A review of Refusing to be Forgotten: Southern Conservatism and the Political Thought of M. E. Bradford (New York, 2023) by Marcin Gajek
Marcin Gajek’s Refusing to be Forgotten (Vol. 56 in Peter Lang’s Studies in Politics, Security and Society) is a scholarly work in three lengthy chapters that provides a rigorous and welcome evaluation of M. E. Bradford, an American conservative thinker and scholar who died in 1993. Bradford, a Southern intellectual and professor of English at the University of Dallas, extended the cultural critique of the Nashville Agrarians into a political vision disseminated in hundreds of essays, of which many of the most important were gathered thematically into books like A Better Guide than Reason (1979); Remembering Who We Are (1985); Against the Barbarians (1992); and Original Intentions (1993). The Agrarians were early twentieth-century poets, historians, and critics centered at Vanderbilt University. They defended Southern agrarian culture against industrial modernity. Gajek positions Bradford as their most vital and intellectually rigorous heir. Bradford’s work is not a systematic philosophy. Instead, he functions as a “philosopher of memory,” preserving the South’s values against modern distortions. These values include prudence, tradition, community, and orthodoxy. He critiques Lincoln’s role in transforming the Founders’ decentralized republic into a centralized state. Gajek shows that Bradford’s thought offers a corrective to modern liberalism, social atomization, and utopian abstraction.
Gajek’s central claim is that Bradford safeguards Southern conservatism as a universal source of wisdom. It is not sectional nostalgia or apology for slavery. Instead, it preserves the South as a repository of Western civilization. Bradford emphasizes ethical fidelity to historical memory, what Gajek calls “civil piety.” As Bradford noted in The Sewanee Review (“The Elusive South,” Spring, 1962), the South “refuses to be forgotten or, conceptually, completely subsumed under larger (national) categories. As a thing apart it continues to have an amazing hold on the American imagination, and indeed on the imagination of all who are interested in American history and literature.” Gajek argues that Southern conservatism counters dominant textbook narratives of the Civil War, which present the North as morally superior and the South as backward. Bradford frames the war as “an act of unjust military conquest and the imposition of a malevolent authority.” He emphasizes the Founders’ warnings against the abuse of power. Comparisons between Northern abstraction and Southern organicism, and between Lincoln’s moral utopianism and the Founders’ prudential compromises, structure Gajek’s argument. Bradford’s work enriches the broader American conservative canon, alongside figures such as Russell Kirk and Eric Voegelin, by stressing historical fidelity over ideology.
The introduction situates the Civil War as a pivotal crisis in American history. Gajek describes it as a “political, social, and constitutional crisis” that almost dissolved the Union. He contrasts progressive hagiographies, which portray the North as liberating and enlightened, with Southern narratives, which see the North as imposing authority over self-government. This historiographical clash frames Bradford’s project. The Agrarians had reexamined Southern history and literature at Vanderbilt, and Bradford carried their insights into political thought. He advocates civil piety, ethical engagement with history, and resistance to national subsumption. Gajek uses early defenses of secession, including Alexander Stephens’ A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States and Albert T. Bledsoe’s Is Davis a Traitor?, to show continuity in Southern thought. This situates Bradford’s conservatism in a longstanding intellectual tradition.
Chapter One, “The Southern Tradition,” examines the Southern tradition as the true embodiment of Western civilization. Gajek reconstructs Bradford’s view of the South as a culture rooted in agrarianism, Cavalier heritage, and orthodoxy. This worldview is anti-abstractionist and anti-utopian. It favors prudence, moral inheritance, and community over rationalist progress. Bradford extends the Agrarians’ earlier cultural critique into politics. He critiques modernity’s erosion of social bonds and offers a model of “social bond individualism,” a phrase borrowed from Richard Weaver (“Two Types of Individualism,” in Southern Essays, 1987). Individuals flourish when liberty is tied to local communities rather than imposed through central authority. This chapter establishes the South as the ethical core of conservatism. It contrasts the North’s industrialism and utopian abstractions with Southern orthodoxy and humility.
Gajek divides this chapter into clear subsections that highlight Bradford’s principles. The Southern tradition embodies classical-Christian virtues, hierarchy, and attachment to place. Bradford values this particularity as a counter to homogenizing national categories. He frames the North-South divide as a clash of cultures. The North is abstract, rationalist, and progressive. The South is concrete, prudential, and tradition-bound. Bradford rejects ideological blueprints, such as universal natural rights, in favor of inherited custom. History and prudence are better guides than reason alone. Practical wisdom forms the core of Bradford’s concept of civil piety. Tradition provides continuity and guidance for civic life. Religion, especially Anglican and Episcopal orthodoxy, fosters humility and counters the gnostic aspirations of secular modernity.
Gajek shows that Bradford’s critique of modernity extends to social and political institutions. Atomization, commercialization, and scientism erode community. The South offers a remedy, a balanced alternative to abstract egalitarianism. Bradford critiques entitled elites, whom he calls “spoiled children,” and promotes virtue cultivated within local ties. Liberty should be exercised within communities, not as an abstract right imposed by the state. Republicanism thrives in decentralized contexts, aligning with the Antifederalists’ vision of local authority and communal liberties. This chapter positions the South as a normative model, offering a practical guide for conservative thought in a modern age.
Chapter Two, “The Trouble with Lincoln,” addresses Lincoln as the figure who disrupted the American constitutional order. Bradford challenges the standard portrayal of Lincoln as the moral emancipator of the nation. Gajek presents Lincoln as an opportunistic innovator who expanded executive power and transformed the confederated states into a national Leviathan. Bradford emphasizes Lincoln’s pragmatic, sometimes inconsistent, approach to slavery, including proposals for colonization of freed blacks abroad. Lincoln’s moral abstractions, in Bradford’s view, distorted the Founders’ intentions.
Gajek highlights Lincoln’s use of rhetoric in shaping political authority. The Gettysburg Address recasts the Union as a propositional nation rather than a compact among states. Bradford calls this “derailment,” a shift from historical prudence to utopian ideology. Lincoln’s rhetoric is prophetic and millenarian, promising salvation through centralized action. Gajek draws on Voegelin’s critique of gnostic ideologies to frame this as a moral and constitutional departure. Bradford’s analysis is not partisan; it seeks to free conservatism from neoconservative idolatry and restore attention to historical prudence and local governance.
Chapter Three, “Original Intentions,” recovers the Founding as a conservative, anti-utopian project. Bradford emphasizes the original intentions of the Framers as discerned from ratifying conventions. The Antifederalists, whom he calls the “forgotten Framers,” safeguarded decentralization and communal liberty. The American experience, Bradford argues, is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Its British inheritance, including common law and Whig prudence, provides the foundation for governance rooted in tradition rather than abstract ideology. The organic character of the republic resists utopian perfection. Bradford aligns Southern conservatism with the Founders, defending state rights and group-embedded liberties against Lincoln’s centralizing innovations.
Most importantly, Bradford encourages Americans, North and South, to resist the Leviathan of post-war centralization. Gajek presents this as the culmination of Bradford’s prescriptive vision. Decentralization, prudence, and historical memory are necessary to preserve liberty and prevent modern bureaucratic overreach. Southern conservatism becomes both a historical corrective and a normative guide. Gajek demonstrates that Bradford’s scattered essays cohere into a defense of prudence, localism, and moral responsibility. He emphasizes civil piety as the ethical foundation of political judgment, linking literature, history, and religion to practical governance.
The conclusion synthesizes Bradford’s legacy. He provides remedies to modern polarization and “liberal leveling.” Gajek presents Bradford as a serious thinker, not a polemicist. The bibliography and index support rigorous scholarship and contextual analysis. Bradford’s work resists the erasure of Southern tradition and enriches understanding of American conservatism.
One of the strengths of Refusing to be Forgotten is its clarity. Gajek avoids excessively long sentences or jargon. He presents complex historical and political arguments in a readable manner. The book mirrors Bradford’s method, privileging context, narrative, and prudence over rigid systematic philosophy. Gajek’s thematic chapters allow readers to follow the logic of Bradford’s critique of modernity, Lincoln, and centralization. The ethical and civic dimensions of Bradford’s thought are also foregrounded. Conservatism, in Bradford’s view, is inseparable from moral education, virtue, and community. Literature and religion provide guidance for civic life and character formation.
Gajek, who is a political scientist affiliated with the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw, has written a book that is useful for scholars and students alike. It situates Bradford within the Agrarian tradition while highlighting his unique contributions. His anti-utopian, context-driven, and morally informed conservatism provides guidance for contemporary political life. It counters abstractions, ideological overreach, and centralizing tendencies. Bradford’s work encourages reflection on historical continuity, prudence, and the value of local governance. Refusing to be Forgotten also demonstrates that Southern conservatism is intellectually robust and morally serious.
The book is timely in its engagement with American historiography. Gajek challenges the dominant narrative that valorizes Lincoln and Northern centralization. He highlights Southern intellectual traditions as essential to understanding the American republic. Bradford’s critique encourages careful attention to history, memory, and moral responsibility. It presents Southern conservatism as both a corrective and a resource. By preserving and extending the Agrarian tradition, Bradford offers insights relevant to modern governance, civic life, and cultural preservation.
In conclusion, Marcin Gajek’s Refusing to be Forgotten is a welcome and useful evaluation of M. E. Bradford. The book situates Bradford as a vital heir of the Nashville Agrarians and a serious conservative thinker. It demonstrates that Southern conservatism provides enduring lessons on prudence, historical memory, and moral responsibility. By examining Lincoln’s deviations, recovering the Founders’ intentions, and emphasizing civil piety, Bradford offers a prescriptive vision of American governance rooted in tradition and localism. Gajek’s work is both scholarly and accessible, making it an important resource for students of American conservatism, Southern intellectual history, and political philosophy.
Bradford emerges as more than a regional thinker. He is a guide to civic virtue, ethical reflection, and principled governance. Gajek’s study ensures that Bradford is remembered and that his insights continue to shape discussions of American identity, political order, and cultural continuity. By refusing to let Southern conservatism be forgotten, Gajek provides a model of rigorous, ethically attentive scholarship. It demonstrates the value of recovering overlooked voices for the enrichment of contemporary political and cultural thought.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
“Gajek’s central claim is that Bradford safeguards Southern conservatism as a universal source of wisdom. It is not sectional nostalgia or apology for slavery. Instead, it preserves the South as a repository of Western civilization.”
Southern conservatism is conservatism. It is not, as is told by the press, the media, etc., the magical verbal legerdemain of any so-called political party or parties and their chest-beating hacks.
“By refusing to let Southern conservatism be forgotten, Gajek provides a model of rigorous, ethically attentive scholarship.”
It is not so much that it has been forgotten as it is the case that it is ignored by those who know better but have been entrapped by the personal glory of their own chest-beating.
JMO
DITTO, Paul!
A very perceptive and well-written review. Thank you. Mel Bradford and Donald Davidson are essential to our Southern tradition. The great men of the South were and are the bedrock of tradition and culture, which must be conveyed to new generations. I am so happy to see the excellent posts on this website! New contributors are posting scholarly and informed opinions. The truth and our Christian beliefs will ultimately prevail and we must never forget that.
what is left out…sheesh