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January 24, 2022

A Tale of Two Statues

When Robert E. Lee died in 1870, a memorial association was formed in the City of New Orleans.  After six years had passed, the association raised an amazing $36,400 -…
Rev. Larry Beane 0
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January 22, 2022

Podcast Episode 293

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 17-21, 2022 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Russell, Wokism, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-293
Brion McClanahan 0
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January 21, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XVI

A series by Clyde Wilson. LOUISA  SUSANNAH  CHEVES  McCORD  (1810—1879) of South Carolina  was one of the most outstanding women of 19th century America.  She was the daughter of Langdon…
Clyde Wilson 1
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January 20, 2022

Yankees in “Pineland”

The Yankee Empire was born on the ruins of the shattered South. After the Yankee imperialists who had hijacked Northern politics looted, raped, and burned their way through the South,…
Jason Morgan 3
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January 19, 2022

The Yankee’s Lee

This essay was originally published in the First Quarter 1992 issue of Southern Partisan. A Review of: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History (UNC Press, 1991) by Alan…
David Bovenizer 0
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January 18, 2022

20/20 Moral Hindsight

A Review of: Richard B. Russell, Jr. Senator from Georgia (UNC Press, 1991) by Gilbert C. Fite “We can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand…
Charles Goolsby 1
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January 17, 2022

Martin Luther King Day and the Destruction of the American Republic

As is my custom, each year for the Federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King (whose birth date in January 15), I send out a cautionary essay I first began researching…
Boyd Cathey 7
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BlogPodcast
January 16, 2022

Podcast Episode 292

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 10-14, 2022 Topics: Slavery, Democracy, the War, Southern History, Northern Studies   https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-292
Brion McClanahan 1
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January 14, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XV

A series by Clyde Wilson Alexander Beaufort Meek,  Part  2 The Rose of Alabama I loved, in boyhood's happy time, When life was like a minstrel's rhyme, And cloudless as…
Clyde Wilson 0
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January 13, 2022

Democracy and Universal Suffrage

Edmund Ruffin, from his Diary: hen the mob bears the sway in elections, it knows little, & cares not at all, for the superior fitness or honesty of candidates. Each…
Abbeville Institute 3
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January 12, 2022

Slavery and Abolitionism as Viewed by a Georgia Slave

After 200 years of digesting Enlightenment ideals of natural rights, and reciting a pledge that concludes with “liberty and justice for all,“ it is hard for us to realize there…
Rod O'Barr 3
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January 11, 2022

How the British Viewed the War

But most significant of all was the attitude assumed by the Federal Government in dealing with the secession of the South. Long before that secession some of the best observers…
William Edward Hartpole Lecky 0
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January 10, 2022

Orphans of the Storm

There once were more than fifteen hundred Confederate memorials, including over seven hundred major monuments and statues, erected all across the United States and Canada, as well as in such far-flung locations…
John Marquardt 2
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January 8, 2022

Podcast Episode 291

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 3-7, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Abraham Lincoln, the War, Reconstruction, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-291
Brion McClanahan 0
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January 7, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XIV

A series by Clyde Wilson ALEXANDER BEAUFORT MEEK (1814-1865) of Alabama. Meek was one of the most prominent citizens of antebellum Alabama--judge, orator, international chess master, and historian of the…
Clyde Wilson 1
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January 6, 2022

When does the wisdom of crowds transition to the madness of crowds?

Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal along with Tesla’s Elon Musk and an early Facebook investor, is famed for his thought-provoking questions. One example is a question he typically asks…
Philip Leigh 3
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January 5, 2022

Abraham Lincoln’s Pyrrhic Victory

The true legacy of Lincoln usually gets drowned in the perennial gush about a president whose name is synonymous with freedom and the end of slavery. Lincoln’s role in bringing…
Ilana Mercer 6
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January 4, 2022

The Coerced Soldiers of the USCT

“That the negroes did not revolt is one of the incomprehensible features of our Civil War. Every chance for success was theirs, nor were they ignorant of their opportunity for…
Rod O'Barr 5
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January 3, 2022

Was There a Real Lynching Threat at VMI?

The subject of lynching, or “lynch law” as it was also called, is a decidedly unpleasant and, often, a morally repugnant, topic. The term lynching has been used more broadly…
Forrest L. Marion 0
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December 31, 2021

Barbarians in the Gates

The barbarians have broken through the gates and are now running rampant through the streets. The opening of the Lee Monument "time capsule"--with one preservationist admitting it wasn't really a…
Brion McClanahan 0
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December 30, 2021

Requiem for Grandma

Growing up on ‘Holt Hill’ in Vendor, Arkansas, I was truly blessed. I had a touch of the ‘Old South’ that I now have oft read of; a true, closed…
Travis Holt 4
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December 29, 2021

Southern Patriotism and Foreign Military Interventions

Is it un-patriotic for Southerners to question American military intervention? This is a perplexing question for those raised during the Cold War. For us, it was a battle to defeat…
James Ronald Kennedy 4
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December 28, 2021

The Lee Monument Time Capsule

Governor Northam's henchmen have finally located the time capsule buried in the Memorial erected to Confederate Gen. Robert Edward Lee in Richmond, Virginia.  How shameful and hypocritical that today the…
Cliff Page 12
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December 27, 2021

Adding Monuments

In a speech to the Georgia legislature in 1866, Former Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens urged, "That wise and humane provisions should be made for " and that…
Donald Livingston 2
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December 24, 2021

An Alabama Christmas

Christmas can be both a wonderful and awful time of the year for many of us.  The holiday has become one associated with worries over holiday debt, sadness from loss,…
Nicole Williams 5
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December 20, 2021

Melting Down Art and History

After the Civil War, former North Carolina governor Zeb Vance became a U.S. senator. His Northern colleagues enjoyed his affable nature and sense of humor, and some of them invited…
Jeff Minick 3
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December 10, 2021

When Hollywood Rode Right

Although Hollywood is now considered a monolithic bastion of leftist and “woke” political and cultural sentiment with almost no dissent tolerated, it was not always that way, at least not…
Boyd Cathey 1
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December 9, 2021

White Supremacy, Yankee Style

In the warped minds of today’s so-called “woke,” even such an evocative holiday song as Irving Berlin’s “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” can take on a far different connotation…
John Marquardt 0
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December 8, 2021

Andrew Lytle and the Order of the Family

Andrew Nelson Lytle—novelist, dramatist, essayist, and professor of literature—extolled the order of the family, which by the 1930s he thought all but spent, precisely because it was rooted in the…
Mark G. Malvasi 1
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December 7, 2021

Robert Drake and the Presence of the Past

There are stories, and then there are stories within stories. This is one of the latter. In 1981, upon the publication of Robert Drake’s The Home Place, I wrote a…
Thomas Hubert 1
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BlogPodcast
December 6, 2021

Podcast Episode 290

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Nov 29-Dec 3, 2021 Topics: Tradition, Southern Politics, Secession, Treason, Southern Education https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-290
Brion McClanahan 0
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December 6, 2021

An Unlikely Prophet: Agrarianism in the Music of Jackson Browne

The flourishing of art is necessary for the preservation of any people or tradition. Over-reliance upon didactic or dialectical methods of communication is trademark of rationalism's withering grip. Artistic expression,…
Robert Hoyle 4
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December 3, 2021

When Baltimore was “An Old Crab Town”

“My shirt is ragged and my pants are tore. I ain’t found nothin’ I’m a-looking for, And I want to go back to Baltimore…. Good old Baltimore.”— lyrics from a…
J.L. Bennett 6
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December 2, 2021

Thomas Roderick Dew

Editor's note: The author of this piece won the Bennett History Medal in 1908 for this essay, and was published in the June 1909 volume of the John P. Branch…
D. Ralph Midyette, Jr. 0
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December 1, 2021

Secession Isn’t Treason

A few more words, and we shall be in a condition to answer the question which stands at the head of this chapter. Being a legal question, it will depend…
Raphael Semmes 4
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November 30, 2021

Mississippi–A Warning for Virginians

The proud folks of The Old Dominion turned their state from Blue back to Red in their recent governor’s election. Even more dramatic is the fact that in the last…
James Ronald Kennedy 4
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November 29, 2021

Thanksgiving 2021

The Thanksgiving holiday always puts me in mind of the history of this country from its hopeful beginnings as thirteen separate colonies, through its tortured periods of strife and conflict,…
Boyd Cathey 0
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BlogPodcast
November 27, 2021

Podcast Episode 289

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Nov 22-26, 2021 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Southern Tradition, Southern History, Southern Culture, Thanksgiving https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-289
Brion McClanahan 0
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November 26, 2021

Windy

Of all the giants that strode through my childhood, some loom larger than others: Some due to their innate kindness or acts towards me, some for the wisdom they imparted…
Travis Holt 0
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November 25, 2021

The Ideal Historian of the American Republic

In the future some historian shall come forth both     strong and wise-- With a love of the Republic, and the truth before     his eyes! He will show the subtle causes…
James Barron Hope 0
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November 24, 2021

The Real First Thanksgiving

On Saturday, November 20, MSNBC aired a segment by activist Gyasi Ross comparing Thanksgiving to genocide. "But I'm still trying to find out what indigenous people received of value. Instead…
Brion McClanahan 5
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November 23, 2021

The Right Side of History

A review of Robert E. Lee: A Life (Random House, 2021) by Allen Guelzo “How do you write the biography of someone who commits treason?” asks historian Allen C. Guelzo…
Casey Chalk 8
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November 22, 2021

“A Divinity That Shapes Our Ends”: Providence and the American War of 1861-1865

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,/ Rough-hew them how we will.” -  Hamlet V, ii, 10-11 “I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would…
Thomas Hubert 5
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November 20, 2021

Podcast Episode 288

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Nov 15-19, 2021 Topics: Foreign Policy, Southern Tradition, Southern Symbols, Wokism https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-288
Brion McClanahan 0
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November 19, 2021

An Able Address Against Conscription

Editor's Note: This speech was delivered in 1917 and was published in the September issue of Watson's Magazine. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: Deeply impressed with the gravity of this occasion,…
H.W. Johnston 1
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November 18, 2021

The Arrogance of Power

The attitude above all others which I feel sure is no longer valid is the arrogance of power, the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major…
J. William Fulbright 4
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November 17, 2021

A New Civil War?

By 1860 our country was so hopelessly divided that it broke up, and only by force was it kept unified. While the North and South had profound political, economic, and…
M.C. Atkins 4
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November 16, 2021

Rally ‘Round the Flag!

As in the practice of lingchi, the ancient Chinese form of slow and painful execution by a thousand cuts, Southern history and tradition are today dying a similar death. The…
John Marquardt 0
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November 15, 2021

Southern Hospitality in Asia

Many years ago I spent five fantastic weeks in Boston during the fall. Though I had heard about the explosive colors of autumn in New England, it truly was a…
Casey Chalk 0
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November 13, 2021

Podcast Episode 287

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Nov 8-12, 2021 Topics: Lost Cause, Social Justice, Woke, Northern Studies, Slavery, Monuments https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-287
Brion McClanahan 0
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November 12, 2021

The Devils in the Demonstrators

  I was chairman of the Annual Confederate Flag Day at the North Carolina State Capitol in March of 2019 when our commemoration was besieged by several hundred screaming, raging demonstrators—Antifa-types and…
Boyd Cathey 0
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November 11, 2021

John Rock and Yankee Hypocrisy

John Rock was an American teacher, doctor, dentist, lawyer and abolitionist. Rock was one of the first African-American men to earn a medical degree. In addition, he was the first…
Rod O'Barr 2
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November 10, 2021

Social Time in Old Virginia

Editor's Note: Often considered one of the more important "Lost Cause" post-bellum narratives, Letitia Burwell's A Girl's Life in Virginia Before the War offers a captivating glimpse of life in…
Letitia M. Burwell 0
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November 9, 2021

Social Justice is Our New Religion

A review of Christianity and Social Justice: Religions in Conflict (Reformation Zion Publishing, 2021) by Jon Harris Writing during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the 1920s, Princeton New Testament scholar J.…
Darrell Dow 0
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November 8, 2021

American Monuments

Editor's Note: Former Abbeville Institute summer school student Jon Harris and his Last Stand Studios produced this original documentary about American monuments and the ongoing American iconoclasm. It features Abbeville…
abbeinstitute 0
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November 6, 2021

Podcast Episode 286

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Nov 1-5, 2021 Topics: Southern tradition, Southern culture, the War, Cancel Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-286
Brion McClanahan 0
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November 5, 2021

Why Do They Hate The South?

Dr. Paul Gottfried's speech at the annual Confederate Flag Day commemoration in the historic 1840 North Carolina State Capitol House of Representatives chamber on March 3, 2007 is remarkably prescient…
Boyd Cathey 7
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November 4, 2021

Missouri’s Road to Secession

Missouri celebrated her 160th anniversary of her secession from the Union on October 28. It was that day, in 1861, that both chambers of the duly elected Missouri legislature passed…
Wes Franklin 5
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November 3, 2021

What Did the Founders Intend? Ask a Canadian

Critical to the debate regarding the right of secession is where, in the minds of the founders, did sovereignty reside. Were the States sovereign principals and the federal government their…
Rod O'Barr 0
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November 2, 2021

Southern Heritage and “New Right” Populism

The current conservative populist movement appears to offer some hope of mounting an effective resistance to the corporate state that was established during, and has largely adapted and stayed in…
James (Jim) Pederson 2
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November 1, 2021

Thomas Moore, RIP

In August, Thomas Moore, novelist and founding Chairman of the Southern National Congress, passed away unexpectedly at his home in Aiken, South Carolina at the too-early age of 73. Tom…
Clyde Wilson 2
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BlogPodcast
October 30, 2021

Podcast Episode 285

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Oct 25-29, 2021 Topics: Southern tradition, slavery, Robert E. Lee, John C. Calhoun, Reconstruction, Ulysses S. Grant https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-285
Brion McClanahan 0
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October 29, 2021

A Sham of Free Government

  Editor's Note: United States Senator Thomas F. Bayard delivered this speech in January, 1875 on the 60th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. Bayard, later United States Secretary…
Thomas F. Bayard 0
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October 28, 2021

On “Southern” Slavery

It has become fashionable to bash the South - not only by removing war memorials or looking the other way as they are vandalized, but even in discussions of things…
Rev. Larry Beane 8
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October 27, 2021

Robert E. Lee and the “Will”ing Bogeymen

George Will writes what amounts to a review of Allen C. Guelzo’s biography, Robert E. Lee: A Life in the Washington Post. The review and apparently the book are disparaging…
Paul H. Yarbrough 3
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October 26, 2021

Remembering John C. Calhoun

Though John C. Calhoun was a distinguished American statesman and thinker, he is little appreciated in his own country. Calhoun rose to prominence on the eve of the War of…
John Devanny 0
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October 25, 2021

Poor Poe

At the University of Virginia, Room No.13 on the fabled Lawn is reserved as a permanent shrine to Edgar Allan Poe, who reportedly lodged in the room during his brief…
Casey Chalk 1
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October 23, 2021

Podcast Episode 284

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, October 18-22, 2021 Topics: Southern Tradition, Southern History, The War, Thomas Jefferson https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-284
Brion McClanahan 0
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October 22, 2021

Disunion Then and Now

The delegates who gathered in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation, presumptuously shelving that document, concluded their work on the proposed U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.  On another…
J.L. Bennett 1
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October 21, 2021

Tradition and Culture

Our farm was a broadly covered area of green stalks, blanketing the ground for hundreds of acres all around. In a slow-motion explosion, day-by-day, week-by-week, the land revealed the white…
Paul H. Yarbrough 0
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October 20, 2021

Patrick Henry: The Real Indispensable Man

After finishing a biography titled, Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty, by John Kukla, I am convinced that Mr. Henry, Colonel Henry, nay, Governor Henry is the real father of our…
Julie Paine 1
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Review Posts
October 19, 2021

When in the Course of Human Events

A review of When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession (Rowman & Littlefield,  2004) by Charles Adams Did the South go to war for…
Terry Hulsey 2
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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…
Boyd Cathey 1
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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 2
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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 6
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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 4
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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,"…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 3
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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…
Boyd Cathey 0
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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…
Tom Hervey 0
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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,…
Averyell A. Kessler 0
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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,…
Ryan Walters 0
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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…
Jo Ann Cavallo 0
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Review Posts
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,…
Terry Hulsey 0
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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…
Enoch Cade 0
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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;…
Prioleau Alexander 0
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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…
John Marquardt 0
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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…
Earl Starbuck 0
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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…
James W. Whitehead V 0
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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…
Timothy A. Duskin 0
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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…
Brion McClanahan 0
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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,…
Casey Chalk 0
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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…
Earl Starbuck 0
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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…
Karen Stokes 0
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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,”…
Boyd Cathey 0
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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…
James Everett Kibler 0
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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.”…
Brion McClanahan 0
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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…
Earl Starbuck 0
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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…
Clyde Wilson 0
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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…
Jason Morgan 0
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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…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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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…
Earl Starbuck 2
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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…
Philip Leigh 0
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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…
Anne Wilson Smith 0
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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…
Boyd Cathey 0
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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…
Brad Pond 0
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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…
John Marquardt 0
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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…
Joshua Doggrell 0
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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…
Valerie Protopapas 1
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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.…
Casey Chalk 2
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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…
Paul H. Yarbrough 1
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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…
Gene Kizer, Jr. 0
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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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Review Posts
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…
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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…
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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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Review Posts
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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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:…
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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…
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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…
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