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BlogPodcast
July 2, 2022

Podcast Episode 315

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 27-July 1, 2022 Topics: Reconstruction, Southern History, Confederate Symbols https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-315?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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July 1, 2022

Marking the Wolf

'Yates Standridge, who recently escaped from the state convict farm, where he was serving what practically amounts to a life sentence for murder, declared that he never will return to…
Travis Holt 0
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June 30, 2022

Holding Heritage Groups Responsible

When the assault on Southern heritage with the destruction of monuments, symbols and heroes began, I wrote a letter to the President of the Civil War Trust as a member…
Valerie Protopapas 5
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June 29, 2022

Elvis Has Left the Building

The Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie is as good as it is frustrating. The movie might serve as a good introduction for those who don't know much about Elvis (which, sadly,…
Aaron N. Coleman 3
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June 28, 2022

Pete Hegseth’s Hopeful War on “Education”

Pete Hegseth has a book out, Battle for the American Mind, which among other promotions and revelations has taken on the chore (however “Johnny-come-lately”) of denigrating the general process of…
Paul H. Yarbrough 1
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June 27, 2022

An Open Letter to the Valentine Museum

On June 24, 2022, Mr. William J. Martin, Director of the Valentine Museum in Richmond, gave notice that the damaged, desecrated, and vandalized statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis –…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 0
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BlogPodcast
June 25, 2022

Podcast Episode 314

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 20-24, 2022 Topics: Nullification, Supreme Court, Southern Politics, Reconstruction, 14th Amendment https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-314
Brion McClanahan 0
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June 24, 2022

The Stupid Party Betrays the South…Again

It did not dawn on me until I walked out to my mailbox Monday, June 20…and there was no mail. “What’s up?” I thought. “It’s Monday, and I always get…
Boyd Cathey 6
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June 23, 2022

Mother Jones

Some people won’t believe in something they haven’t seen, others refuse to believe in something precisely because they have. When it came to the question of religious egalitarianism, I reckon…
Brandon Meeks 3
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June 22, 2022

The Principles of ’98

From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School This morning we’re talking about the two greatest losers in American history. “Loser’s History” is the only history that needs to be told.…
Marco Bassani 1
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June 21, 2022

Juneteenth

The reason your bank was closed yesterday: cultural appropriation and virtue signaling On February 25, 2021, Senator Edward J. Markey (D – Mass) introduced a bill which would become public…
Lola Sanchez 5
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June 20, 2022

Ulysses S. Grant’s Failed Presidency

Below is a footnote-free version of the Preface from my U. S. Grant's Failed Presidency (2019). Ulysses Grant's presidency deserves a fresh analysis because modern historians and biographers have praised…
Philip Leigh 2
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BlogPodcast
June 18, 2022

Podcast Episode 313

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 13-17-2022 Topics: Slavery, Moonshine, the War, Reconstruction, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-313?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
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June 17, 2022

Randolph Shotwell in War and Prison

We live in a regime with an industrial output of lies about Southern history, so we should let our forebears speak for themselves whenever we can.  I have been reporting …
Clyde Wilson 1
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June 16, 2022

The Problem of Singular “They”

As I grow older my appreciation for the wisdom of my parents increases. As the United States descend daily further into madness, I find myself torn between being glad they…
Earl Starbuck 4
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June 15, 2022

Moonshine

Moonshine, though often associated with Appalachia, is also an integral part of the Ozarks culture. Growing up in the hills of Newton County, Arkansas, I lived a privileged life. I…
Travis Holt 2
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June 14, 2022

Dixie Africanus

Black slaves toiling in the fields of large plantations, gentlemen in frock coats and ladies in hoop skirts relaxing on the verandas of large mansions . . . all set…
John Marquardt 3
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June 13, 2022

They Also Arrived in Bondage

Tommie D. Boudreau, chairwoman of the African American Heritage Committee of the Galveston Historical Foundation in Galveston, Texas, recently stated that the Juneteenth national commemoration “gives an accurate picture of…
Timothy A. Duskin 0
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BlogPodcast
June 11, 2022

Podcast Episode 312

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute June 6-10, 2022 Topics: The War, Abraham Lincoln, Confederate Constitution, Southern Film, Slavery, Southern Humor https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-312
Brion McClanahan 0
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June 10, 2022

Setting Lincoln Straight

On March 7, 1862, Lincoln sent to congress and congress passed a joint resolution offering pecuniary aid to any State that would initiate gradual emancipation. However, no funding had been…
Rod O'Barr 3
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June 9, 2022

Remembering Gods and Generals

Lest we forget, it has been nineteen years since the film “Gods and Generals” was released to screens across the United States—to be exact, on February 21, 2003—almost ten years…
Boyd Cathey 9
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June 8, 2022

The Intruder

I suppose that most men would like to think that they could shoot someone to defend life and limb. But I expect that many wonder if they actually could pull…
Brandon Meeks 5
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June 7, 2022

The Last Americans to Believe in the Voluntary Union of the States

“If there is to be a separation , then God bless them both, & keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate them if it…
Thomas DiLorenzo 3
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June 6, 2022

The Confederate Constitution

From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School I come from a somewhat different mold and my thought processes on these issues have changed a bit over the last couple of…
Marshall DeRosa 1
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BlogPodcast
June 4, 2022

Podcast Episode 311

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 30-June 3, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Jefferson Davis, War for Southern Independence, Cancel Culture, John C. Calhoun https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-311?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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June 3, 2022

Jefferson Davis: American Statesman

Most people don't know anything about Jefferson Davis other than he was the President of the Confederate States of America. His great-great grandson, Bertram Hayes-Davis, explains why Davis should be…
Abbeville Institute 2
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June 2, 2022

W.E.B. DuBois’s Selective Moral Outrage

In March of 1928, W.E.B. DuBois published a short essay attacking the character of Robert E. Lee in a publication created by DuBois called The Crisis. This magazine was also…
Michael Martin 0
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June 1, 2022

The Nullification Crisis

Going back to Jefferson, you can say that Jefferson’s vision of radical Federalism was of a libertarian Federalism, based on the rights of local self-government circumscribing and limiting their agent,…
Marco Bassani 1
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May 31, 2022

Recommended Books about the South and Its History

A friend recently asked me for a list of good books about the South and “the Late Unpleasantness” which he could share with his two sons, one of whom will…
Boyd Cathey 4
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May 30, 2022

The Worst Street Corner in America

Mako Honda recently told the Washington Post that she and her husband Ryan Finley live on “the worst street corner… across the U.S.” You might speculate that the couple live…
Casey Chalk 4
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BlogPodcast
May 28, 2022

Podcast Episode 310

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 23-27, 2022 Topics: United States Constitution, Federalism, Southern Tradition, Reconstruction https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-310?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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May 27, 2022

Commander in Chief of the Reds, Blues, and Wars

Katy Pavlich commented on the Five recently that President Biden needed to do something about the southern border problem as it was his responsibility as Commander-in-chief. Now, Ms. Pavlich, in…
Paul H. Yarbrough 1
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May 26, 2022

President Grant’s Free Homes

  Although most modern biographies attribute the corruption in Grant’s Administration to venal advisors who took advantage of the President’s innocent naivety, those biographers tend to ignore early examples of…
Philip Leigh 4
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May 25, 2022

The Neighbor

Robert Frost tells us that “good fences make good neighbors.” I suppose there is some truth to that. But I met the best neighbor I ever had the night his…
Brandon Meeks 3
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May 24, 2022

This Land is Ours

It’s hell, sittin’ here. I grew up in the hills of Newton County, Arkansas, the place that my direct line had hacked out and settled in the 1850s, when the…
Travis Holt 1
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Patrick HenryBlog
May 23, 2022

The Anti-Federalists and the Ratification Debates

From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School. I’m going to be talking about the Anti-Federalists. The first question we might ask is: “Who were the Anti-Federalists and why did they…
Marco Bassani 1
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BlogPodcast
May 21, 2022

Podcast Episode 309

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 16-20, 2022 Topics: Southern Culture, Southern Tradition, the War, Nationalism, Southern Politics https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-309?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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May 20, 2022

Armistead Burt: A Friend to Jefferson Davis

On a recent visit to Abbeville, South Carolina I visited the Burt-Stark House, one of the main historic attractions of the town and the prime reason for my visit there.…
Thomas Hubert 3
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May 19, 2022

Acknowledging the True Cost of the War

Alfred Emanuel Smith (1873 – 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democrat Party’s candidate for president in 1928. Smith grew…
Valerie Protopapas 1
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BlogReview Posts
May 18, 2022

Blacks in Gray

A Review of Blacks in Gray Uniforms (Arcadia, 2018) by Phillip Thomas Tucker South Carolina Confederate history is my area of research, so I was interested to come across the…
Karen Stokes 3
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May 17, 2022

“National Unity” is a Mirage

Now, after what may have been a racially-motivated mass shooting in Buffalo (May 14) by a deranged young man, new insistent calls go out for the government to fight “white…
Boyd Cathey 5
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May 16, 2022

An Adopted Valley Virginian

While teaching at the University of Virginia, William Faulkner once remarked: “'I like Virginia and I like Virginians because Virginians are all snobs, and I like snobs. A snob has…
Casey Chalk 1
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BlogPodcast
May 14, 2022

Podcast Episode 308

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 9-13 2022 Topics: Abraham Lincoln, Northern Studies, Slavery, Secession, Civil War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-308/s-O6QI3ZTYJt5?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 1
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May 13, 2022

In the Saddle with Stonewall

The best of the many Confederate memoirs, in my opinion, are those of General Richard Taylor (Destruction and Reconstruction) and Admiral Raphael Semmes  (Memoirs of Service Afloat and Ashore). There…
Clyde Wilson 9
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May 12, 2022

Honorable and Courageous Patriots

Delivered at the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Park for the Confederate Memorial Day remembrance held April 30, 2022. Thank you for taking time today to consider the deeds and lessons…
Martin O'Toole 1
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May 11, 2022

The Fox Hunt

I’ve heard tell that fox hunting is the sport of kings. Be that as it may, in the hills of Arkansas it is largely the purview of fools and knaves.…
Brandon Meeks 5
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May 10, 2022

Boston, Home of the Bean, Cod, and Slaves

In a penitent act of fiscal flagellation, Harvard University recently reported that it was establishing a hundred million dollar “Legacy of Slavery Fund” in an effort to atone for its…
John Marquardt 2
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May 9, 2022

Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural

It has been over a century and a half since Lincoln’s assassination did much to deify his image and place him as the centerpiece of the American Pantheon. Such behavior…
Shaan Shandhu 9
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BlogPodcast
May 7, 2022

Podcast Episode 307

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute May 2-6, 2022 Topics: Southern Politics, Southern Conservatism, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-307/s-RQm1hRyONDA?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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BlogReview Posts
May 6, 2022

Arm in Arm

A review of Arm in Arm (Mercer, 2022) by Catharine Savage Brosman Our conscious civilisation begins with Homer and is firmly anchored in Virgil, Dante, the French troubadours, and the…
Clyde Wilson 1
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May 5, 2022

“What right have we to be generous with the money of our constituencies to help a foreign people?”

Delivered by Oscar Underwood of Alabama in the House of Representatives May, 1902. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday last, when this bill came from the Senate, it was proposed…
Oscar Underwood 2
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May 4, 2022

The Unconstitutional “National Guard”

Speech delivered by Senator A.O. Bacon of Georgia, December, 1902. Mr. President: Of course, I think the amendment offered by the Senator from Ohio , which has now been accepted,…
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May 3, 2022

President Grant is Overrated

A recent article in the politically conservative National Review about Ulysses Grant’s presidency by historian Allen Guelzo is merely another example of unjustified claims that he was a virtuous champion…
Philip Leigh 3
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May 2, 2022

No Capitulation: A Call to Southern Conservatives

This piece was originally published at Chronicles Magazine and is reprinted here by permission. The following speech critical of the conservative establishment is one that I did not give at…
Paul Gottfried 7
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BlogPodcast
April 30, 2022

Podcast Episode 306

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 25-29, 2022 Topics: Southern Tradition, Confederate History, Articles of Confederation, Southern Family https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-306?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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April 29, 2022

Why Were the Articles of Confederation Dissolved?

I'm going to talk about the way the Articles of Confederation functioned, how people acted under the Articles, and the three reasons why I think the Articles were dissolved. The…
Carey Roberts 0
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April 28, 2022

God’s General

Neither side in the War for Southern Independence produced a finer or more morally upright man than Richard Montgomery Gano. He was the descendent of a distinguished military/evangelical family. His…
Samuel W. Mitcham 3
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April 27, 2022

The Legend of the Dogwood

My grandmother is the closest thing to a saint I have ever known. She is good and kind. She gives herself away until she is all but spent. She has…
Brandon Meeks 10
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April 26, 2022

So VMI Isn’t Structurally Racist After All

The Washington Post’s Ian Shapira and his social justice allies in Richmond and Lexington, Virginia, must be worried, big-time. For nearly two years running, their Axis-Against-VMI has enjoyed remarkable success:…
Forrest L. Marion 10
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April 25, 2022

Did the Confederacy Oppose the Rule of Law?

Today is Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama. Most Americans believe the War and Southern history are synonymous, so much so that to many, the War has come to define the…
Brion McClanahan 5
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BlogPodcast
April 23, 2022

Podcast Episode 305

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute April 18-22, 2022 Topics: Southern Politics, Southern Tradition, Secession, Southern Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-305?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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April 22, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XX

William Gilmore Simms, Part 2 The Green Corn Dance Come hither, hither, old and young--the gentle and the strong, And gather in the green corn dance, and mingle with the…
Clyde Wilson 0
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April 21, 2022

Triumph and Subjugation

In 1935 Lyon Gardiner Tyler – descendant of 10th President John Tyler – wrote: “The old Union was a union of consent; the present Union is one of force. For…
Valerie Protopapas 0
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April 20, 2022

Common Cause and Common Fate

Mr. President--I fully concur with the gentleman from Montgomery, in the propriety of immediately passing the resolution now under consideration. All the powers of the State of Alabama should be…
Lewis M. Stone 4
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April 19, 2022

Kith and Kin: The Enduring Ethic of the South

From the 2016 Abbeville Institute Summer School. So, what I have to say is gonna be, I think, somewhat maybe tedious.  I've tried to boil down stuff I've been working…
Thomas Fleming 3
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April 18, 2022

A Red Wave? So What?

There is a vast political swell among some ill-informed conservatives that the great mid-term elections will come and a tide of goodness (spelled R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N) will sweep over the grand land,…
Paul H. Yarbrough 9
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BlogPodcast
April 17, 2022

Podcast Episode 304

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 11-15, 2022 Topics: the War, Secession, Slavery, Southern Culture, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-304?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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April 15, 2022

The Pride of Kentucky…and Maryland

There are disagreements on the subject, but I wholeheartedly believe that Bardstown, Kentucky is “where bourbon was born.”   Many of the first bourbons, however, were variations on old rye whiskey…
J.L. Bennett 2
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April 14, 2022

Dirt

When I was a boy I was convinced that when God decided to make the world He started with Arkansas. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers were merely nicknames for the…
Brandon Meeks 8
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April 13, 2022

Rough Music

In the mid-1760s, violent criminal activity began to spread throughout the sparsely populated interior of the colony of South Carolina. Residents in these areas, alarmed at what was occurring, pled…
Nicole Williams 0
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April 12, 2022

The War of Secession

A line from Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” In the case of the great American conflict of 1861, the name by which it has become generally known is, of…
John Marquardt 1
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April 11, 2022

A Dangerous Rock Rolling Down Hill

Part 6 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. “He who controls the past controls the…
Clyde Wilson 5
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BlogPodcast
April 9, 2022

Podcast Episode 303

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 4-8, 2022 Topics: Secession, Union, Woke History, Slavery, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-303/s-qYnlgLQYJE8?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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April 8, 2022

Indentured Servitude in Early America

French politician and author Jean-Nicholas Démeunier, in 1786, published his Essai sur les États-Unis. Prior to its publication, the essay, intended for Encyclopédie Méthodique, was in the words of Jefferson’s…
M. Andrew Holowchak 0
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April 7, 2022

The Constitutionality of Secession

To begin with, it is hornbook law* that the signatories to any contract or compact, are all accorded the same rights; that is, no signatory of such an agreement has…
Valerie Protopapas 2
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April 6, 2022

Poe’s Battle with Puritan Boston

I've learned a good deal about Poe's paternal and maternal backgrounds; I had never really pursued that; the biographies don't. But I found that Poe's grandfather had immigrated to America…
James Everett Kibler 1
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April 5, 2022

Emancipation After the War

Part 5 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Early in Reconstruction the staunch Unionist William Sharkey was…
Clyde Wilson 0
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April 4, 2022

The Gathering Mystique of Union

‘Union’  neither denotes nor explicates a form of government. It is a word estranged in both the commonplace and the legal arts. There is no constraint to the daily rumble…
Vito Mussomeli 0
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BlogPodcast
April 2, 2022

Podcast Episode 302

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 21 - April 1, 2022 Topics: American History, Neo-Abolitionism, the War, Woke Culture, Slavery, New South, Reconstruction https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-302/s-gLn42tchtze?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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April 1, 2022

Til Hazel’s Virginia

On March 15, John T. “Til” Hazel Jr. died in Broad Run, Fauquier County, Virginia. There’s no reason why you should necessarily know the name, though if you have spent…
Casey Chalk 5
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March 31, 2022

Neo-Abolitionist Historiography

  From our 2008 Summer School, Northern Anti-Slavery Rhetoric In some respects, the title of this lecture, “Post 1960’s Neo-Abolitionist Historiography,” is a lie.  I’m actually going to start earlier…
John Devanny 1
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March 30, 2022

The Beer Thief

The little town of Canton, just off of I-20 in east Texas, is home to the world’s largest flea market. Thousands of booths and vendors have been selling their wares…
Brandon Meeks 6
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March 29, 2022

Emancipation

Part 4 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Many Americans doubtless tend to assume a rosy view of emancipation,…
Clyde Wilson 2
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March 28, 2022

The 1862 Louisiana Native Guard

In April 1861, a public meeting was held in New Orleans, Louisiana to discuss Governor Thomas O. Moore's call for volunteers to defend the South against the invading Union army…
Shane Anderson 2
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March 25, 2022

Music in Camp

Originally published in 1898 in The Ridpath Library of Universal Literature, Vol. XXII by John Clark Ridpath THOMPSON, John Reuben, an American journalist and poet, born at Richmond, Va., October…
John Clark Ridpath 0
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BlogReview Posts
March 24, 2022

The Dreadful Frauds

A review of The Dreadful Frauds: Critical Race Theory and Identity Politics, (Shotwell Publishing, 2022) by Philip Leigh In one hundred pages, author Philip Leigh has given us a scathing…
H.V. Traywick, Jr. 1
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Blog
March 23, 2022

Lincoln, Putin, and Yankee Hyopcrisy

At the writing of this article, the ongoing struggle between Ukraine and Russia has most people’s attention.  While prayerfully hoping for a peaceful settlement of this conflict, it is difficult…
Walter D. (Donnie) Kennedy 7
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March 22, 2022

A War to Free the Slaves?

Part 3 in Clyde Wilson's series "African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective." Read Part 1 and Part 2. In 1798 Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Taylor: “It is true that we…
Clyde Wilson 1
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BlogPodcast
March 19, 2022

Podcast Episode 301

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 14-18, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Slavery, Lincoln, the War, Segregation, Southern Culture, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-301?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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March 18, 2022

Segregation on Track: Plessy v. Ferguson

In most minds today, the word segregation and the term “Jim Crow” immediately evoke a picture of the American South at the start of the Twentieth Century. It is, however,…
John Marquardt 1
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March 17, 2022

The Keeper of the Family Story

The advent of my coming and going to another world was not through a portal handcrafted from a felled silver-barked tree of old, but the factory-made casket of my Father.…
Chase Steely 6
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March 16, 2022

The Silent Killer

I started playing the piano when I was 11. My family wasn’t musical and didn’t own a piano. So every afternoon when the bus dropped me off from school I…
Brandon Meeks 4
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March 15, 2022

Lifetime Bondage

  Part 2 in Clyde Wilson's series, African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective. Part 1 can be read here. Life was tough for everyone in the America of the 1600s and…
Clyde Wilson 2
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Blog
March 14, 2022

Abraham Lincoln and the Ghost of Karl Marx

  Back in early 1981 the brilliant Southern scholar and traditionalist, Professor Mel Bradford, was the leading contender to receive President Ronald Reagan’s nomination as head of the National Endowment…
Boyd Cathey 3
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BlogPodcast
March 12, 2022

Podcast Episode 300

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 7-11, 2022 Topics: Southern Tradition, Robert E. Lee, Slavery, Abraham Lincoln, Southern History https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-300?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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March 11, 2022

The Once Southern City

I presume I am not the only person who thinks regularly about the strange reality of living in a part of what traditionally was the South, that is no longer…
Casey Chalk 1
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March 10, 2022

African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective

Our culture’s indifference to the past---which easily shades over into hostility and rejection---furnishes the most telling proof of that culture’s bankruptcy. ---Christopher Lasch The purpose of education is to free…
Clyde Wilson 5
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March 9, 2022

The Shadow of Red Rock

Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with time and place. As far as time goes, I’m mainly concerned with what happened before me - those who came before…
Travis Holt 2
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March 8, 2022

Robert E. Lee and His Time

Delivered at the 2013 Abbeville Institute Summer School. What I want to do is thoroughly cover Lee in his time and in ours, and try to understand that transformation. There's…
William Wilson 3
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March 7, 2022

The Preacher Who Stole Lincoln’s Past–By the Carload

On July 17, 1849, Robert Smith Todd of Lexington, Kentucky, died suddenly of cholera. He was among thousands who'd die in the world-wide epidemic that had already killed former president…
Kevin Orlin Johnson 4
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BlogPodcast
March 6, 2022

Podcast Episode 299

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Feb 28 - March 4, 2022 Topics: Southern humor, Southern literature, Jefferson, Reconstruction, Southern agriculture, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-299?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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March 4, 2022

Stonewall Jackson’s Scabbard Speech

Originally published in the Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 16. 1888 While the Virginia Convention of 1861 was in session in Richmond, wrestling with the weighty problems of the day,…
William A. Obenchain 0
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March 3, 2022

“Moral the Question Certainly is Not”

Filmmaker Arlen Parsa has recently undertaken a project that blots out the faces of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence in John Trumbull’s famous painting “The Declaration of…
M. Andrew Holowchak 1
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March 2, 2022

Reconstruction Era Chicanery

Postwar Southern reconstruction became corrupted when congressional Republicans took charge of it with the March 1867 Reconstruction Acts, almost two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Prior to that, the…
Philip Leigh 1
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March 1, 2022

Rage Against the [Industrial Food] Machine

In the rural Virginia town of Swoope, near the Shenandoah Valley, Joel Salatin practices common sense and ecologically sustainable agriculture on his farm, Polyface. In the wake of a COVID-19…
Michael Martin 0
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February 28, 2022

The Hog Killin’

A dozen years ago or so, I was pastoring a small country church in the smallest county in the state of Mississippi. After church, one of the deacons said, “We’ve…
Brandon Meeks 9
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February 26, 2022

Podcast Episode 298

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Feb 21-25, 2022 Topics: Southern tradition, Southern culture, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-298?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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February 25, 2022

Secession Declarations Do Not Prove the War was over Slavery

ACADEMIA'S ABSOLUTE PROOF that the War Between the States was fought over slavery is based primarily on the declarations of causes for the secession of four of the first seven…
Gene Kizer, Jr. 3
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February 24, 2022

Southern Distinctiveness

Have you ever accidentally used the wrong mushrooms in a recipe inducing you to think the South is some type of hallucination? Me neither–I reckon we aren’t enlightened enough to…
Chase Steely 2
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February 23, 2022

South Carolina in 1865

There is nothing new under the sun, but there are things which have lain undiscovered, forgotten, or neglected, and these can be brought to light. In my new book South…
Karen Stokes 2
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February 22, 2022

Two Southern Heroes

The Adventures and Recollections of General Walter P. Lane, A San Jacinto Veteran  (1887) John Salmon Ford, Rip Ford’s Texas  (1885, 1963) Our forebears of the antebellum South are being…
Clyde Wilson 0
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February 21, 2022

Beyond the Hunley

As far back as the days of ancient Greece and Rome, people have dreamed of various means of underwater travel and warfare. Over two thousand years ago, Alexander the Great…
John Marquardt 1
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February 19, 2022

Podcast Episode 297

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, February 14 - 18, 2022 Topics: Southern Culture, Southern Tradition, the War, Reconciliation, Abolitionists https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-297?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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February 18, 2022

Has CRT Entered VMI?

The writer remembers with respect and admiration Mr. Anthony E. “Tony” Hamilton (1957-2022), President of the VMI Class of 1979, joining many in the VMI community who are mourning his…
Forrest L. Marion 1
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February 17, 2022

The South Has No Culture?

I once broke up with a girl because of the South. Well, sort of. We had been dating for a month or so, and she invited me to come visit…
Casey Chalk 8
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February 16, 2022

A Suburb to Nothing

I. The Fall of Richmond In 1930, that caustic fellow H.L. Mencken wrote that if the war of 1861-1865 had gone otherwise, “Richmond would be, not the dull suburb of…
Joseph R. Stromberg 6
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February 15, 2022

What We Have to Expect

A review of How Radical Republican Antislavery Rhetoric and Violence Precipitated Secession, October 1859 - April 1861 (Abbeville Institute Press, 2022) by David Jonathan White. One of the tragic casualties…
John Devanny 3
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February 14, 2022

Adventures in Southern and Confederate Cinema

  Recently a friend of mine asked me to list my ten favorite films about the South and the War Between the States, and to discuss the reasons I would…
Boyd Cathey 2
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February 13, 2022

Podcast Episode 296

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, February 7-11, 2022 Topics: Abraham Lincoln, the War, Southern Tradition, Lost Cause https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-296
Brion McClanahan 0
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February 11, 2022

Lincoln Lied and People Died

Tomorrow is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Familiar Lincoln idolaters will gather to celebrate the birth, on Feb. 12, 1809, of the 16th President of the United States, and finesse his role…
Ilana Mercer 7
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February 10, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XIX

A Series by Clyde Wilson. WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806-1870) of South Carolina, amazingly prolific novelist, poet, essayist, lecturer, historian, critic, and editor, has been rightly called "The Father of Southern…
Clyde Wilson 1
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February 9, 2022

The Lost Cause Reconsidered Once More

  On a website devoted to publishing scholarly articles, I did recently did a search for “The Lost Cause” and unsurprisingly found a plethora of articles on that theme relating…
Thomas Hubert 1
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February 8, 2022

Who Was Francis Lieber?

The opening of this essay is from my segment of the documentary Searching for Lincoln under the heading: Lincoln and Total War. Herein I mentioned the claim that the “Lieber…
Valerie Protopapas 3
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February 7, 2022

The South and America’s Wars for Righteousness

Delivered at our 2011 Scholar's Conference, The South and America's Wars Well, good morning, and I wonder if you have the stamina for a third hour? Prop yourself up here…
Richard M. Gamble 2
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February 5, 2022

Podcast Episode 295

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 31 - Feb 4, 2022 Topics: Reconciliation, Southern Tradition, the Founding https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-295?si=32c56dfc806440239b666087f4ed321d&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahan 0
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February 4, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XVIII

A series by Clyde Wilson HENRY ROOTES JACKSON (1820—1898) of Georgia was a lawyer, judge and poet. He was U.S. Minister to Austria/Hungary 1853—1858 and was well-known for prosecuting Yankee…
Clyde Wilson 0
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February 3, 2022

The Achievements of M.E. Bradford

By Forrest McDonald and Clyde Wilson. These essays were originally published in the Fall 1982 issue of Southern Partisan. A review of M.E. Bradford, A Worthy Company: Brief Lives of…
Abbeville Institute 0
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February 2, 2022

Grover Cleveland and the South, Part 2

Excerpt from Ryan Walters, Grover Cleveland: The Last Jeffersonian President (Abbeville Institute Press, 2021) While in his first term in the White House, Cleveland decided to make a symbolic gesture…
Ryan Walters 0
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February 1, 2022

Guess I Won’t Qualify for Reparations

I’ve spent the last forty-five years doing family research and family history. I’ve interviewed some of my older relatives who have now passed on and I’m grateful that I had…
Barbara Marthal 1
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January 31, 2022

The Flight of Freedomseed

In the summer of 2015, a 60-year old former-member of the American Service and retired-electrician determined on a course that would result in a pedestrian protest from his home in…
Gerald Lefurgy 1
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January 30, 2022

Podcast Episode 294

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 24-28. 2022 Topics: Reconciliation, Confederate Monuments, Southern Tradition, Grover Cleveland https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-294
Brion McClanahan 0
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January 28, 2022

Southern Poets and Poems, Part XVII

A series by Clyde Wilson Thomas Holley Chivers (1809—1858) of Georgia was a physician and poet and a friend of Edgar Allan Poe, who encouraged him. He published over 10…
Clyde Wilson 0
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January 27, 2022

Suffering, Providence, and Robert Lewis Dabney

In his 1903 book, The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, Thomas Cary Johnson wrote of his friend, colleague, and spiritual brother, “Dr. Dabney was a great man. We…
Miles Foltermann 6
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January 26, 2022

Grover Cleveland and the South, Part I

From Ryan Walters, Grover Cleveland: The Last Jeffersonian President (Abbeville Institute Press, 2021). “Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson…
Ryan Walters 3
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January 25, 2022

Misdirected Outrage

The federal government facilitates fundraising for traitors. That’s the claim made by the Washington Post’s Joe Davidson in a 14 January column. This occurs, says Davidson, through the Combined Federal…
Casey Chalk 3
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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 8
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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 2
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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 8
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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 4
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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. 1
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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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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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Review Posts
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…
Abbeville Institute 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 4
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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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Blog
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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Blog
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. 3
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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 2
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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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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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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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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 5
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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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