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The North Busy Rewriting History

The following is an excerpt from a 1946 pamphlet dedicated to the Public Schools of North Carolina by the Anson Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy in honor of its author, Dr. Henry Tucker Graham of Florence, South Carolina.  Dr. Graham was the former president of Hampden-Sydney College and for twenty years the beloved pastor of the First Presbyterian Church…
Bernard Thuersam
January 8, 2018
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Christmas at Greenpoint

Well, the old mill closed down on us Tuesday night at 6 P.M. for the rest of the week, so as to give us a holiday for Christmas, which came this year on December 25th inst. And so when I came out of the shop and started home it was sunset, and all back to the west was the prettiest…
Clinton Martin Bissell
December 22, 2017
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Florida Cowboys

Reading on the Abbeville site articles about the South and the West, I was reminded of my newspaper piece on Florida as the Wild Wild (South) East, which had a popular run.  It was inspired by a Frederic Remington article describing his adventures in Florida with cowboys in the 1880s.   Our county (Marion, named for Gen. Francis Marion) was as…
Joscelyn Dunlop
December 21, 2017
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The North’s Colonial Empire

The Setting Postcolonial studies have been all the rage for many decades. A great number of contributors to the field have come from India and their work wrestles (in part) with the socio-psychological situation of Indian bureaucrats in the British Raj. These functionaries were, after all, Indians of some kind working for His Majesty’s Government – not the one in…
Joseph R. Stromberg
December 20, 2017
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Why the South Won the Civil War

Fred Douglas Young, Richard M. Weaver, 1910-1963: A Life of the Mind. University of Missouri Press, 1995. 217; Joseph Scotchie, editor, The Vision of Richard Weaver. Transaction Publishers, 1995. Early in the fall of 1939, while driving over "the monotonous prairies of Texas" to begin a third dismal year at Texas A & M with its "rampant philistinism, abetted by…
David Middleton
December 18, 2017
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Look Away

A bit of free verse to address our current situation, which is probably not as good as I think it is.  It marshals various lines from Donald Davidson’s poems.  As Faulkner said, all of us writers are really only failed poets. You, Mel Bradford, told Of remembering who we are. A time has come When answers will not wait. But…
Clyde Wilson
December 15, 2017
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Thomas Benton Smith, The Boy General

At the Battle of Nashville, on 16 December 1864, the Tennessean’s brigade, fought valiantly, but Brigadier General Thomas Benton Smith soon found himself surrounded on three sides by Federal troops. A bullet had pierced the skull of Colonel William M. Shy, the commander of Smith’s original regiment, the 20th Tennessee Infantry. He had fallen, fighting to the last, and holding…
Jeff Wolverton
December 14, 2017
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Hate the South Week

‘Just a post, just a post, just a post on a blog, just a post, just a post, and the war has begun’ (To the tune of “Sloth,” Fairport Convention, ca. 1978) General Uncivil Background Blessed as we are -- so the economists say (they never lie) -– with relentless, inescapable digital bother and cyber-mania, any one of us might…
Joseph R. Stromberg
December 13, 2017
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George Mason and Original Intent

Every fact bearing upon the character and service of the statesmen whose genius created a model form of human government should receive a warm greeting from those who are proud of the growth, progress, and prosperity of the republic. The harmonious working of the component parts which enter into the life of the country is to-day the result of the…
Fitzhugh Lee
December 11, 2017
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“White People” Food?

A July 2017 article from Buzzfeed.com, the hallmark of all popular wisdom of our time, was entitled, “15 Things You'll Understand If You've Ever Eaten At A White Friend's House.” In the article, a series of snarky memes and illustrative pictures were meant to communicate the idea that “white people” don’t know anything about “spicing up” their food. In other…
David Harris
December 7, 2017
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Monuments and Reconciliation

With the election of Rutherford B. Hayes by a one vote margin in the Electoral College, the Compromise of 1877 ended the era of Reconstruction in the minds of the people.  As Southern States were re-admitted into the Union, Federal troops stood down or returned to the North.  From about 1885 to 1924, before and after the 50th Anniversary of…
Cliff Page
December 6, 2017
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Through a Lens Darkly

There is an old saying in the theater that when one is acting the part of a butler in a play, the actor tends to regard it as a play about butlers.  This manner of observing personages and events, both past and present is, of course, a sad fact of life within many levels of modern society.  All too often,…
John Marquardt
December 4, 2017
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Kansas University Honoring War Criminals?

After the rousing success of Kansas University’s redesigned football uniforms in honor of Jennison’s Jay-hawkers of 1861, a competing Kansas university also recently unveiled a special-edition football uniform in commemoration of the atrocities of that bloody time. Planned for an upcoming series of games, the uniform features blue pants with yellow stripe and bloodied saber, and a blue jersey styled…
Lewis Liberman
December 1, 2017
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“No Other Gods Before Me.”

From its port side northern Kentucky’s foremost tourist attraction looks exactly like a real vessel, a big one, with a ramp fitted along it to take on animals and supplies.  From bow to stern it is 510 feet long, about as long as a modern missile frigate, and the designers have gone to great lengths to make the structure appear…
Jerry Salyer
November 30, 2017
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Cane Fighting

For five days in May, 1856, Charles Sumner delivered a speech entitled The Crime Against Kansas. For those five days, he continuously slandered South Carolina and its senator, Pierce Butler. Regarding South Carolina, Sumner stated: “If we glance at special achievements, it will be difficult to find anything in the history of South Carolina which presents so much of heroic…
Michael Martin
November 29, 2017
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Slavery and the War

The recent apoplexy over White House Chief-of-Staff John Kelly’s comments about Robert E. Lee and the Civil War have revealed on ongoing problem in the thinking of many Americans when it comes to history and politics in general – the inability to see any issue or event in anything but the most oversimplified terms.  In the particular context of the…
Michael Armstrong
November 27, 2017
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Calhoun’s Meaning that “Slavery is a Positive Good”?

John C. Calhoun–valedictorian of his class at Yale, Vice President, Secretary of War, and Senator–was one of the greatest statesmen America has produced. Margaret Coit wrote a favorable biography of him in 1950 that won a Pulitzer Prize. In 1959, a Senate committee, headed by John Kennedy, ranked him among the five greatest senators in American history. Calhoun wrote one…
Donald Livingston
November 17, 2017
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The Extreme Northern Position

If you listen to the modern historical profession, Southern secession in 1861 represented "treason." David Blight, Professor History at Yale University, has made this belief the part of the core of his attack on Confederate symbols. If we should not take them down because they represent "white supremacy," then they should be removed because Southerners were "traitors." Traitors to whom…
Brion McClanahan
November 16, 2017
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Is the South Celtic?

There is a popular theme embraced by many that the uniqueness of Southern culture is explained by its “Celtic” origins in opposition to the “Anglo-Saxon” foundations of the North.  This thesis has been expressed strongly in such works as Grady McWhiney’s Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South, Jim Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, and James…
Clyde Wilson
November 13, 2017
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A Little Change in the Weather

We hear endless accounts today concerning the dire effects of global climate change, as well as the horrific devastation caused by the recent hurricanes that have mainly struck the Southern states. However, if one studies the five billion years of Earth’s climatic history, it should soon become evident that climate change has been an ongoing cyclical occurrence during the latter…
John Marquardt
November 10, 2017
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Jewish Confederates

The Jewish people have endured much throughout their long history, yet have always continued to hold on to their religious and cultural identity. Finding a safe harbor from persecution was perhaps the main justification for the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. Yet before this monumental event, amidst the often tumultuous sea of the diaspora, there did briefly…
Jonathan Harris
November 9, 2017
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A Changing Reconstruction Narrative

  Those who have read his Count of Monte Cristo can readily appreciate the wisdom of Alexander Dumas who wrote, “The difference between treason and patriotism is a matter of dates.” Similarly, Civil War era historical interpretations are a matter of dates. Consider the example of President Ulysses Grant.  While the many corruption scandals during his presidency cannot be denied, modern biographers and…
Philip Leigh
November 8, 2017
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An Expired Narrative

Portraying a furtive agenda as a benevolent endeavor has occurred frequently throughout our history. Unscrupulous politicians have been able to hoodwink the public because it takes a while for their fraudulence to be discovered; Sometimes decades. The Reconstruction of Southern states is a classic example of this phenomenon. There were rational, well-thought out strategies put forth for re-admitting Southern states…
Gail Jarvis
November 6, 2017
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A Note on Southern Humor

William Faulkner said much about Southern writing when he called Henry James "the nicest old lady lever met.” He indicated, of course, the sense of humor that the region has always had. And he indicated his disregard for the kind of psychological drama that identifies the target of his joke. If James liked to have a character weep seriously over…
Bill Koon
November 3, 2017
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Citizen Lee

At the time of his death, was Robert E. Lee a man without a country? No, the Gray Fox of the Confederacy was not like the naval officer in Edward Everett Hale's novel who cursed his country. Lee’s country, before and after the War Between the States, was the United States of America, a republic he served with valor and…
William Freehoff
November 2, 2017
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The Fighting Gamecock: Thomas Sumter

Thomas Sumter in his encounters with the Indian na­tions enters the pages of recorded history. He had prob­ably been present at the fall of Fort Duquesne and in the campaign across the Ohio River and had learned some­thing of the red man during this early service. In any case, he was chosen to accompany Lieutenant Henry Timberlake to treat with…
M.E. Bradford
November 1, 2017
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The Antebellum South in the Reformation Tradition

On October 31, while many parents whisk their little ones from house to house in the pursuit of temporal tasty treats, a large portion of Christendom will be observing the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, a movement which arguably changed the very course of Western Civilization up through the present. Many Protestant denominations, seminaries, churches, and para-church organizations are…
Jonathan Harris
October 30, 2017
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The Evil South

Not to be outdone by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s brilliant idea for a new post-Game of Thrones show exploring the drama and high-stakes tension of an alternate America where slavery still exists (which can be read here and here), Keltag Hagrinax and J.X. Parnohack of the hit series Shame of Crones also recently unveiled details of their new show at the Galactic Imperium News…
Lewis Liberman
October 27, 2017
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Slavery and the Confederacy

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of ‘The Times’ had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected…
Kirkpatrick Sale
October 26, 2017
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The Invention of the Appalachian Hillbilly

In our politically correct culture where even the mildest criticism of a societal group can earn someone the label of racist, it remains open season on rural America.  When Barack Obama famously spoke of rural Pennyslvanians in 2008 as "bitter" people who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them" and are prone to "anti-immigrant…
Michael Armstrong
October 25, 2017
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A Black Advocate for Confederate Monuments

Yesterday’s Washington Post had an article about eighty-eight year old Nelson Winbush who is a Florida black man and proponent of Confederate monuments. His grandfather, Louis Napoleon Nelson, was a Tennessee slave who followed his master and sons into the Confederate military. Initially Louis was a cook but later became a rifleman and a chaplain under the command of cavalry leader Nathan…
Philip Leigh
October 23, 2017
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American History Textbooks vs. Reality

Donald Trump made the following statement at a recent rally in Phoenix, Arizona on August 22: “In the proud tradition of America's great leaders, from George Washington -- please, don't take his statue down, please. PLEASE! Does anybody want George Washington's statue? No. Is that sad? To Lincoln, to Teddy Roosevelt, I see they want to take Teddy Roosevelt's down,…
Michael Martin
October 20, 2017
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Nat Turner: Terrorist

As the old cliché goes, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The phrase has been around forever, it seems, and sometimes it can be true, I suppose. There are always exceptions to every rule. But most of the time, a terrorist is simply a terrorist, a person who uses extreme violence and fear to achieve a political or…
Ryan Walters
October 18, 2017
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Russia vs. the Confederacy

Russian-American relations over the past two and a half centuries, like the weather in Alaska, the land Russia sold to the United States in 1867 for ten dollars a square mile, have blown from very warm to extremely frigid; but its balmiest period by far was during the War Between the States. In stark contrast to America’s sixteen-year hiatus in…
John Marquardt
October 16, 2017
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A People Without Honor

Back in my days as a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, I and some fellow graduate students were involved tangentially, very tangentially, in the great Confederate flag debate in Columbia, SC.  During the 1990s the  Confederate flag flew over the capitol in Columbia, SC.  Various civil rights groups began to snipe at the flag, viewing it as…
John Devanny
October 13, 2017
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States and Cities Saying “No” to the Feds

What was amazing about watching two dozen states and several hundred cities defy Donald Trump’s decision to take the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement was that so little was made of it. It represented open defiance of the national government and a commitment to follow the principles of a treaty that our elected leader has specifically rebuked. I…
Kirkpatrick Sale
October 12, 2017
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Why Were Confederate Monuments Built?

In the wake of the current controversy over Confederate monuments, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has created a timeline that has made its way around the worldwide web like wildfire.  It purports to show that two spikes in the building of the monuments coincide with occurences of racially-charged historical eras, such as the rise of the Ku Klux Klan…
Michael Armstrong
October 11, 2017
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En Brer Fox, He Lay Low

Another Southern city with a rich history has fallen into the wallow of political pus. Who knows who represents the final word on the subject, although when it comes to these miscreants, these political poltroons, it is difficult to rummage through the dung of their dogmatic house to reveal any one germ. Now Memphis’ Orepheum Theatre Group has banned Gone…
Paul H. Yarbrough
October 9, 2017
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Eliminating Dixie Means Eliminating America

A few years ago Stephen Fry, English actor, writer, and comic, hosted a televised tour of America, traveling from location to location in a London cab. His junket into the “Deep South” was introduced this way: “For years, I've been intrigued and bewitched by what seems to be America's most charactable region. A place of cotton, courtesy, Gospel music, mint…
Gail Jarvis
October 5, 2017
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The Winds of Change

This isn’t 1990. The Winds of Change have stopped blowing.  When the Soviets present a more docile response to self determination than a “western democracy,” the situation is bad. How painful is it to pine for the days of passive Soviet resistance to secession? Images and videos of the jack-booted thugs bulldozing their way through crowds of peaceful voters (including firemen…
Brion McClanahan
October 4, 2017
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The New War on the South’s Patrimony

In the news late today, on a nice summery afternoon in early September, I saw live on television a crane removing the large statue of General Robert E. Lee from a park in Dallas. I had to switch channels immediately because I was so upset and fed up with these imbecile journalists bleating the left-wing party line about the nobility…
Alphonse-Louis Vinh
October 2, 2017
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The Radical Republicans: The Antifa of 1865

"Anybody who would trash Lee and laud Lincoln is either stupid as a post or just plain evil," said a sage reader. This applies in spades to anyone who would laud the Radical Republicans of 1865, as one TV GOP blonde has recently, and asininely, done. The Radical Republicans, if you can believe it, considered Abraham Lincoln a moderate (a…
Ilana Mercer
September 29, 2017
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On Tour at The Hermitage

On Labor Day, I visited The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s Nashville manor. As a Tennessee native, going to The Hermitage was always a goal of mine – even though for various reasons I had never been able to do so before. With a candid demeanor, I paid my $20 dollars and entered the intro museum. For reasons expressed in my book,…
Dave Benner
September 28, 2017
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Hollywood Before the “Hate Confederate” Movement

From the beginnings to rather recent times, sympathetic portrayals of Confederates have been a mainstay of America cinema.  An astounding number of major stars without any Southern background have had no objection to favourably portraying Confederates (and other Southerners).  It might be noted that two of the major figures of early American film, D.W. Griffith and Will Rogers, were the…
Clyde Wilson
September 27, 2017
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American Sovereignty and “Unconditional Loyalty”

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free: Beginning of Jefferson's Statue for Religious Freedom, passed by the Virginia Legislature in 1786 I With one intro line Jefferson explains the core of human liberty. Our minds, a composite of intellect and heart that defines us as human, are forever free to choose what to believe, where to inquire, who to…
Vito Mussomeli
September 25, 2017
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What’s Happened to the Southern Heartland?

With roots in urban America, the libertarian New Class, which staffs so many of today’s influential think tanks, is disinclined to view the troubles in rural America as a real crisis. This group tends to view a farm as simply another unit of production that, if inefficient, should wither away without public concern—indeed no more deserving of concern than the…
Anthony Harrigan
September 22, 2017
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Terrorism, Chivalry, and “The Great Compromise”

It is unsurprising that one of the antifa groups that have been making the news lately identifies itself with John Brown, the revolutionary abolitionist who was hanged shortly after leading an attack upon Harper’s Ferry in 1859.  Brown’s career embodies the progressive fixation with being on the ostensibly “right” side of history, and as the attempted massacre of Republican senators…
Jerry Salyer
September 21, 2017
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Comparing Constitutions

Southern leaders had few complaints with the old Constitution under which they had lived. The heart of the conflict, they felt, was that the intent of the written law had been subverted by Northern sectionalists. Three major areas of conflict were over protective tariffs, the settlement of common territories, and the right to be secure in one’s property. Although tariffs…
James David Altman
September 18, 2017
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Yankee Rush

Lee Sam and Abner were settin’ on the porch drinking ice-tea one day when the Yankee from Boston come running his Toyota Prius up the road to the house. He stopped, and as it was July and hadn’t rained in a month, the dust kinda poured over his car when he stopped. He got out a coughing and fussing and…
Paul H. Yarbrough
September 15, 2017
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Madisonian Liberal

In 2015, Todd Horwitz posted an article on on the Ron Paul-sponsored website Voices of Liberty aimed at restoring the definition of liberal. Horwitz explained: “Today’s liberals are not liberal at all. They are elitists, communists, and socialists that believe that they should dictate how people live. The true liberals are conservatives that try to restore the country to the…
Joe Wolverton
September 14, 2017
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Slavery and the War

To assert the dogma that slavery caused the war of the 1860s sanctifies the North, vilifies the South, glorifies the Blacks, and mythologizes the war. This dogma has been thrown out there as an unchallenged “given” for a hundred and fifty years to put the South on the guilty defensive and keep her there, but it all collapses with one…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
September 13, 2017
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A Monumental Folly

The gentle wave of what had been termed “monumania” that rolled over the South and parts of the North during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries was one which saw the dedication of numerous monuments in memory of the Confederacy and its heroes. That long dormant wave has now suddenly turned into a manic tsunami dedicated to the tearing…
John Marquardt
September 11, 2017
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Understanding the War on Monuments

Agitation, Abstraction, Disruption, Distraction… These words are the most primal reasons that southern, and arguably mainstream American, history is under attack throughout the country. On August 16, 2017, I attended a protest to remove the John C. Calhoun monument in Charleston, South Carolina. While I was at this protest, I gained a lot of insight on how these “protestors” think…
Michael Martin
September 8, 2017
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Lincoln or Lee? What Would Hitler Say?

"Some crazy person just compared President Abraham Lincoln to Hitler. Yes, this just happened on CNN and Brooke Baldwin's reaction was perfect." So scribbled one Ricky Davila on Social Media (Twitter). Indeed, an elderly Southern gentleman had ventured that President Lincoln, not General Lee, murdered civilians, a point even a Court historian and a Lincoln idolater like Doris Kearns Goodwin…
Ilana Mercer
September 7, 2017
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AHA Revisionism

On 28 August 2017, the American Historical Association (AHA) issued a “Statement on Confederate Monuments” that presumed to speak for the entire American historical profession on the issue of whether these monuments should remain or if they should be removed from public spaces. Unfortunately this “statement” is little more than historical establishment claptrap disguised as highbrow intellectual discourse—par for the…
Brion McClanahan
September 6, 2017
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Party Truths

Recent years have seen a new revisionist theme emerge in the history of America’s two principal, modern-day political parties – the Democrats and Republicans. In the new debate, two questions have emerged: Did the two parties switch platforms at any point in history? And did the Democrats, with its longtime Southern stronghold, always have a monopoly on racism and white…
Ryan Walters
September 4, 2017
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August 2017 Top Ten

The top ten articles for August 2017: 1. Why The War Was Not About Slavery by Clyde Wilson 2. Defending the Confederacy by Ryan Walters 3. The Real Robert E. Lee by James Rutledge Roesch 4. A Monumental Spin by H.V. Traywick, Jr. 5. What Confederate Monument Critics May Not Know by Philip Leigh 6. We Long to Be Free!…
Brion McClanahan
September 2, 2017
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If You Think So, Say So

This is the gravestone of my great-great-great grandfather, Benjamin Parks Middleton, located in the Bethel Baptist Church cemetery between the towns of Hazelhurst and Georgetown in Copiah County, Mississippi. He was a farmer from that area and, to my knowledge, was not a slave-owner. Benjamin served as a private in the 6th Mississippi infantry unit of the Confederate States Army…
Houston Middleton
September 1, 2017
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10 Objections to Nullification–Refuted

Nullification, also known as State interposition, is controversial because it challenges the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation. The argument behind nullification is that the States—as parties to the compact that created the federal government—have a right to interpret the Constitution and veto acts where the federal government exceeds its delegated power. Genuine nullification involves a State’s declaration of unconstitutionality…
Zachary Garris
August 31, 2017
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American Presidents, Slavery, and the Confederacy

The current pogrom against Southern history and symbols ignores the influence the South and the institution of slavery had on most American presidents. American history would not be the same without it. If the current goal is to purge any reminder of slavery and the Confederacy from the public sphere, then nearly every American president would have to be withdrawn…
Clyde Wilson
August 30, 2017
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Imagine if the British Won?

Let us imagine for a moment that the French army and fleet were not present at Yorktown to augment Washington’s army, and that the British prevailed in their war to suppress the rebellion of their subjects populating the American colonies below Canada. As the victorious redcoats swarmed through those colonies they arrested and imprisoned rebel leadership including Jefferson, Washington, Franklin,…
Bernard Thuersam
August 28, 2017
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“Furl That Banner”

During the past few decades, there has been an ever-growing sentiment throughout the Unites Sates to erase from the public mind, if not from American history itself, all vestiges of the Confederate States of America, and in particular, all memorials dedicated to the heroes, leaders and symbols of the Lost Cause. Following the senseless murder of a number of African-American…
John Marquardt
August 24, 2017
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Confederate Case Law: The Rule of Law, Not of Men

The mark of an advanced civilization is the rule of law, with the highest being the rule of law that protects life, liberty and property. Based upon this standard, the Confederate States of America embodied an advanced Christian civilization. Accepting this truism goes a long way in understanding why the Confederacy has been demonized to the point of eradicating it…
Marshall DeRosa
August 23, 2017
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Robert E. Lee Would Have Fought the Nazis

The events in Charlottesville, Virginia that transpired this past weekend (11 Aug to 13 Aug) were the product of very misguided and miseducated adherents of the Nazi ideology and white supremacism who sought to voice their disapproval of the proposed removal of a statue to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It is almost rote to assume that what Lee, as…
Robert McReynolds
August 21, 2017
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Lyon Gardiner Tyler and Southern History

Delivered at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. The attack on the so-called “lost cause” myth in American history is nothing new. Beginning in the 1950s and 60s, historians like Kenneth Stampp began a concerted effort to undermine the dominant historical interpretation of the War, namely that the War and Reconstruction had been stains on American history, that the War…
Brion McClanahan
August 18, 2017
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Is 19th Century Slavery Harming 21st Century Black Americans?

Today's Americans are not nearly as gullible as the Leftist establishment seems to think. Also, its hard to believe that these starry-eyed ideologues think they can remove all obstacles that they have decided stand in the way of the “purification” of America. They cleverly created ambiguous and questionable encumbrances that can be interpreted in whatever way is necessary to justify…
Gail Jarvis
August 17, 2017
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A Monumental Spin

It takes men of worth to recognize worth in men. – Thomas Carlyle Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals. – Hannah Arendt Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain to leave an equal baseness. – Tennyson The mob attacks on Confederate monuments remind me of the “useful idiots” and “rent-a-thugs” who are happily condoned, if…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
August 16, 2017
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The New Guns of Honor?

Most of the world knows of the Hollywood Celebrity “Martin Sheen,” (born and baptized Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez). Much of the world knows that he portrayed General Robert E. Lee in the film “Gettysburg.” I am even on record mildly complimenting his performance. Of course, nobody today can possible represent Lee, but I thought Sheen did better than Robert Duvall…
Clyde Wilson
August 14, 2017
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Lincoln, Crony Capitalism, and Populism

Lincoln’s War established a permanent, centralized regime of crony capitalism for the formerly federal U.S. In the centralized U.S., real power is in the hands of big business and big banks that use government to protect and increase their own private profit and wealth. Lincoln implemented Henry Clay’s “American Plan”, without giving it a name. At the time, however, free…
Norman Black
August 11, 2017
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Calhoun the Marxist?

Neo-conservatives can’t seem to make up their mind about the Confederacy. They all agree that the Confederacy represented everything evil about early America (which places them squarely in league with their intellectual brothers on the Left) but why they hate it presents the real conundrum. It borders on schizophrenia. Neo-conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson, for example, often rails against the…
Brion McClanahan
August 10, 2017
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Archie Who?

The shots keep coming.  Now Archie Manning, who once was from Mississippi but moved away to play football, has determined, in his opinion, that Mississippi’s flag need to be changed.  Archie, in the eyes of most, has forgotten who brought him to the dance. Sadly, that dance partner bled and suffered for so many, not only in Mississippi, but in…
Paul H. Yarbrough
August 9, 2017
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Rich Hours

Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. False River —For Olivia Pass, and for Patric It’s wide, impressive, but it’s false—really an oxbow lake, formed when the Mississippi, on its own, changed its course, three hundred years ago or so, chopping off a loop, leaving to the west a “Pointe Coupée”— an “island” and a flowing C.  Farther north…
Catharine Savage Brosman
August 7, 2017
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July 2017 Top Ten

1. Why Vicksburg Canceled the Fourth of July – For a Generation by Karen Stokes 2. Bust Hell Wide Open by James Rutledge Roesch 3. You Are Deplorable by Clyde Wilson 4. The Origins of the Neo-Marxist Attack on the South by Norman Black 5. General Lee Figured It Out by Fred Reed 6. "Free People of Color" in Dixie…
Brion McClanahan
August 6, 2017
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What Confederate Monument Critics May Not Know

In 1958 a nearly forgotten thirty-four year old Texas author named William Humphrey debuted his first novel, Home From the Hill, to widespread praise. Legendary director Vincente Minnelli released a film version only two years later. Both the book and the movie are highly rated by Amazon customers. The novel begins as follows: Early one morning last September the men squatting on the Northeast corner…
Philip Leigh
August 4, 2017
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Red States for California Secession

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has given the green light for CalExit proponents to begin collecting signatures for a California secession ballot initiative in the 2018 general election. This is good news. California is the logical place to begin having a conversation about secession, and every red state American should be actively supporting the proposal. As California goes, so goes…
Brion McClanahan
August 3, 2017
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We Long to be Free!

An Address given on the Occasion of the Observance of Confederate Flag Day Raleigh, North Carolina | 03 March 2017 SEVEN SCORE AND SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new union, freely chosen and legally adopted by eleven Southern States with the consent of the people, and expressed through their chosen delegates in solemn assembly;…
Paul C. Graham
August 2, 2017
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“The Unshaken Rock:” The Jeffersonian Tradition in America

Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. When historians discuss reasons for Southern secession, as if the South needed to produce one, perhaps the most important, and sometimes neglected, motive was the protection of the Jeffersonian tradition, essentially the right to self-government.  What was this Jeffersonian tradition or ideal? It is our lost political heritage of limited government and…
Ryan Walters
July 31, 2017
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New South Voices of the Southern Tradition

Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. As scholars dedicated to exploring what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition, we are most often drawn to the antebellum South and the early federal period, the days when Jeffersonian federalism and political economy reigned supreme and Southern statesmen were regarded as the best in the land. We still fight…
Brion McClanahan
July 28, 2017
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Madisonian Nullification

This article will restore necessary context to the word "nullification” as used by James Madison in an 1834 letter called “Notes on Nullification.” First, we have to put Madison’s role in the formulation of the concept of nullification into some context of its own. As indispensable as he was to the development of our Constitution, James Madison is not the…
Joe Wolverton
July 27, 2017
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You Are Deplorable

Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. You are deplorable. It is worse than that.  If you are Southern or interested in the South you are the most deplorable of all the deplorables.  There is no place for you among the enlightened and virtuous people of 21st Century America. But perhaps there is a certain advantage to being an…
Clyde Wilson
July 24, 2017
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The Origins of the Neo-Marxist Attack on the South

On July 5th, the Abbeville Institute published an article entitled “Southern Identity and the Southern Tradition” by John Devanny. Mr. Devanny noted that Marxism is involved in attacks on southern culture and heritage and wrote that many of them were “the inheritors of a secular Puritan legacy and the disciples of cultural Marxism who began to dominate the academy in…
Norman Black
July 21, 2017
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Poe’s War of the Literati

Edgar Allan Poe secured a permanent place among world authors as father of the short story, creator of the detective story, and/poetic genius. While he has an international reputation, Poe consciously identified himself as a Southern writer. Poe may not often come to mind as a Southern writer because he did not write about the South the way Simms or,…
Harry Lee Poe
July 20, 2017
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Leave the Monuments Alone: An Artistic Perspective

This essay was originally printed in the comments section of the Apollo Magazine article "Dismantling America's Monuments to White Supremacy" by Kristen Teen. The removal and desecration of images of enemies of the state was an accepted part of Roman political life, a formal public dishonour named as damnatio memoriae, and the destruction of built and material culture of a…
Juliette Peers
July 19, 2017
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A Poetry Sampler

Editor's note: Three recent poetry submissions, the first two by Walt Garlington, the third by Stephen Borthwick. The Patriarch’s Clan The patriarch’s clan By the lake is gathered To honor again Their common father: The matriarch with Her circle of friends, Cousins, with new wives' and husbands' And newer children, The bond of kinship Strengthened in their meeting. Traditions are…
Abbeville Institute
July 17, 2017
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A Rebel Born

Foreword for A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate General, American Legend, by Lochlainn Seabrook, Sea Raven Press, 2010. There is a story that a year or two after the great American war of 1861–1865, a visiting Englishman asked Gen. R.E. Lee, “Who is the greatest soldier produced by the war?” It is reported that Lee without…
Clyde Wilson
July 13, 2017
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Reconsidering Richard B. Russell

There was a time both before and after the War when the South dominated the United States Congress. In the antebellum period, James Madison, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph of Roanoke, and Henry Clay placed their mark on congressional debates, and several other Southerners ranked among the best statesmen of the era. But most Americans, even those in the South, don't realize that by the mid-twentieth century, Southerners…
Brion McClanahan
July 12, 2017
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Carpetbagging Southern History

A common technique of Liberal ideologues is to change the meanings of words to suit their agendas. So “illegal aliens” become “undocumented immigrants” and “adolescent criminals” become “justice-involved youths.” We're witnessing a version of this phenomenon with the “contextualizing” of Confederate monuments. Realizing that the eradication of Confederate memorials was not receiving the widespread public support they expected, hostile progressives…
Gail Jarvis
July 10, 2017
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June 2017 Top Ten

The top ten for June 2017. Read 'em again. 1. Why Does the Left Really Despise the Confederacy? by Ryan Walters 2. The War Between the States: Who were the Nazis? by Clyde Wilson 3. New Orleans Mayor Hypes His Cultural Cleansing by Gail Jarvis 4. The Real Reason Confederate Symbols are Attacked by Tom Landess 5. The Ad Too…
Brion McClanahan
July 9, 2017
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General Lee Figured It Out

This piece was originally printed at Fred On Everything. “The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.” Robert E. Lee The man was perceptive. Amalgamation of the states under a central government has led to exactly the effects…
Fred Reed
July 7, 2017
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The Absurdity of Racial Correctness Exposed

This article was originally printed at Townhall.com A couple of days ago, a friend of mine from Alabama shared on his Facebook wall an article from Alabama Political Reporter by a Mr. Josh Moon. The title is, “An Apology for White People.” Moon, a white man, writes that “white people in Alabama (and other states too, I presume)…like to pretend a lot…
Jack Kerwick
July 6, 2017
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Southern Identity and the Southern Tradition

In the popular imagination the South is viewed as a region typified by racism, poverty, and ignorance save a few special islands, such as Chapel Hill and Charlotte, which lay in the archipelago of enlightenment.  There are some cracks in this edifice of Yankee bigotry, but when political and cultural wars become heated, the edifice is trotted out once more…
John Devanny
July 5, 2017
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“It is history that teaches us to hope”

Malcolm X wrote that “History is a weapon.” He was right, and no topic encompasses this truth more than the War of Northern Aggression. And the most practical way we rebels can advance in this post-modern war being waged against the South is simply education. Sounds cliche, right? But how can we expect anyone who doesn’t have a clue about our past, its people and their divergent ancestry,…
Dissident Mama
July 3, 2017
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“Free People of Color” in Dixie

This article is the abbreviated address that I made at the Upcountry Literary Festival 2017, at the University of South Carolina, in Union South, Carolina. Some people come for the land down under (Australia). I come from the land where old times are not forgotten. I started my presentation by singing the old spiritual entitled, Wade in the Water, God’s…
Barbara Marthal
June 30, 2017
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Dixie-cide

Modern progressives are just as evil in their bloodlust against the South as were William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan. Today's leftists may not yet be waging the shock-and-awe total warfare that the Union generals inflicted upon Southern civilians (whites and blacks alike) and their dwellings, businesses, churches, infrastructure, and food supply, but their aim is still the same: to…
Dissident Mama
June 29, 2017
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Re-Humanizing Johnny Reb

“…You said he's a Confederate general. They're the bad guys. And he's probably racist… We're going to raise our kids here. I don't want some Confederate General ghost teaching them his racism…” Yep… a “bad guy”… a “racist”… a boogeyman… That’s what Hollywood, mainstream media and a large part of American society and politics think of your Confederate ancestor. This…
Travis Archie
June 28, 2017
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The AP Gets It Wrong…Again

In a recent column for the Associated Press, entitled “Old South monument backers embrace Confederate Catechism”, writer Jay Reeves opines that that those of us who seek to remember the Confederacy and Southern culture are reading from a different history book than the rest of the “nation”. He acknowledges that “indeed they are”, and then references the “decades old” Confederate…
Carl Jones
June 26, 2017
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Is the Confederacy Obsolete?

This article was originally published in Southern Partisan magazine in 1994. The past—what we believe happened and what we think it means—can be a very slippery customer. Even the recent past can be elusive. In the early 1950s, when I was a student at Johns Hopkins, C. Vann Woodward gave an amusing but provocative talk called "Can We Believe Our…
Ludwell H. Johnson
June 23, 2017
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The Real Reason Confederate Symbols are Attacked

This piece was originally printed in Southern Partisan Magazine in 1994. By the 1970s, all vestiges of legal discrimination in the South had been eliminated. Indeed, affirmative action programs, minority entitlements, and special considerations in the marketplace have given blacks a solid place at the table of mainstream American life. A new black middle class, driven by the work ethic and…
Thomas Landess
June 22, 2017
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The Ad Too Hot to Print—Progressive Censorship in Action

The promise of “Freedom of the Press” becomes meaningless when large national “Progressive/Liberal” conglomerates maintain a virtual monopoly on access to newsprint within a given geographical area. Their virtual monopoly provides them with the opportunity to highlight the words and actions of their fellow Progressives while denying those who were slandered or attacked the opportunity to respond. The Nazi Minister…
James Ronald Kennedy
June 21, 2017
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Why Does the Left Really Despise the Confederacy?

The South and its history are currently under assault, the most aggressive and far-reaching that we have ever seen, at least up to this point.  The monuments are gone in New Orleans and seem to be headed for extinction in Virginia and Maryland too.  And of course the flag is always under attack and that campaign is growing by the…
Ryan Walters
June 19, 2017
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Yankee Finance Capitalism Part III: The Creature from Jekyll Island

The endurance of the system of Jeffersonian finance based upon the Independent Treasury system was remarkable given the post war transformation of the United States from an agrarian country to an industrial one.  Tariff rates had increased, large subsidies were being awarded to the railroads, and the federal government drifted slowly but inexorably toward imperialism.  The last major Jeffersonian edifice,…
John Devanny
June 16, 2017
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The Forgotten History of the Confederate Flag

The Confederate battle flag is, as John Coski of the Museum of the Confederacy titled his book on the subject, “America’s most embattled emblem.” Recent polls show that Americans are split down the middle on the flag: half view it as a symbol of heritage, half as a symbol of hatred (and an overwhelming majority are against tearing it down…
James Rutledge Roesch
June 15, 2017
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The War Between the States: Who were the Nazis?

Anyone who has been paying attention has heard many times the assertion that the flag of the Southern Confederacy is equivalent to the banner of the Nazi German Reich.  That this idea should gain any credit at all is a sign of how debased American public discourse has become by ignorance, deceit, and hatred. To make an obvious point:  The…
Clyde Wilson
June 14, 2017
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Should Stanford University Change Its Name?

Was California Governor and Senator Leland Stanford—founder of Stanford University—sufficiently racist to justify dropping his name from the university and destroying all publicly displayed memorials to him? Consider Stanford’s remarks in his acceptance speech as the Republican Party’s gubernatorial candidate in 1859: he  cause in which we are engaged is one of the greatest in which any can labor. It…
Philip Leigh
June 12, 2017
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Yankee Finance Capitalism Part II: The Jeffersonian Triumph

“The revenue of the state is the state.” Edmund Burke The rise of the modern nation state in the 1600s was founded upon monarchies securing independent sources of revenue to pay for the royal armies that secured their dynasties.  Jacques Colbert, Louis XIV’s minister of finance, designed a system of state monopolies, internal free trade districts, tariffs and internal taxes…
John Devanny
June 9, 2017
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New Orleans Mayor Hypes His Cultural Cleansing

Political correctness didn't succeed as well as the Left had hoped it would because PC conflicts with the concept “two sides to every story.” National media only presents the side that bolsters its socio/poltical agenda, and it seems to think its opinions are widely accepted. But polls indicate that the public's trust in media has sunk to one of its…
Gail Jarvis
June 8, 2017
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The Alabama Memorial Preservation Act and the Political Market

The political market, as the economic market, has the demand and supply dynamic. Interest groups make demands and the politicians provide the supply. In the case of Confederate memorials, interest groups demand Confederate memorials be dismantled in the public interest; the politicians supply the dismantling. The political market responds to strongest political forces. The strength of interest groups in the…
Marshall DeRosa
June 6, 2017
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Yankee Finance Capitalism Made Simple

Part One: Definitions and Origins Money is a great mystery.  In my years of teaching economics courses and economic history nothing so confuses students, and their elders, as the subject of money.  Or rather I should say the subject of money and currency.  Some of this confusion is a result of the failure of economists to agree on standard definitions…
John Devanny
June 2, 2017
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Blame Abraham Lincoln for Confederate Monuments

George Orwell, in his dystopian novel 1984, wrote that “Ignorance is strength.” Big Brother thrives on it – whether in a totalitarian regime or in a pure democracy. In his government schools it would be easy and politically profitable for Big Brother to teach ignorance with flash cards. Take for example the “Civil War,” one of the defining events of…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
June 1, 2017
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“Contextualizing” History

Statement about the “slavery the sole cause of the war” plaque affixed to the Confederate soldier monument in Gainesville, Florida. I have been asked to comment on the recent fad of “contextualizing” historic monuments as it relates to the Confederate soldiers’ memorial at Gainesville. What I have seen of the proposed plaque amounts, it seems to me, to an attempt…
Clyde Wilson
May 31, 2017
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The Confederate Origins of Memorial Day

Many Americans will pause today to honor the men and women who have given their lives in the United States armed forces. What most probably don't know is that this holiday originated in the South after the War for Southern Independence. It was originally called "Decoration Day." Don't tell the social justice warriors. The monuments that these modern day Leninists believe…
Brion McClanahan
May 29, 2017
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Was the South Poor Before the War?

This essay was written in 1982 under the direction of Emory Thomas at the University of Georgia and was originally titled, "The Affluent Section: The South on the Eve of the War Between the States." "Once upon a time we all knew that the antebellum South was poor", asserted Harold D. Woodman in the 1975 issue of Agricultural History.  He was…
William Cawthon
May 26, 2017
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Sanctuary City Mayor Trashes An AMERICAN Hero, Robert E. Lee

This piece was originally published at Townhall.com. Mayor Mike Signer—who had declared his intention to make Charlottesville, Virginia, the "capital of the resistance" to President Trump and a sanctuary city "to protect immigrants and refugees"—is refusing to protect a symbol saluting one of America's greatest men. Yes, Robert E. Lee was a great American. If Signer knew the first thing…
Ilana Mercer
May 25, 2017
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Radical Republican Selective Racial Equality

Most modern historians give the post Civil War Republican Party a free pass on racism. They generally presume that the Party’s demand for black suffrage and civil rights in the South was motivated by the intrinsic morality of racial equality and pejoratively contrast it with the violent resistance such policies sometimes encountered from the region’s whites. Earlier historians, however, more often…
Philip Leigh
May 24, 2017
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Fired in Washington

The Left is wringing its hands and talking about impeachment because of the Comey firing, but it has a very short memory--its hands resemble Lady MacBeth's- dripping with the blood of Republicans they have savaged in unceremonious firings over the years. Some of the very people crying buckets of tears for the insensitive way Comey was fired have treated Republicans with utter contempt.…
Christina Jeffrey
May 23, 2017
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Home

Mary Fahl sang the beautiful song, “Going Home,” for the movie Gods and Generals. Such lyrics and tune that reached into my Southern psyche as to remind me of what the fight was all about. They say there's a place where dreams have all gone They never said where but I think I know It's miles through the night just…
Paul H. Yarbrough
May 22, 2017
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Virginia’s Lost Counties

You can stand on the station platform at Harpers Ferry and see three States, two battlefields, two rivers and a panorama of natural scenery which the Kiwanis Club calls "the Little Switzerland of America" and which Thomas Jefferson said was "one of the most stupendous scenes in nature...worth a voyage across the Atlantic." Where the chasm yawns beneath and Shenandoah…
Holmes Alexander
May 19, 2017
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A Virtuous Man

Most people probably associate cattle drives with the last century, and the wild West, but out here in Spottswood, in the Shenandoah Valley, there's a man who'll tell you different, and he'll tell you first hand. "Back in the 20's we drove 'em in spring, up in the mountains, thirty miles beyond Monterey — right through the streets of Monterey…
Franklin Debrot
May 18, 2017
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Be Proud You’re a Rebel

I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America (CSA) from April 1861 to April 1865. Pictured above is the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on the city’s famous Monument Avenue. The grand cobblestone street is also adorned with statues of generals J.E.B. Stuart and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and Confederate president…
Dissident Mama
May 16, 2017
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The South is America’s Hope

Count Herman Keyserling (1880-1946) was born in Estonia and married the granddaughter of Otto von Bismarck. He was an aristocrat who interested himself in philosophy and the natural sciences; Keyserling deeply believed that gifted individuals were born to rule. The South is America’s Hope “Count Herman Keyserling, philosopher and psychologist, world traveler and author, writes in the November Atlantic Monthly…
Bernard Thuersam
May 15, 2017
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Trump on Jackson

Historians and pundits came out in droves decrying President Trump’s recent claim that Andrew Jackson could have negotiated a peaceful resolution to the Civil War.  Infusing their alarm was Trump’s clumsy chronology connecting Jackson to the Civil War and his optimism that the war could have been averted. This is what Trump said: …Had Andrew Jackson been a little later,…
Samuel C. Smith
May 11, 2017
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Why the Southern Tradition is Winning

The title of this piece may seem odd in light of recent events in New Orleans and the mass hysteria over all things Confederate since June 2015. Monuments have come down, flags have been furled, and streets have been renamed. While these are certainly loses, they are mere skirmishes in a wider cultural war that the Left is losing. They…
Brion McClanahan
May 10, 2017
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April 2017 Top Ten

The Top 10 Articles for April 2017: 1. New Orleans: A People Without a Past Have No Future by Boyd Cathey 2. Confederate Monuments by H. V. Traywick, Jr. 3. What Was Lost 150 Years Ago by Boyd Cathey 4. Why Flannery O'Connor Never Liked Yankees by Michael Jordan 5. The Soul of the Southern Tradition by William Gill 6.…
Brion McClanahan
May 10, 2017
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Reconsidering Trump’s “Faux Pas”

Despite nearly universal scolding in the mainstream media, President Trump’s suggestion that a compromise similar to the one Andrew Jackson arranged during the 1832 South Carolina nullification crisis might have prevented the Civil War merits analysis for four reasons. First, those pundits accusing Trump of not realizing that Jackson was deceased before the Civil War began either did not understand that…
Philip Leigh
May 9, 2017
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High Tech Hunley

As the slow process of excavating the marvel continues, more and more revelations are coming to light about the technical sophistication of the H.L. Hunley, the world's first successful submarine. This prompted a U.S. government historian to declare, according to the newspapers, that the discoveries are surprising and that "we" will have to revise our ideas about Confederate technical backwardness.…
Clyde Wilson
May 8, 2017
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New Orleans is Ground Zero

The social justice jihad to eliminate “white supremacy” was spawned by the successful eradication of Confederate memorabilia. Americans were not overly concerned about the disparagement of Confederate heroes but when the disparagement was turned against the Founding Fathers and Western Civilization in general, they began to take notice. The public finally realized they weren't witnessing isolated incidents but a well-coordinated…
Gail Jarvis
May 5, 2017
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Where Will the Attacks End?

Confederate Flag Day Address Oakwood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia March 4,2017 I had the honor of delivering the keynote address in 1994 at the Last Capitol of the Confederacy in Danville when we dedicated the monument to the Third National Flag. Much has changed since. Enemies of traditional culture have succeeded in removing that monument. The City Council of Charlottesville recently…
Patrick McSweeney
May 4, 2017
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Trump as Historian

In a recent interview on Sirius XM, President Trump, now completely enthralled by Andrew Jackson, made a couple of interesting remarks about the War of Northern Aggression, specifically theorizing that if Andrew Jackson were President in 1861 there would have been no war.  Trump’s reasoning?  One could presume because Jackson had averted war in 1832 during the nullification crisis. What…
Ryan Walters
May 2, 2017
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Wendell Berry: More Than a Southern Thoreau

It was pure brag on young Henry Thoreau's part to say that he had gone to Walden Pond in order "to front only the essential facts of life," to take a Spartanlike stance against its demands on us, to cut a broad swath and shave close. In point of fact, Thoreau went to Walden to write the book later published…
Thomas McDonnell
May 1, 2017
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The Nabob as Antifederalist: Benjamin Harrison of Virginia

Benjamin Harrison the Signer was born at Berkely (later called Harrison's Landing) in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the son of Benjamin Harrison and Anne Carter Harrison, daughter of Robert 'King' Carter of Corotoman. After education at the College of William and Mary this Benjamin in 1749 became the fifth in a line of planter/politicians of the same name…
M.E. Bradford
April 28, 2017
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The Latest 18th Century Fake News

The "fake news" pejorative has become commonplace in modern public discourse, so much so that social media outlets have taken it upon themselves to "police" so-called "fake news" stories and warn people about their dangers. This was largely due to the supposed impact "fake news" had on Trump supporters in 2016. To these self-appointed gatekeepers of truth, honesty, and the…
Brion McClanahan
April 27, 2017
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Why Flannery O’Connor Never Liked Yankees

YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In Southern States the word is unknown. (seeDAMYANK.) Ambrose Bierce, THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY (1906). Bierce's definition of the Yankee is a bit outdated. No doubt some Southerners still refer to Northerners, especially New Yorkers and New Englanders, as Damyanks, but no one can say…
Michael Jordan
April 24, 2017
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The Search for Life After Pac Man

I have made a discovery. There does, indeed, exist a place where nobody wants to leave. It is possible to breathe there without worrying about what you are inhaling. This place is not infested with joggers or 300-pound shoulder-strap radios, and when you're driving along and meet another car or truck on the road, that other driver is very likely…
Harry Hope
April 21, 2017
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The Mind of the Old South

A review of All Clever Men, Who Make Their Own Way: Critical Discourse in the Old South, edited with an introduction by Michael O'Brien. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. 1982. 456 pages. The intellectual history of the South is yet to be written. This assertion bootlegs two assumptions that do not go unchallenged. The first is that there is something…
Clyde Wilson
April 19, 2017
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The South and Her People

Originally published at www.circa1865.com The conservative and noble Christian civilization of the South described below has all but vanished as the New South of industrial capitalism, materialism and commercial vulgarity supplanted it. Remarks of J.C.C. Black, at the Unveiling of the Benjamin H. Hill Statue, Atlanta, Georgia, May 1, 1886 (excerpt): “As to us, was not prompted by hatred of…
Bernard Thuersam
April 18, 2017
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The Soul of the Southern Tradition

I was born in the North. Nonetheless, I have instructed my attorney, a most honorable Virginian, that when I die he is to see to it that I am buried in that national cemetery at Gettysburg as close as he can possibly get me to the high water mark of the Confederacy. These instructions are based on conviction—the firm conviction…
William Gill
April 17, 2017
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The Hard Hand of War

A Review of Joseph W. Danielson, War's Desolating Scourage: The Union's Occupation of North Alabama, University Press of Kansas, 2012; Charles A. Misulia, Columbus Georgia 1865: The Last True Battle of the Civil War, The University of Alabama Press, 2010. On Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, Union forces under the command of General James Harrison Wilson attacked, captured, and sacked…
Brion McClanahan
April 14, 2017
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Jefferson New and Improved

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. — THOMAS JEFFERSON A Review of In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Noble E. Cunningham. Jr., Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1987. 414 pages. With the exception of the driven and depressed Lincoln, no major figure in American history is in…
Clyde Wilson
April 12, 2017
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Confederate Monuments

The latest Crusade of the Progressives and other Politically Correct to remove all Confederate monuments from the face of the earth reminds me of a recent article by one Patricia Sullivan from the Washington Post concerning the Confederate statue in Alexandria, Virginia, and the Alexandria City Council’s unanimous vote to relocate it. The article also noted that others spoke with…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
April 10, 2017
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Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans

When you read about the worst cities in the United States you’ll find that they all share a common characteristic: each has been under Democratic leadership for decades. Most of you have read horror stories about some of these cities; Detroit, Cleveland, Birmingham, St. Louis, and New Orleans. In many ways, the deterioration of these cities is a microcosm of…
Gail Jarvis
April 7, 2017
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Republican Death Wish

As readers of this column well know, I have never really trusted the Republican Party. Even in 1962, when I first worked actively for a Republican candidate (the late Bill Workman), I saw the arrogance of the Party leadership—its love of money and power, its fine contempt for grassroots beliefs and sensibilities. Over the years I have come to understand…
Thomas Landess
April 6, 2017
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Is it 1982 Again?

Those who still think of conservatives as people who clip coupons are badly out of date. Among other things, such a stereotype betrays a lamentable ignorance of the Rockford Institute and its publications. Associated with Rockford College in Illinois, the Rockford Institute is dedicated to the proposition that moral and intellectual integrity are as important to the welfare of American…
Clyde Wilson
April 5, 2017
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On Liberty

Andy Jackson's famous toast, "The Union—it must and shall be preserved," is still recorded in most high school U.S. history books. Calhoun's once equally famous reply, "Next to our liberties, most dear," has slipped out of many recent editions. Like most of the South, Calhoun was on the losing side of the liberty versus union debate. After the Second War…
Thomas Fleming
April 3, 2017
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March Top Ten

Our top ten for March 2017: 1. The South's Gonna Do It Again by Tom Fleming 2. God, Gallup, and the Episcopalians by Cleanth Brooks 3. Southern Heritage Then and Now by Clyde Wilson 4. The Dark Side of Abraham Lincoln by Tom Landess 5. A Disease of the Public Mind by Tom DiLorenzo 6. Jefferson and Slavery by Dave…
Brion McClanahan
April 3, 2017
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Why Lee? Why Acton?

A prevailing notion throughout the grand land of America is that the constant brouhaha down South among many of us regarding monuments and flags and statues is much ado. . .so forth and so on. . . and that neo confederates (so-called) are living in the past. While not calling myself a neo-confederate (paleo) I certainly live for the past.…
Paul H. Yarbrough
March 31, 2017
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Yankee Foreign Policy and the Cold War

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is rattling his sabers and threatening war against the United States. He blew up an American aircraft carrier in one propaganda video and has goaded the Trump administration in several other statements, ostensibly to create the image of manly firmness to his people. Obviously, high profile assassinations and executions along with staged videos showing Jong-un…
Brion McClanahan
March 30, 2017
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A Disease of the Public Mind

Historian and novelist Thomas Fleming is the author of more than fifty books, including two very good revisionist histories of the two world wars: The New Dealers’ War, and The Illusion of Victory in World War I. He has authored biographies of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and has written extensively about the founding generation, including his best-selling book, Liberty!…
Thomas DiLorenzo
March 29, 2017
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Jefferson and Slavery

Every so often, contemporary opponents of the Jeffersonian tradition make the argument that the legacy of the “Sage of Monticello” has been tainted by patent hypocrisy. The barrage of attacks Jefferson levied against slavery, they suggest, should be discounted on the grounds that he was a slave owner himself. Beyond this, some go as far as to claim that all…
Dave Benner
March 27, 2017
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Bernard Baruch: Son of the South

On the morning of July 5, 1880, Colonel E.B.C. Cash and Colonel William M. Shannon faced each other with pistols near Du Bose's bridge in Darlington County, S,C. At a word of command, Shannon fired quickly, splashing the muddy ground at the feet of his adversary. Colonel Cash, an experienced duelist with a sinister reputation, coolly took aim and fired.…
Charles Goolsby
March 24, 2017
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Manly Wade Wellman: The Voice of the Mountains

Manly Wade Wellman never penned an autobiography, despite the fact he published 500 stories and articles, won the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award, and even edged out William Faulkner to win the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Award in 1946. Yet, in one of his most famous short stories, Wellman did reveal how he must have seen himself…
Mike C. Tuggle
March 23, 2017
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Southern Heritage Then and Now

Order of the Southern Cross Banquet, Sons of Confederate Veterans National Reunion, Asheville, North Carolina, August 1, 2003 As the direct descendant of a private in the 42nd North Carolina and a sergeant in the 20th North Carolina, I am honoured to talk to a group descended from notable officers in our War of Independence--or the War to Prevent Southern…
Clyde Wilson
March 22, 2017
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Jefferson the Man

Thomas Jefferson, Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America. Kevin R. C. Gutzman (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2017). The challenge a historian faces when writing about Thomas Jefferson is which Jefferson does one choose?  The choices of “Jeffersons” include: Jefferson the radical, Jefferson the democrat, Jefferson the philosophe, Jefferson the scientist, Jefferson the statesman, and Jefferson the planter, just…
John Devanny
March 20, 2017
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Coit’s Calhoun

Want to learn about one of the greatest statesmen that the United States has ever produced?  Then get hold of John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Coit. When this beautifully-written book received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1951, it was generally agreed that Coit had redeemed Calhoun as a major and admirable, even heroic, figure in American history.  Even…
Clyde Wilson
March 17, 2017
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Heil to the Chief

A Review of: The American Presidency: An Intellectual History by Forrest McDonald Kansas, 1994. Since the surrender at Appomattox, the South has been virtually excluded from two of the three branches of the national government. We can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Southerners who have been appointed to the Supreme Court or elected to the…
James McClellan
March 16, 2017
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The South’s Gonna Do It Again

A few days ago I ran into an old friend, an historian, who started in on the Partisan. "I've lived all my life in the South," he grumbled, "but I don't see what makes Southern life so wonderful that you and your friends want to impose it on the rest of the country." I did my best to reassure him…
Thomas Fleming
March 15, 2017
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The Timely Wisdom of Robert Lewis Dabney

Many of the destructive ideas and “isms” of our century in America had their roots in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a number of Southern writers and clergymen recognized their nature and warned against them. Among these men was Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) of Virginia, one of the South’s great Presbyterian thinkers.  He was the author of a number…
Karen Stokes
March 13, 2017
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H.L. Mencken and the South

Mencken's "Sahara of the Bozart" is one of the most famous essays of 20th century American let­ters. Since its appearance in 1919, the essay has become widely regarded as Mencken's "slur on the South," as his acid-laced repudiation of Southern culture (indeed his assertion that the South had no culture). "The Sahara of the Bozart" is a bit more complex…
Guy Story Brown
March 10, 2017
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Russell Kirk’s Southern Sensibilities: A Celebration

. .the South—alone among the civilized communities of the nine­teenth century—had hardihood sufficient for an appeal to arms against the iron new order which, a vague instinct whispered to Southerners, was inimical to the sort of humanity they knew." —Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind Certainly those south of the Mason-Dixon line expect little by way of understanding from non-natives, especially…
Alan Cornett
March 9, 2017
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The Bonus Bill Veto and the Southern Tradition

On March 3, 1817, President James Madison vetoed the Bonus Bill of 1817 – a plan that called for the federal construction of various roads, bridges, and canals throughout the country. In a letter to Congress, the president explained his rationale. Out of all historical writings on constitutional interpretation, I believe it stands today as one of the most important.…
Dave Benner
March 8, 2017
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Films from the South

Like it or not, movies are the main art form of our time, the story-telling medium that reaches the largest audience and captures the attention of us all, high and low, wise and foolish. It is also true that movies, like literature and architecture, reflect something of the soul of the particular nation that produces them. If so, we indeed…
Clyde Wilson
March 6, 2017
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The Sense of “Southernizing”

For as long as people have been writing about Southern character—and that's getting to be a pretty long time now—they've been inclined to mention Southern individualism. From Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Mar­quis de Chastellux to Charlie Daniels' "Long-haired Coun­try Boy," Southerners have been inclined to mention or exemplify this trait themselves. W.J. Cash has probably discussed it most thoroughly,…
John Shelton Reed
March 3, 2017
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New England Against America

The Fiction of Mr. Simms gave indication, we repeat, of genius, and that of no common order. Had he been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately manifest to his countrymen, but unhappily (perhaps) he was a Southerner His book, therefore, depended entirely upon its own intrinsic value and resources, but with these it made its way…
Clyde Wilson
March 2, 2017
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February Top Ten

The top ten articles for February 2017: 1. Attack on Robert E. Lee is an Assault on American History Itself by Allan Brownfield 2. Presidents Quiz by Clyde Wilson 3. Washington vs. Lincoln by Brion McClanahan 4. Why the South Fought by Sheldon Vanuaken 5. Union or Else by Karen Stokes 6. The Black Confederate and the Teddy Bear by…
Brion McClanahan
March 1, 2017
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Era of the Sow’s Ear

A Review of My Silk Purse and Yours: The Publishing Scene and American Literary Art by George Garrett, University of Missouri Press, 1992 My Silk Purse is a collection of 36 of George Garrett's essays and re­views, largely on the American publishing and literary scene. The essays are rather tightly a unit, having an underlying philosophy which provides the measure…
James Everett Kibler
February 28, 2017
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Let the Bear Flag Go

A large portion of California wants to secede. That’s a good thing. American conservatives should not only applaud the move, they should be doing everything possible to help them find the door. Image a world without Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Diane Feinstein, or Kamala Harris; where Democrats would not start the presidential election cycle with nearly one quarter of the…
Brion McClanahan
February 27, 2017
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Southern Nullification and the Stamp Act

Every so often, a candid examination of current events makes famous incidents in American history altogether relevant again. In my mind no incident demonstrates this more than the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765. Few episodes in American history have so effectively proved how to confront and end the enactment of malignant and unconstitutional laws. In 1765, the standard American position…
Dave Benner
February 24, 2017
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Washington vs. Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln and George Washington stare silently at one another across the reflecting pool on the National Mall in Washington D.C., their paths inextricably linked by the historians who consider both to be the greatest presidents in American history. One is a monument, a testament to the man and his influence on American history, the other a memorial to the…
Brion McClanahan
February 22, 2017
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Explaining Trump to the Brits

Of the four Christmas cards I received from the UK this past December, three of them had the same request:  explain the Trump phenomenon. This is my reply: America has had a bloodless revolution.  It remains to be seen what will really happen once the New People take over Washington.  No doubt much can (and maybe will) go wrong, but…
Joscelyn Dunlop
February 21, 2017
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Finding the Swamp Fox

John Oller, The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution (Da Capo Press, 2016) Francis Marion is better remembered today than he used to be. There was a time, however, when, outside of his native South Carolina, hardly anyone without a good knowledge of the Southern theatre of the American Revolution would have heard of him. And there…
Jeff Rogers
February 20, 2017
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Union or Else

In 1864, General William T. Sherman wrote to a fellow Union officer that the “false political doctrine that any and every people have a right to self-government” was the cause of the war that had been raging in America since 1861. The general was forgetting, or ignoring, that this very “doctrine” had led the American colonists to declare their independence…
Karen Stokes
February 17, 2017
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The Burning of Atlanta

I don’t watch sports as I once did. Growing up down South some of my fondest memories were of the World Series, and the radio connection through Al Helfer, Red Barber or Mel Allen. I can still hear those voices. I know there are fewer and fewer of us who recall those moments, but those still around recognize my sentiments.…
Paul H. Yarbrough
February 16, 2017
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Yale’s Folly

By H. Lee Cheek, Jr. and Sean Busick The effort to rename Calhoun College at Yale University has won the day.  After initially deciding not to rename Calhoun College last year, a special presidentially-appointed taskforce recommended the renaming, guided by set of new renaming criteria.  Unfortunately, Calhoun College is no more. Of course, colleges and universities have the option to…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.
February 15, 2017
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Attack on Robert E. Lee is an Assault on American History Itself

Early in February, the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia voted 3-2 to remove a bronze equestrian monument to Robert E. Lee that stands in a downtown park named in his honor. Vice Mayor Wes Belamy, the council's only African American member, led the effort to remove the statue. In the end, this vote may be largely symbolic. Those opposed to…
Allan Brownfield
February 14, 2017
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The Black Confederate and the Teddy Bear

Most people have never heard of Holt Collier - and those who have heard of the "Teddy Bear" may be surprised to learn about his history. Collier was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1848. By his 15th birthday, he had become an expert on wildlife in the Mississippi Delta and was known as one to of the best bear…
Lunelle McCallister
February 10, 2017
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A Man’s Interest: Sports and the South

I am a Georgian and a University of Georgia alumni. I have been a fan of all the Atlanta sports franchises since I was a kid, and I was a huge fan of the Georgia Bulldogs even before I went there. Needless to say, I was very disappointed by the outcome of the Super Bowl, and since Atlanta/Georgia is a…
Dan E. Phillips
February 9, 2017
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The Continuing Relevance of Calhoun’s Wisdom

I am always glad to talk about my favourite subject–-John C. Calhoun. I think it will become apparent that what he has to say has some relevance to our topic “Building Communities of Resistance”—and perhaps in surprising ways that have little to do with the familiar lessons of State rights and nullification. By the way, despite what you may hear…
Clyde Wilson
February 8, 2017
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Tidewater Wit and Wisdom

An honest man can never be outdone in courtesy. A sensual life is a miserable life. The contempt of death makes all the miseries of life easy to us. -Taken from Seneca’s Dialogues, a primer for young men in Tidewater Virginia and Maryland   Fear God. Reverence the parents. Imitate not the wicked. Boast not in discourse of thy wit…
John Devanny
February 6, 2017
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The Southern Yankee

Beyond the New England slave trade which populated the American South with millions of enslaved Africans, there were many Yankees who moved South before 1861 to engage in agriculture and the holding of slaves.  And they had a Southern counterpart who learned the Yankee’s  close-fisted ways.  During the War and after Northern bayonets had conquered Southern regions, many industrious and profit-minded Yankees…
Bernard Thuersam
February 2, 2017
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January Top Ten

The top ten articles for January 2017. 1. Ashley Judd Gets Nasty by Brion McClanahan 2. Old Western Man: C.S. Lewis and the Old South by Sheldon Vanauken 3. The Dixie Curse by Paul Yarbrough 4. Robert E. Lee, Southern Heritage, Media Bias, and Al Sharpton by Gail Jarvis 5. Robert E. Lee: American Hero by Brion McClanahan 6. Stonewall…
Brion McClanahan
February 1, 2017
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Never the North, Always the South

"I think every heritage has things that are good about it, every heritage has things that are harmful about it," replied Representative Tom Price recently to a question from Senator Tim Kaine. "And I'm happy to answer the specific question. I think slavery was an abomination." Price was being interviewed for Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of Health and Human…
Paul H. Yarbrough
January 31, 2017
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Calexit: California, Adios!

It seems that out in California an impressively large number of people are petitioning for a referendum on secession.  While I don’t think much of their motive, I say more power to them. The motivation is, of course, fear by California leftists and foreigners that the 2016 federal election has deprived them of the excessive influence they have exercised over…
Clyde Wilson
January 30, 2017
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My Fantasy Visit with Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty once said that "Each writer must find out for himself, I imagine, on what strange basis he lives with his own stories." This has always struck me as a particularly profound observation about not only the writer's life, but "life" in general, the "stories" we all live. Eudora Welty. One of America's all-time great writers. One of America's…
Wayne Hogan
January 26, 2017
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A Bow to the Ladies

A review of Understanding Mary Lee Settle, by George Garrett, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1988, 187 pages. One useful way to distinguish between types of novelists is to characterize them as either intensive or extensive. An intensive novel, much the more com­mon variety in modern times, deals with a small segment of individual experi­ence and consciousness, wringing from…
Clyde Wilson
January 25, 2017
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Ashley Judd Gets Nasty

  “Treat a woman like a lady, And your lady like a queen….” Charlie Daniels Ashley Judd’s recitation of “I’m a Nasty Woman” at the “women’s” march on Washington D.C. splashed across every media outlet in America. Judd proudly proclaimed to be a feminist and then launched into a verbal diatribe against “racism, fraud, conflict of interest, homophobia, sexual assault,…
Brion McClanahan
January 23, 2017
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The Dixie Curse

In the tradition of all authority to trample love and devotion, an outsider (or perhaps a group of) has decided to cut into the heart of a people’s birthright. Ross Bjork, University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) athletic director has in all his Kansas wisdom arbitrarily and highhandedly told the world that no renditions of the grand old song, “Dixie,” will…
Paul H. Yarbrough
January 20, 2017
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Robert E. Lee: American Hero

Several years ago, leftist blowhard Richard Cohen at the Washington Post wrote that Robert E. Lee “deserves no honor — no college, no highway, no high school. In the awful war (620,000 dead) that began 150 years ago this month, he fought on the wrong side for the wrong cause. It’s time for Virginia and the South to honor the…
Brion McClanahan
January 19, 2017
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Recovering Southern History

Every historian has a viewpoint, shaped by his own background, values, and perception of the present. The relationship between background and viewpoint is not necessarily simple. As in the case of Supreme Court nominees, one cannot always predict in advance in what direction a historians background, modified by research and thought, will lead. At any rate, we properly measure a…
Clyde Wilson
January 18, 2017
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This is Mosby

V.P. Hughes, A Thousand Points of Truth: The History and Humanity of Colonel John Singleton Mosby in Newsprint (XLIBRIS, 2016). Given command over a semi-independent unit of partisan rangers in the Army of Northern Virginia, a dashing young Confederate major led a cavalry raid at the Fairfax county courthouse, deep behind Federal lines. With just a handful of men and…
James Rutledge Roesch
January 16, 2017
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The Window on the West

Editor's note: This piece was published less than ten years (1983) before the end of communist control of Romania. Bradford's assessment of the Romanian people well applies to the South, a region that had been defeated and "reconstructed" but still retained much of its cultural vibrancy, albeit suppressed and ridiculed by the political class. It also serves as a stark…
M.E. Bradford
January 13, 2017
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Papa Daws

Three long ringing signals from I the driver's horn, and the hunt was over. I quit my stand and met Dad on the road back of our line. We had both seen a doe that had kept us on our toes for a while, but otherwise, the drive had been uneventful. We fell quiet and listened. Then Dad asked if…
Henry D. Boykin II
January 12, 2017
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Differences

How much better off the American people would be if they could learn the difference between: *investors and speculators *the Constitution ratified by the people of the States and the one promulgated by federal judges *education and training *necessary taxation and an oppressive burden *national defense and foreign interventionism *law enforcement and war *justifiable borrowing and destructive, irresponsible debt *entertainment…
Clyde Wilson
January 11, 2017
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Dan Sickles and the First Presidential Cover-Up

In our time, we think we know a lot about presidential cover-ups. There was Nixon's Watergate, of course. Some of us remember Lyndon Johnson's problems with Bobby Baker. And President Kennedy had his secret girlfriends. All of these, however, are minor matters compared to the granddaddy of them all, the biggest presidential cover-up in American history, the murder of Barton…
William H. Hunter
January 9, 2017
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Things as They Are

William S. Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America: An Old Republican in King Andrew’s Court (The University of Alabama Press, 2016). Sometimes a professional historian gets it right. William Belko has produced a quality tome that both expands and enhances our understanding of American history. While most academics write about the same subjects and regurgitate fashionable theories with “new”…
Brion McClanahan
January 6, 2017
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A State of Mind

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to the Second Continental Congress, then meeting in Philadelphia, which began with the epic demand, “ That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”   After a month of heated deliberation, the Congress finally adopted Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence which…
John Marquardt
January 5, 2017
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Tar Heel’s Revenge

  An article by a Canadian historian in a recent issue of the North Carolina Historical Review lays to rest an old canard—the charge that during the War for Southern Independence North Carolina soldiers were notable for desertion. After an exhaustive study of all available records, Professor Richard Reid concluded that it simply is not so. North Carolina had more…
Clyde Wilson
January 4, 2017
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See ya–Signed C.S.A.

A fellow by the name of Marcus Ruiz Evans was on Fox’s Tucker Carlson program recently. He offered his stance on secession vis-à-vis California’s consideration. His position stood apropos for the Golden Bears because the Supreme Court in its Texas vs White decision of 1869 had offered a loophole bearing on the people’s consent to secede. This bears, of course,…
Paul H. Yarbrough
January 2, 2017
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The Year in Review

Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina told a friend in 1980 that, "I'm bound to confess that President Carter has instilled some foreboding in prospect to the outcome of the election....As I interpret his campaign sermon, President Carter said states' rights had become as obscene as any four-letter word, and Ronald Reagan had proved his unfitness for the presidency by telling…
Brion McClanahan
December 30, 2016
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When the South Was America 1607-1861

Dr. Donald Livingston on "When the South Was America, 1607-1861" at the 2016 Abbeville Institute Summer School on "The Southern Tradition and the Renewal of America," June 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW4M46JXXzE
Donald Livingston
December 27, 2016
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Stereotyping the South Up North

The 1861-65 war destroyed the American South’s economic, legal, political and social systems, and afterward ruled the region with proconsuls dispatched from Washington. From this aftermath of war came the invented view of the desolated South – a section known in antebellum times for providing the majority of presidents and exemplary political thinkers — as an uncouth and backward region…
Bernard Thuersam
December 22, 2016
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I Am So Old I Can Remember When….

—there was no television; and then when there was one station on two hours a day. —newspapers were locally owned, had lots of locally written literate material, and even had intelligent independent commentary on the editorial page. —a male American seen carrying an umbrella would have been ridiculed and probably beat up. —most people had not been up in an…
Clyde Wilson
December 20, 2016
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Richard Taylor

General Richard Taylor was only son of President Zachary Taylor. His father and mother were natives of Virginia, and his grand father, also a Virginian, commanded a brigade of Virginia troops in the battle of Brandywine. The hereditary residence of the family was in Orange county, Virginia. President Taylor's eldest daughter married Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, the late President of the…
Dabney H. Maury
December 16, 2016
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A Southern Saint

William Porcher DuBose of South Carolina is not well known today, but in the early 20th century, he achieved fame in America and abroad as an Episcopal theologian and author. He was born in Winnsboro, S.C., in 1836, and his father, a wealthy, well-educated planter, saw to it that his intellectually gifted son received a fine education. After attending schools…
Karen Stokes
December 15, 2016
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Harvard Confederates

A review of Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South, By Helen P. Trimpi, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 380 pp. Someone, perhaps it was Thomas Carlyle, wrote that “History is the essence of innumerable biographies.” While that description does not cover all the duty of historianship, it is true in an important sense. History that becomes too…
Clyde Wilson
December 14, 2016
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Southern Culture: Food

Food is one of the more tangible and recognizable elements of Southern culture and one that is worth exploring. It serves as a bridge between the tables of the Old South and the New. It was once said that Virginians dined, Yankees just ate. This was due in large part to the old Cavalier practice of multi-course meals that could…
Brion McClanahan
December 13, 2016
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They Came From the East

 It is generally thought that when the earliest Homo sapiens arrived on the scene in Africa and Asia less than a hundred-thousand years ago, all of North and South America was devoid of human habitation.  Most in the scientific community also contend that it was no more than twenty to thirty-thousand years ago, as the glaciers from the last Ice Age…
John Marquardt
December 9, 2016
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Liberal and Conservative

The terms “liberal” and “conservative” were usable signs in a society in which the state was governed by politics. They are of little use the in 21st century United States because “politics” no longer plays any significant role in governance. In a dynamic and free republican society, citizens of similar ideas, values, and interests, and even inherited allegiances and inclinations,…
Clyde Wilson
December 8, 2016
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Grant Never Faced Stonewall Jackson

Grant’s relentless and costly attacks on General Lee in Virginia earned him the title of “Butcher” among his own troops and was kept in command by Lincoln who was unbothered by the vast casualty numbers amassed by Grant. He quickly saw that following the Radicals after his master’s assassination was the proper path, and he was rewarded with election to…
Bernard Thuersam
December 7, 2016
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“Rational People” Now Want Secession

 According to Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, secession is now being advocated by "rational people, not the fringe."This is an insult to all rational people.Rational people for generations have supported secession, including every scholar at the Abbeville Institute. But now that idiot Leftists in California, Oregon, and Washington are for it, somehow secession has become "rational."I think George Washington, Thomas…
Brion McClanahan
December 7, 2016
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Censoring Jefferson to Safeguard Ignorance

This piece was originally published in the UVA Cavalier Daily.At the risk of offending 469 UVA faculty colleagues and students who protest President Sullivan’s practice of quoting UVA founder Thomas Jefferson “in light of Jefferson’s owning of slaves and other racist views” (“Professors ask Sullivan to stop quoting Jefferson,” Cavalier Daily, Nov. 13), I would submit another Jefferson quote: “This institution…
Robert F. Turner
December 2, 2016
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Save Federalism, Save the Electoral College

Discussing immigration and sanctuary cities, Bill O'Reilly began speaking of the coming clash of two "sovereignties", the States individually and the national government, but never got to finish his sentence. Speaker Gingrich interrupted to say, "there is one sovereignty" in America and that's the national government. "The Civil War settled the sovereignty question." Unfortunately, the Speaker is correct. We need…
Vito Mussomeli
December 1, 2016
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More of the Way We Are Now

Show me a nasty feminist and I will show you a little girl with a disappointing father.The Transportation Safety Administration confiscated my two-inch cigar cutter at the airport the other day. An acquaintance got on the plane with his pocket-knife. It’s all part of the vital global war on terror.Congress has just voted $8 billion for “improved port security.” Contractors…
Clyde Wilson
November 30, 2016
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Home Free

One of my favorite authors, James Everett Kibler, has the consummate perception of localism; the single thing that I believe even Yankees have, though many act as if they don’t understand its basic concept. Fact is, many Southerners have lost its influence as many have left home to rally ‘round the cable-news actors and Washingtonian legerdemain handymen.I read Our Fathers’…
Paul H. Yarbrough
November 29, 2016
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Trump Wins–Secession Back in Style

 Only days after Donald Trump’s victory there were already calls for secession arising from liberal controlled states of California and Oregon. While such calls may be an over-reaction, it does help to make a point that has been urged from the very beginning of our original Republic of Republics.Patrick Henry warned the people of Virginia about the dangers of entering…
James Ronald Kennedy
November 22, 2016
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Why the Electoral College?

For the second time in the last 16 years it seems that we have a new President who did not win the national popular vote, although there are those who contend that once all the votes are counted, Trump could very well come out on top. But whether that’s the case or not the discussions have begun, especially by Democrats,…
Ryan Walters
November 18, 2016
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The Media’s Failed “Southern Strategy”

Source: Washington Post After its usual clichéd arguments weren't lessening Trump's momentum, the mainstream media tried to associate his supporters with its negative caricature of Southerners. The mainstream media has had success in this "Southern strategy" in the past, so it thought it could smear Donald Trump by associating him with its version of a maleovent South. But this time it…
Gail Jarvis
November 17, 2016
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Cherry Picking James Madison

Legal “scholar” Akil Reed Amar made waves recently by arguing that a single comment from James Madison proves that the Electoral College had an intrinsic pro-slavery bent and was designed to perpetuate the institution. According to Amar, Madison suggested that Virginia’s stature would be hindered by a national popular vote for president, an idea proposed in the Philadelphia Convention by…
Dave Benner
November 15, 2016
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Rebel Redux

Rumblings of open rebellion were in the air . . . a certain group within the state had felt for some time that their state’s wealth and resources were being unfairly used by the federal government to subsidize other areas of the nation.  Moreover, it was deemed that the social values of these other areas were in direct conflict with…
John Marquardt
November 14, 2016
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Why No Southern Nationalism?

In the Partisan's last issue, I raised the question of why the United States has not been troubled in this century by regional nationalisms of the sort that are currently disturbing most other industrialized countries. In particular, I asked, why has there not been a serious version of Southern nationalism? Answering my own question, I suggested that (1) the outcome…
John Shelton Reed
November 11, 2016
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#Calexit

Donald Trump won and California wants to secede. Mises Institute President Jeff Deist tweeted during the election: "look for the Dems to discover the virtues of secession, nullification, and states rights." It didn't take long for leftists to realize the value of secession. Within hours of Trump's stunning victory (a victory yours truly predicted as early as February this year),…
Brion McClanahan
November 10, 2016
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Sherman’s March

The History Channel’s recent presentation of "Sherman’s March" has been rightly drawing a lot of criticism from those of us who care about such things. In theory, historical events should become clearer as time passes and the controversies they involved grow less heated. But that is not the case in regard to the War to Prevent Southern Independence—because the myth…
Clyde Wilson
November 9, 2016
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Supping with Norman Lear

Editor's note: Norman Lear's People for the American Way recently made a lot of noise about Donald Trump's "hate speech." Not much has changed in twenty years. This piece was originally published in in First Quarter, 1995 issue of Southern Partisan magazine. The Associated Press reports that 17 groups, all combatants in the "culture war," have come together and agreed…
Thomas Landess
November 7, 2016
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October Top Ten

Our top ten pieces for October 2016. If you have not read them yet, you should. If you have, read 'em again. 1. Why The War Was Not About Slavery by Clyde Wilson 2. John C. Calhoun: Anti-Imperialist by Clyde Wilson 3. Ortho-Dixie: Orthodox Christianity and Southern Identity by Stephen Borthwick 4. It Probably Won't End Well by Paul Yarbrough…
Brion McClanahan
November 5, 2016
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Lewis Grizzard: A Personal Remembrance

Much has been written about Lewis Grizzard by those who knew him better in his productive years. This is about Lewis when the world was young and some thoughts about the last mile. I first met him in 1964 when we were both wannabe writers, the sons of highly decorated World War II veterans who grew up in towns just…
Rick Cartledge
November 4, 2016
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The Oregon Question

But I oppose war, not simply on the patriotic ground of a citizen looking to the freedom and prosperity of his own country, but on still broader grounds, as a friend of improvement, civilization and progress. Viewed in reference to them, at no period has it ever been so desirable to preserve the general peace which now blesses the world.…
John C. Calhoun
November 3, 2016
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Jacobin Yankees

Martin Scorcese, in an interview, candidly described his new film, "Gangs of New York," as an "opera." He had been asked whether the events portrayed were true to history. I took his reply to mean that the events of the movie were selected and organized for dramatic emphasis and were not to be taken as literal factual record. And, indeed,…
Clyde Wilson
November 2, 2016
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The Other William C. Falkner

The date was Tuesday, November 5th . . . the year was 1889 . . . federal and local elections were being held in twenty states throughout America.  In addition to the elections in Virginia that day, the newly launched steamer “New York” was setting out on her trial run from Norfolk.  Further south, after winning a seat in the…
John Marquardt
November 1, 2016
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Charlie Daniels and the CDB

Charlie Daniels turns 80 today. He is still producing top quality music and is still an iconic symbol of the South and the Southern musical tradition. Most people are familiar with his hits--"The South's Gonna Do It Again," "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," and "Long Haired Country Boy"--but these tunes are a conspicuous though minimal part of a career that spans five…
Brion McClanahan
October 28, 2016
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An Agrarian-Style Economic Self Defense Plan

This essay was originally published at The Deliberate Agrarian. It occurred to me today that one of the nice things about not having much money is that I don’t have to worry about loosing it in the stock market. But I realize full well that a falling stock market and an overall failing economy will take its toll on me…
Herrick Kimball
October 27, 2016
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Lincoln Follies

A few of us now decrepit pre-Reagan “conservatives” can remember the brief flicker of hope of saving the republic that we had around 1980. Around about that time we were heartened by the founding of the Washington Times, which, it was thought, might become an effective foe of the mainstream media—despite its connection with the vile Moonie cult. Like everything…
Clyde Wilson
October 26, 2016
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Jack Hinson’s One Man War

Jack Hinson’s One-Man War by Tom C. McKenney; ISBN: 978-1-58980-640-5, Pelican, January 27, 2009, 400 pages. Beheading his sons and impaling their heads on the gateposts of his home – these were the acts of the Yankee liberators of northern Tennessee that somehow upset the ungrateful Jack Hinson in the autumn of 1862. Jack Hinson was not a firebrand or…
Terry Hulsey
October 24, 2016
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Podcast Episode 47

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 17-21, 2016. Topics: Republican Party, Southern Political Tradition, Jefferson, Conservatism, George W. Bush, Southern Religion https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-47
Brion McClanahan
October 23, 2016
Blog

Claude Kitchin

This piece was originally published at the North Carolina History Project and is reprinted by permission. Claude Kitchin represented North Carolina in the U.S. House during the early 20th century and served as Speaker of the House during the First World War. Though he was a Democrat, he is remembered for risking his political career to oppose President Woodrow Wilson…
Richard M. Gamble
October 21, 2016
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Ortho Dixie: Orthodox Christianity and Southern Identity

Anyone who has grown up in the melting pot of immigrant religiosity of the industrial northeast has a very specific vision of Southern religiosity – evangelical, provincial, low-church, and rabidly anti-Catholic, among other things. Even growing up in a household sympathetic to the South, I had plenty of condescending ignorance about the way Southrons practiced their religion. Grab a Bible,…
Stephen Borthwick
October 20, 2016
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Goodbye, George

An American president can wreck his country and blow up the world, but he cannot recreate either of them. ---Chilton Williamson A recent book on the George W. Bush presidency is called A Tragic Legacy. But tragedy suggests the fall of something high and noble. There never has been anything high and noble about Bush. His career began as low…
Clyde Wilson
October 19, 2016
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It Probably Won’t End Well

Kurt Schlichter wrote an interesting article on Town Hall recently entitled Liberal Attempts to Silence Dissenters Will Not End Well. I thoroughly enjoyed (and agreed with) it. There was a place for comments at the bottom and I toyed with the thought of inserting my comment which would have entailed or encapsulated the words of Lord Acton and/or Robert E.…
Paul H. Yarbrough
October 17, 2016
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Southern Humor

If I may strain a point and introduce among my "Southern Humorists" a man who evinced this vein solely through his conversation, I will make mention of the late Bishop Richard Wilmer, a native of Virginia, though Bishop of Alabama. His vein of wit and humor was fully equal to that of Sidney Smith, and I have frequently regretted that…
Mary Washington
October 14, 2016
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Nullification vs. Secession?

On the 21st of this June, Americans celebrated the 228th anniversary of the nation’s Constitution, making it the world’s oldest existing governing body of laws. It was then that our founding fathers met in their effort to form a union more perfect than the one under which the thirteen sovereign states had been operating since 1781, the original Articles of…
John Marquardt
October 13, 2016
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Review: Reinventing the South: Versions of a Literary Region, by Mark Royden Winchell

Chronicle’s most distinguished contributing editor, can be relied upon, always, to tell it like it is. He is doing just that when he writes in a  blurb to Reinventing the South:“these essays are splendidly written—mercifully free of contemporary critical jargon and easily accessible to the good and serious reader.”  And he amplifies this description of Professor Winchell's work with “high intelligence…
Clyde Wilson
October 12, 2016