, 2020

Identity Politics and the Southern Gentleman

Earlier this year, shortly after the sad and unfortunate death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, I witnessed an especially peculiar example of one of the many thousands (perhaps millions?) of…
Casey Chalk 0
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December 9, 2020

Hillfolk History

All-too-often, seemingly buried in the myriad dates and statistics of history, lies the human experience that should do more to make up that history in the first place. These eyewitness…
Travis Archie 0
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December 8, 2020

James Henley Thornwell and the Metaphysical Confederacy

A review of The Metaphysical Confederacy: James Henley Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values (Second Edition; Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999) by James Farmer The role of religion…
Zachary Garris 0
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December 7, 2020

The War in the Pacific

The dramatic events leading up to the secession of the Southern States, the tragedy of the War Between the States and the ensuing final act of the South’s Reconstruction period…
John Marquardt 0
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December 4, 2020

Appalachian Music and the Phonograph

In the late 19th century, Romantic composers were driven by nationalism as a means to advance their art.  For example, Russian composers like Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov made their composed…
Tom Daniel 0
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December 3, 2020

The Gettysburg Fairy Tale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zksz7mOggqI&feature=youtu.be The Gettysburg Address is perhaps the most iconic speech in American history. Students are required to memorize it, and it has become as important to American political culture as…
Brion McClanahan 0
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December 2, 2020

Mr. Lincoln’s “Lost Speech”

"May 29, 1856 "Abraham Lincoln, of Sangamon, came upon the platform amid deafening applause. He enumerated the pressing reasons of the present movement. He was here ready to fuse with…
Vito Mussomeli 0
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December 1, 2020

Edmund Kirby Smith

A review of General Edmund Kirby Smith C.S.A. (LSU Press, 1992 (1954) by Joseph H. Parks This biography is a must read for any student of the War for Southern…
Wes Franklin 0
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November 30, 2020

Less Than Five Miles

The life of a man is something that runs deep in all history. Before the war on gender roles, man and woman had a clear, defined boundary that all recognized…
Travis Holt 0
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November 27, 2020

How to Listen to Jazz

When you hear the word “jazz,” what type of music pops into your head?  What do you hear?  You probably hear piano, brass, saxophone, or all of the above.  But…
Tom Daniel 0
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November 26, 2020

“Fight for Old Dixie!”

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…
Casey Chalk 0
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November 25, 2020

The New South

Edited by Robert Hoyle. A Discourse delivered at the Annual Commencement of Hampden-Sydney College, June 15, 1882, before the Philanthropic and Union Literary Societies. Young Gentlemen of the Philanthropic and…
Robert Lewis Dabney 0
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November 24, 2020

The South Was Right! (Again)

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…
Clyde Wilson 0
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November 23, 2020

Who Owns America Today?

The chief conflict in American history was and remains the conflict between the center and the periphery.  Geographically, this conflict plays out as a powerful antagonism between the large, urbanized,…
John Devanny 0
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November 20, 2020

Secession: The Point of the Spear

Secession: The point of the spear aimed at the heart of the American Leviathan – or so I once thought. Certainly secession has been a live idea in Europe for…
Terry Hulsey 0
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November 19, 2020

The Great Lie and the Real Controversy

The following address was delivered as part of a symposium at the 150th anniversary of the burning of Winnsboro, S.C., in February 2015, sponsored by the Winnsboro Historical Society. It…
James Everett Kibler 0
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November 18, 2020

The Future of Fox News and the Future of America

It happened on Saturday morning, November 14, 2020, at around 8:15 EST. I had switched over to briefly catch some national news on the Fox News Channel. All of a…
Boyd Cathey 0
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November 17, 2020

John Brown’s Body

A Review of The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement (Uncommon Books, 1993) by Otto Scott. The Leftist political violence that has engulfed the disintegrating American nation for…
Neil Kumar 0
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November 16, 2020

The Grand Alliance, a.k.a. The Deep State

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…
Clyde Wilson 0
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