Is Opposition to Trump “Satanic?”
On a February 2017 episode of televangelist Pat Robertson’s “The 700 club,” a viewer sent in the following question about dissent: “Why do so many hate President Trump and say everything he does is bad?… »
Black Southerners in American Wars
President Trump recently used his executive powers to designate a national monument to honor African Americans’ role as soldiers during the War Between the States. The monument will be a 380-acre site in Kentucky to… »
Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was born into poverty in rural North Carolina. His father died after saving some town locals from drowning and left the family to fend for themselves in a two-room shack. A young Andrew… »
The Sounds of Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta
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Charleston’s Faulty “Contextualization”
I grew up in Summerville, South Carolina, just a few miles from historic Charleston. This quiet little town is separated from the Holy City by some plantations, swamps, and marsh but shares the same fascination… »
Was the Old South Feudal?
Was the Old South Feudal? Eugene Genovese wrote several works on antebellum slavery that essentially argued the Old South was neither feudal nor capitalist. His book Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in… »
The Old South’s Poor Whites
There was a time, before universal white male suffrage and the closing of the frontier, when the poor whites of the South were considered shiftless and without caste. If we were to look at the… »
Was Jesse James a Southern Robin Hood?
There is a dichotomy to how people view Jesse James. While some have viewed him as a murdering thief, others have argued that he was like a modern-day Robin Hood. To really understand the man… »
Calhoun and Modern Economics
Much of John C. Calhoun’s criticism stems from his 1837 speech in the Senate where he stated slavery was “a positive good.” This quote is often paraded as evidence of Southern racism and is used… »
Revisiting the “Cornerstone Speech”
Most mainstream historians point to the “Cornerstone” speech by Alexander Stephens as the clearest piece of evidence that slavery and white supremacy alone were the reasons for Southern secession. After all, most transcriptions show Stephens… »
