John Rutledge of South Carolina is one of the most important men of the founding generation, but he has been lost to mainstream history. He is politically incorrect (most in…
Donald Livingston discusses the nature and meaning of secession at the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School.
There is life in the old land of Dixie yet. There seems to be no end of talent and knowledge coming forth in our defense against the South-hating jihadists who…
About the author: Elizabeth Otis Marshall Dannelly (1838-1896), a native of Madison, Georgia, was a published poet significant enough to be included in the book Living Writers of the South…
This article was originally published by the Fleming Foundation. In simpler times when our world was young, we used to sing, “It’s a Barnum and Bailey world/Just as phony as…
Few who encounter John Randolph of Roanoke in the pages of American history ever forget that inimitable, irrepressible figure. Randolph, a son of one of the “First Families” of Virginia,…
As long as there have been soldiers, their ultimate defense mechanism has been dark comedy. Such humor may be the only way to hold on to one’s sanity in response…
A friend who sells high-end real estate tells the story of a well-heeled Northern couple who were enchanted by the idea of owning an antebellum Southern mansion. He met them…
In the eighteenth century, each of the British North American colonies that later formed the United States of America had statutes that regulated the observance of the Christian Sabbath, or…
Years ago I was introduced to my wife’s grandmother. This small but formidable woman lived in Columbus, Ohio, a descendant of tough, blue collar shanty Irish. We got to talkin’…
If you showed the average American pictures of famous figures from Confederate States of America, there is a good chance many would recognize Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Pressed…
This article was originally published at the Fleming Foundation. When the Islamic State blows up the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, the UNESCO (the cultural arm of the United Nations)…
There are several attributes of Donald Trump’s bid for the U.S. Presidency that this Paleo-Conservative finds to be interesting. To follow is an adumbration of the more salient. His campaign…
In the antebellum era, Matthew Carey, Philadelphia publisher and journalist, was the most zealous and articulate advocate of a protective tariff to raise the price of imported goods so high…
If the modern historical narrative is to be believed, then the antebellum North was the happy land of butterflies, flowers, rainbows, and racist free Americans who insisted on racial equality….
Chapter 29, on “Lives Lost,” in the newly released booklet, “Understanding the War Between the States,” reveals startlingly higher numbers of people who lost their lives as a result of…
When William Faulkner visited Japan in 1955 to attend a literary symposium in Nagano, he noted certain parallels between the aftermath of the Confederacy’s defeat in 1865 and that of…
“. . . and bank-notes will become as plentiful as oak leaves.” —Thomas Jefferson “They [the people], and not the rich are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve…
The following is an abridged version of a chapter which will appear in the forthcoming, From Founding Fathers to Fire-Eaters: The Constitutional Doctrine of States’ Rights in the Old…
Two weeks ago, authorities combing through disgraced former IRS executive Lois Lerner’s e-mails released a message she sent to a subordinate who had complained about a Texas Tea Party group. “Look…
At the farmer’s market on Saturday morning a question often expressed is, “are you an organic farm?” It’s encouraging and admirable that the standards by which food is grown is…
Dan Smoot never considered himself to be a Southern conservative, though he was born and reared in Missouri and spent his early adult life in Texas. He was one of…
In 1866 Margaret Junkin Preston of Lexington, Virginia, a sister-in-law of Stonewall Jackson, wrote a poem she called “Regulus.” Regulus was a Roman hero who was tortured by the Carthaginians…
A poetess, invited to submit her verse—a friendly offer— answered back: “Your editorial policies don’t fit my own advanced ideas; I’d be a hack if I were to contribute….
With all due apologies to Samuel Clemens, I like to think of myself as a Connecticut Confederate. Therefore, I was delighted to find recently that, in addition to being a…
A new video entitled “Was the Civil War About Slavery?” from Prager University is currently making the rounds on the Internet. A caption claims that the video “settles the debate…
Persons interviewed on those amusing and disturbing videos by satirist Mark Dice, were unaware of even basic facts of American history. They had to be told why the 4th of…
It has been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names,…
Now that a third Reconstruction is very much underway in the South, it is more needful than ever to know and understand her history and her ways of living. Thankfully,…
Originally published at www.circa1865.com In 1887 North Carolina’s Lieutenant-General Daniel H. Hill spoke of the American Republic and the men who founded, led and sustained it until a revolutionary movement…
Recently Mr. Donald Fraser wrote a column in my hometown newspaper, the Northeast Georgian, titled “Battle Flag Promotes Hate, Not Heritage.” He opened his article expressing a twinge of fear…
This essay was first published in Southern Partisan in the Winter, 1985. Southerners rarely while away their leisure hours by contemplating Yankees, for there is no point in thinking of…
Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals can believe them. –Orwell I believe you love me—God knows why? –Yates Snowden Even if the GOP can’t see the light they…
Back in mid-June, after the Charleston shootings, the frenzied hue and cry went up and any number of accusations and charges were made against historic Confederate symbols, in particular, the…
It was the fate of much Southern poetry to have been written during the stormy period of our Civil War and hence to have been overlooked and neglected. War may…
July was another great month at the Abbeville Institute. Please keep sharing and reading our material. We can only grow with your help. Here are the top ten articles for…
Wouldn’t it be great if an act of Congress enabled your federal government bonds to be worth twice what you paid for them? That’s precisely what happened for many federal…
The guns of the War Between the States fell silent a century and a half ago, but the verbal and written battles related to that great conflict have continued. In…
Your other lecturers have pleasant and upbeat subjects to consider. I am stuck with economics, which is a notoriously dreary subject. It is even more of a downer when we…
On October 17, 1862 William E. Gladstone, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered a speech at New Castle concerning the widening conflict in America. He said: “We may have our…
Thanks to Tom Daniel for shooting me this video. This was made when the History Channel had real history in its program lineup. Charlie Daniels narrates the segment. For those…
After an enforced retirement due to a bad back, and moving to the Deep South to get away from the madness of living inside the DC Beltway in Virginia most…
Sometimes opponents of nullification base their opposition on the claim that Jefferson and Madison’s blueprint against federal overreach could only have applied to a unique situation present in 1798. The…
The “conservative” Boston Globe columnist, Jeff Jacoby, thinks that the Confederate flag is “anti-American,” “an ugly symbol of oppression,” “the most poisonous ideologies in our national history,” “racial bigotry and…
One of America’s most successful diplomats of the 20th century, was Horace C. Holmes, who spent over 30 years in the diplomatic service. Most of that time was spent in…
The Confederate battle flag is protean. It is a powerful symbol that has entered the world’s consciousness. “Protean,” going back to the classical Proteus, is defined as “readily taking on…
Last week hate and fear triumphed over our constitutional First Amendment. House Republicans, once again in timid positions, hide under their desks afraid of Democrats, again accusing them of racism;…
South Carolina is not known for great surfing, but a native son named Alexander Hume Ford (1868-1945) is credited with the revival, preservation, and promotion of that sport. The scion…
This article was orgininally printed in the Unz Review and is reprinted here with permission from the author. Yesterday afternoon I heard a black civic leader in Columbia, South Carolina…
This may be done by enlarging and extending the powers conferred by a liberal construction, based upon the supposed reason and spirit of its provisions, so as to meet emergencies…
Why in the recent “The Factory” does a serial killer from Buffalo, New York, have a Southern accent? Come to think of it, why do serial killers and vicious gang…
Any sensible, reasonable person is deeply saddened by the atrocious and tragic murder of nine innocent, people while they attended a Bible study in Charleston, SC. Such tragedy is unthinkable,…
In one of Henry James’s less unreadable novels, The Bostonians, the hero is Basil Ransom, an impoverished ex-Confederate from Mississippi who is trying to make his way professionally in the…
The sub-title of Karen F. McCarthy’s highly readable The Other Irish: The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America sums up the book’s tone and scope: “The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America.”…
“Texans! The troops of other states have their reputations to gain, but the sons of the defenders of the Alamo have theirs to maintain. I am assured that you will…
It is not necessary to detail Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner. Suffice it to say that we have been informed that Bruce’s inner self was at war with his…
The awful Obama is pushing terrible things on our country like socialised medicine, big spending, corporate bailouts, affirmative action, and amnesty for illegal aliens. He must be defeated so the…
We had another record breaking month in June. Thank you to all of those who support our efforts to explore what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition. Here…
Just as we have always been told that America was founded by Pilgrims in search of religious freedom, we have also been told that Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration…
(1991) Oxford, Mississippi – I lost count of just how many times the University of Mississippi band played “Dixie” last Saturday while the Rebels were upsetting Georgia 17-13. The number…
Who looks at Lee must think of Washington; In pain must think, and hide the thought, So deep with grievous meaning it is fraught. Herman Melville, “Lee in the Capitol,”…
The Report from Dogwood Mudhole Franklin Sanders is a well-known Southern leader and spokesman. In 1995 Sanders, his wife, children, and grandchildren moved lock, stock, and barrel to Wayne County,…
This piece was originally published on 3 July 2014 and is reprinted in light of current events. Are you puzzled and irritated by the viciousness and falsity of most of…
“Way down in Missouri…Journey back to Dixieland in dreams again with me…” – Lyrics from the “Missouri Waltz” (The Official Missouri State Song) by James Royce Shannon. A cultural identity…
Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind was enthusiastically received when it was published but it has run afoul of the socio/political trends of recent years. Consequently, society’s censors want the…
In her famous diary, Mary Chesnut called Mrs. Louisa S. McCord “the very cleverest woman” she knew. Of these two women from South Carolina, Chesnut is the most famous and…
As residents here in the Tar Heel State know, the boards of several of the state’s public universities have in recent weeks engaged in a high-profile campaign to change the names of historic and iconic…
This essay is published in honor of Abel P. Upshur’s birthday, June 17, 1790. Today, States’ rights are remembered as a legalistic excuse for the preservation of slavery – a…
“The Father of Waters now flows unvexed to the sea,” Lincoln famously announced in July 1863. He was, according to a reporter, uncharacteristically “wearing a smile of supreme satisfaction” as…
On November 21, 1793, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill titled “An Act declaratory of certain parts of the retained sovereignty of the State of Georgia.” It’s unclear…
This speech was delivered before the annual meeting of the Georgia Bar Association at Tybee Island on June 2, 3, and 4, 1927. Mr. PRESIDENT and gentlemen of the Georgia Bar…
Delivered as the commencement address for South Carolina College, 1887. What theme is most fitting for me present to the young men of the South, at this celebration of the…
This speech was given to the Young Men’s Society of Lynchburg, August 26, 1838. I Appear before you, gentlemen, in compliance with an invitation which deserves my grateful acknowledgments. To…
Lecture I Having presented to you, young gentlemen, in some former lectures, my views of the character and principles of the several forms of government, and particularly of the representative…
St. George Tucker’s “View of the Constitution of the United States” was the first extended, systematic commentary on the new constitution after it had been ratified by the people…
If any American today were to listen to the nationalists in charge of either the political class or American education at large, they would get the sense that it is…
Jefferson Davis delivered this message to the Confederate Congress on 18 February 1861. GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: Called to the difficult…
A friend of mine, a scholar of international reputation and a Tar Heel by birth, was visiting professor at a very prestigious Northern university a few years ago. In idle…
This piece originally appeared in Southern Partisan magazine in 1983. Rosemont Plantation, the childhood home of Jefferson Davis, is nestled in the gently rolling hills of southwest Mississippi. Carefully restored,…
This piece was originally printed in Southern Partisan magazine in 1986. Some miles beyond Charlotte Court House, in Southside Virginia, one may find his way to Roanoke Plantation, which seems…
There is no more singular statesman or person in the history of American politics than John Randolph of Roanoke. Eccentric in the extreme, volatile, and often ill-tempered, this Saint Michael…
This piece was originally published June 3, 2014 at the Abbeville Blog. Senator John Warwick Daniel (1842-1910) of Lynchburg, Virginia was a gentleman’s gentleman. Daniel served in the U.S. Senate…
1. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence by Clyde Wilson 2. The Sesquicentennial of the War for Southern Independence as Symbolic of…
This piece was originally published in Southern Partisan magazine in 1987-88. A few years ago I was shuffling through accumulated litter in my garage attic when I came across some…
This article was originally published in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Feb., 1966), pp. 83-87. In the current national debate on the race problem, the authority…
A review of Division and Reunion: America, 1848-1877, by Ludwell H. Johnson, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978. 301 pages; and The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist…
Life and Work Why Read Ludwell Johnson? Both Ludwell Johnson’s style of work and choice of subject matter strongly recommend him to our consideration. As a working historian he…
This piece was originally printed by Southern Partisan magazine in 1990. In the September issue of the American Historical Association’s newsletter, a rave review predicted that the PBS production “The…
Few Americans know of the great American scientist Matthew Fontaine Maury, and those that do probably do not know of his steadfast devotion to the Confederate States during the War…
This piece originally appeared in Southern Partisan Magazine in 1984. The Thirteen Colonies in their War of Independence had fought for freedom. But the French Revolution (a true revolution of…
I want to look at Southerners going back to Europe long after the roots were planted, especially in the period before the second War of Independence began in 1861. The…
With the Sesquicentennial of the epic war of American history winding down, many may think this War no longer particularly relevant and we can move on to more current concerns….
This piece was originally printed at res33blog.com. The commentary by University of North Carolina-Wilmington history Professor Chris E. Fonvielle Jr. titled, “Why the Civil War still matters” published in the…
The recent riots in Baltimore gave most Americans pause as they struggled to make sense of the violence that tore at the fabric of some of the city’s most impoverished…
The title of this article is how the radical Muslim organization, ISIS, characterizes its callous destruction of Jewish, Christian, and other pre-Islamic religious statuary; places of worship, libraries, and…
It seems my mission here is to bring to your attention unfamiliar and unfashionable truths about American history. Let me give you another one. The American West, the frontier, was…
Goodbye, Dear How seldom now do you begin with Dear, Both warm and formal (civil) but a mere First name — “David:” — like a Sir or Madam Summons…
Donald Davidson’s (1893-1968) Lee in the Mountains was one of the first pieces we ran for the Abbeville Review when it was launched last April. Davidson was one of the…
Maryland Redeemed Everybody knows that our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was written by Francis Scott Key as he watched the British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor during…
The wife of the president H.L. Mencken referred to as “Roosevelt the Second” provided much of the impetus for the communizing of the Democratic party in the mid-1930s, and could…
When our ever-wise leader set up a program on the American West, he obviously had in mind the geographic west of North America—the Great Plains, mountains, and Pacific coast beyond…
The God-fearing, Bible-reading, hymn-singing Confederate army grew out of a Southern soil well cultivated during the long struggle of countless, if largely unsung, preachers to civilize a harsh and violent…
After my last trip to Gettysburg with Kent Masterson Brown, I could hardly wait for Sharpsburg. The experience did not disappoint. Kent was as congenial as ever, warm with his…
The top ten for April 2015. Thank you for a great one year anniversary for the new and improved Abbeville Institute website. We exceeded our previous traffic for the entire year…
A Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death by William Baldwin. University of South Carolina Press. 2005. Hardcover. 203 pages. A friend and I were talking recently, and…
A so-called “writer” for al.com, Charles J. Dean, in an article entitled Today Alabama officially observes Confederate Memorial Day: Shame on us seems to be making a living these days…
This essay served as the introduction to Why the South Will Survive(University of Georgia Press, 1981). OF THE MAKING of books about the South there is no end. This one…
These are challenging times for the Christian patriot, as evidenced by controversies over recent renditions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. The mere fact that these State legislative attempts to…
An address delivered on August 10, 1950, before the annual reunion of the Weaver family. Everybody admits, I believe, that the most difficult people of all for a man to…
Abbeville scholar Clyde Wilson recently received this charming from Ms. Joscelyn Dunlop of Edenton, North Carolina. It neatly ties together Southern life in the WBTS, the 1930s, and today. Dear…
“We the people” of Dixie are in a unique position in today’s America. We are, though most Southerners do not realize it, a conquered and occupied people. A people of…
Karen Stokes’s Reconstruction Novel Awhile back it was theorised by some that Southern literature’s era of greatness was coming to an end with the changes taking place in our region. …
INTRODUCTION It is dangerous to attempt an article on a topic so relevant and current. As I drafted this article, President Obama has recently ordered air strikes on ISIS, and…
In my opinion, the single best short summary of the political and cultural differences between North and South appears in the movie Ride with the Devil, starring Tobey Maguire. Ride…
Originally published by the Unz Review on 15 April 2015. Back in 1990 in Richmond, Virginia, as part of the Museum of the Confederacy’s lecture series, the late Professor Ludwell…
Mr. Jefferson is quite passé these days, but ‘twas not always so. When I was a young lad, Mr. Jefferson was still firmly fixed among the America’s heroes, the great…
In 1809 Thomas Jefferson yielded up the Presidency and crossed into Virginia. In the 17 active years remaining to him he never left it. The first volume of Malone’s masterpiece,…
Originally published by the History News Network, 11 November 2014. “In one of my seminar discussions,” writes UVA professor Peter Onuf (now emeritus) in The Mind of Thomas Jefferson, “one…
Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the greatest enigma of the American age. He wrote and spoke on so many topics that he has become the symbol of virtually every strain of…
The closing days of the sesquicentennial has offered media outlets the chance to reflect on the outcome of the War. The results were to be expected. Both “conservative” and “liberal”…
Promoted over four senior captains just a few days shy of his nineteenth birthday, James R. Hagood was the youngest full colonel in the Army of Northern Virginia. A native…
What to say in brief compass about the South?—a subject that is worthy of the complete works of a Homer, a Shakespeare, or a Faulkner. The South is a geographical/historical/cultural…
The late Richard M. Weaver, “now widely recognized as one of the most original and perceptive interpreters of Southern culture and letters, one of the century’s leading rhetorical theorists, and…
Southerners live in the 18th century. This common charge is not altogether false, since the peculiar habits, customs, and meanings of words found often in the American South are found…
The phrase, “The New South”, appears in the 1886 speech that Atlanta newspaper editor, Henry Grady, delivered to the New England Society in New York. In fact, the origination of…
They call it progress, but they don’t say where it is going. –Faulkner Nothing occurs except the heaping up of tyranny and insult from Washington by the meanest most cowardly…
From the Confederate Veteran Magazine, Volume 4, 1916, pages 4-5. John Tyler, distinguished Virginian and tenth President of the United States, has received fitting, though long-deferred, honor from the country…
In talking about the Southern political tradition, it is most appropriate to point to the North Carolina Regulators and the Battle of Alamance Creek. This event was, in fact, only…
March was another great month at the Abbeville Institute. Thank you for your support, and please consider providing a tax deductible (to the full extent of the law) donation to…
This piece is taken from Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson Forgotten Conservatives in American History. Two dates changed the course of American political history. On 13 September 1841, the Whigs…
In honor of John Tyler’s birthday (March 29), I thought it proper to include a excerpt from my new book, Compact of the Republic: The League of States and the…
This year, 2015, marks the sesquicentennial of the end of a four-year war between American Southern States and Northern States that supported an aggressive federal government Southerners could not abide….
Recently, a friend sent me a link on the Smithsonian web site to a 1930 video clip with good sonics of some aged Confederate veterans demonstrating how the famous “Rebel Yell”…
There seemed to be little interest among audience members [at a scholarly meeting] in whether the ideas I had presented were true, only whether their application would bring about results…
The time is ripe for a rediscovery of Leopold Kohr. Or perhaps better: the time is ripe for the discovery of Leopold Kohr, since few have any idea who he…
Southern contributions to American music are so abundant that they can be considered as the bedrock of most all music as we know it today. From Appalachian hill music, Gospel…
I used to always wonder if other Southern children were taught the same thing we were while growing up. A particular case in point is a fabulous exchange that was…
If “history is the essence of innumerable biographies,” as Thomas Carlyle wrote, then the historian has the advantage of witnessing past life from beginning to end. This is a solemn…
“When it comes to be once understood that politics is a game; that those who are engaged in it but act a part; that they make this or that profession,…
This selection was originally printed in Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson, Forgotten Conservatives in American History (Pelican, 2012). Of the Great Triumvirate who dominated American public discourse from the War…
Born in 1782 near Abbeville, South Carolina, Calhoun’s educational opportunities were limited, albeit advanced by the occasional tutelage offered by his brother-in-law, Reverend Moses Waddel. After his parents’ death and…
This essay was first printed in the Southern Partisan Magazine, Volume III, Number 1 (1983). INTRODUCTION One hundred and forty years ago, Senator Henry Clay proposed a constitutional amendment to…
John Mitchel (1815-1875) was a fiery Irish nationalist who was convicted of treason by the British in 1848 and transported first to Bermuda and then to a penal colony in…
Your ordinary run-of-the mill historian will tell you that John C. Calhoun, having defended the bad and lost causes of state rights and slavery, deserves to rest forever in the…
John Cussons had enough. It was 1897, and for thirty-two years he had watched as “Northern friends of ours have been diligent in a systematic distortion of the leading facts…
White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, NYU Publishing Co., 2008, 431 pages. 978-0814742969. Where’s my reparations payment! If Ta-Nehisi Coates…
There is no group I would rather receive recognition from than the John Randolph Club. I want to thank my valued comrade-in-arms Tom Fleming for this occasion. Tom is the…
“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1826, days before death It is now accepted as a…
Reprinted from res33blog.com with permission. On March 5, 2015 a Wilmington StarNews editorial opinion ran the text of President Lincoln’s second in inaugural address from March 4, 1865—this year marks…
The antipathy of many urbanites who reside in Greater New England (think Old New England and the Midwest) toward firearms and their possessors has always left me puzzled. Aside from…
James M. McPherson recently appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief. Together, McPherson and Colbert more or less made…
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!” —Robert Burns Not long ago, a well-known conservative historian lamented that the American public had…
In American higher education of the past forty years, I have observed two American histories, and two American literatures – which teach different American ideals and values, resulting in different…
Thank you for making February the best month in the history of the Abbeville Institute! Here are the top ten: 1. Do Confederate Veterans Count? by James Rutledge Roesch 2….
Henry Timrod, the greatest Southern poet next to Edgar Allan Poe, the “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy,” died during Reconstruction in 1867 at the young age of 38. Dr. James…
Some months back, my buddy Tom Daniel wrote a piece titled “What Every Southern Man Should be Able to Do.” It is a great list of recommendations, and I concur…
What exactly makes the South, the South? Hosts of scholars have puzzled mightily over this one. Historians might point to the old Confederacy, human geographers might look for the proliferation…
I have seen enough of publick men to come to the conclusion, that there are few, indeed, whose attachment to self is not stronger, than their patriotism and their friendship….
A Sympathy for Disunion “This, Mr. President, is not a government founded upon compact; it is founded upon the power of the people. They express in their name and their…
It has been fifty-seven years since the Weaverville, North Carolina native Richard Weaver (1910-1963) published an article in Modern Age titled Up From Liberalism (Fall-Winter 1957-8, Vol. 3, No. 1,…
As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and as an eminent lawyer and statesman, Martin defended state sovereignty and the diffusion of political authority. He is usually identified as an…
The following is excerpted from a letter which I sent to my State Senator At the Florida State Fair, Governor Rick Scott and his Cabinet tabled the question of whether…
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…
Introduction As we are now in the midst of the sesquicentennial of the Union Army’s march through South Carolina—the climax being the burning of the city of Columbia on 17…
On February 5, 1865, the last of General Sherman’s troops crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina. That same day, soldiers of the 14th Corps burned the village of Robertville….
Review of the new film Field of Lost Shoes: I have written before here and here about the treatment of the South in film. A new entry into that dubious…
Today we celebrate the birthday of the log cabin born, rough-hewn, rail-splitting, bare-knuckled, “pock-faced, stoop-shouldered, slab-sided assistant storekeeper,” lewd, vulgar, uninspiring, “ordinary Western man” from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s life…
The American Enterprise magazine, a slick-paper, coffee-table arm of the neocon publishing empire, has recognized the premiere of the Civil War film epic “Gods and Generals” by devoting its March…
Is Germany Sovereign? In the wake of revelations of pervasive NSA snooping in Germany, Germans have been asking whether or not their country is actually sovereign. In a country filled…
Coal miners have their canaries; we have colinus virginiánus, the bobwhite quail. Like the canary that goes silent as the oxygen levels in a mine drop, so too has the…
The lack of interest in the film “Selma” by both the public and the film industry is a healthy sign. It is an indication that the public is growing tired…
Late in August 2001 my wife Barbara and I visited the classic Southern city of Charleston, South Carolina. We walked around the old town and observed many historic places. This…
I have called M.E. Bradford the Agrarian Aquinas. He did not write a Summa, but his work as a whole enriched and carried into new territory the message of I’ll…
BECAUSE I believe that Sidney Lanier was much more than a clever artisan in rhyme and metre; because he will, I think, take his final rank with the first princes…
Thank you for making January one of the most visited months in the history of the Institute. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Here are the top…
Though his life was cut short by tuberculosis (he once wrote that his entire adult life, from Confederate soldier to ill scholar, had been spent trying to avoid death), Sidney…
Scholars who have seriously studied the question of what Northerners and Southerners were fighting for during the so-called “Civil War” have generally concluded that slavery was not a major motivating…
Abbeville Institute Scholar Brion McClanahan argues that secession is the American tradition at the Houston Mises Circle on January 24, 2015.
By mid- January 1865, General Sherman’s campaign in South Carolina had begun in earnest. Some of his forces began moving through the parishes of Beaufort District at this time, and…
John Chodes, Destroying the Republic: Jabez Curry and the Re-Education of the Old South. New York: Algora Publishing. 332 pp. $29.95 (quality paperback) Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry of Alabama (1825–1903)…
This entry was originally published by The Society of Independent Southern Historians. The truth about Andersonville is not difficult to ascertain for anyone willing to search beyond the generally accepted…
We gather here today to honor the memory of brave men who willingly faced the deadly fire of war in order to protect their kith and kin—their blood relatives, their…
In my capacity as editor of the Palmetto Partisan, I keep a very close eye on the news for articles regarding the Confederacy, especially as it relates to South Carolina,…
Reprinted from Circa1865.com. The articles of Dr. Albert Taylor Bledsoe would often express “in vigorous language . . . the best types of literature of the conservative point of view”…
[From the American Mercury, Sept., 1930, pp. 29-31] No American historian, so far as I know, has ever tried to work out the probable consequences if Grant instead of Lee…
[From the American Mercury, Sept., 1930, pp. 29-31] No American historian, so far as I know, has ever tried to work out the probable consequences if Grant instead of Lee…
Delivered at the Blount County Courthouse, January 19, 2015. Robert E. Lee said “Everyone should do all in his power to collect and disseminate the truth, in the hope…
This essay is part of the chapter “Southerners” in Brion McClanahan’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes. The Northern essayist and Republican partisan E.L. Godkin wrote following the…
John Avery Emison, Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-Up, The: The Railroading of James Earl Ray. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2014. The assassination of Martin Luther King on April…
I am honoured to be back in my native State (North Carolina) where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great. We are here on this occasion both to…
This piece originally appeared on the Canada Free Press. As you can probably surmise by my detailed caption, this article is a collection of random thoughts. It is typical at…
Brion McClanahan discusses Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s Lincoln Prize winning book Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Personal Letters.
Country music singer Travis Tritt recently tweeted a controversial comment in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. The tweet was in support of gun owners but at the same…
“There is a great story-telling tradition in the South. My grandfather, father, and uncles were all raconteurs, and I grew up listening to their stories, as well as those of…
“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience…
To the chagrin and mortification of many liberals, Rolling Stone magazine had to apologize for its “lack of accuracy,” otherwise known as a lie, in a highly publicized article. In…
Why Historians Cannot Readily Situate Jefferson Finding Jefferson’s Shadow In his watershed work The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (1961), Merrill D. Peterson argues that our task as Jeffersonian…
The Eighth of January was on everyone’s tongue once, in similar fashion to the Fourth of July, for Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans occurred on this…
I’m still a little chapped about that recent story from Chicago where it’s considered racist to listen to Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” As a child growing up in Alabama,…
South Carolina will preserve its sovereignty, or be buried beneath its ruins. –Governor Robert Y. Hayne, 1832 I have lived too long not to know how reluctantly the clearest proposition…
January 2015 ushers in the last year of the sesquicentennial of the War for Southern Independence. One hundred and fifty years ago, the first month of 1865 was the beginning…
Maryland is steeped in the history of the American Union. She fiercely defended her position amongst the thirteen original states as a free, independent, and sovereign state. She was the…
The kind of military onslaught that Union Gen. William Sherman unleashed on the South, beginning with his infamous conquest of Atlanta and subsequent “March to the Sea,” followed by his…
Hiram Rhodes Revels was born in North Carolina and served as a chaplain in the A.M.E. Church in Baltimore before the War in 1861. After the War began, he helped…
2014 was a remarkable year for the Abbeville Institute. 1. Our well attended Twelfth Annual Summer School focused on the War for Southern Independence. Southerners fought the bloodiest war of…
“. . . a republican government, which many great writers assert to be incapable of subsisting long, except by the preservation of virtuous principles.” — John Taylor of Caroline The…
Experience has taught me, that in politicks, it is much more easy to gain the battle, than to reap its fruits. –Calhoun I had not realized how offensive the plain…
The cover story of the January/February 2015 issue of The American Conservative titled ‘A Nation of Prisoners’ deals with the high rate of incarceration in the United States. The cover…
Malcolm X once famously observed that the violence and racial strife in America was indicative of “the chickens coming home to roost.” For once in my life, I completely agree…
It has been a rule with me, from which I have rarely departed, to pass in silence the misrepresentations to which I have been subject, in the discharge of my…
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