Blog

William Gilmore Simms on the Fate of Nations

William Gilmore Simms was a consummate Southern man of letters, excelling equally in poetry, fiction, and essay. The excerpt below is from a long piece he wrote in 1850 in the Southern Quarterly Review. Simms had in mind the hubris of the North as it engaged in intensified economic, political, and cultural aggression against the South, but his remarks are…
Clyde Wilson
April 17, 2014
Blog

Who Wrote the Best American Ghost Story? Simms Of Course

When it comes to stories that make your hair stand on end everyone’s mind understandably goes to master of macabre Edgar Allan Poe. But what did Poe himself consider the best ghost story? Of William Gilmore Simms’s short story “Grayling, or Murder Will Out,” Poe wrote “it is really an admirable tale, nobly conceived and skillfully carried into execution—the best…
Sean Busick
April 17, 2014
Blog

1865 and Modern Relevance

"I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy....Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more…
Carl Jones
April 16, 2014
Blog

Top Southern Rock Albums

In light of Tom Daniel's post "Top 11 Southern Rock Bands," I thought I would create a list of my top Southern rock albums. Many of these records are from the bands he mentions, but I included several others. How did I choose? I selected albums that have stood or will stand the test of time and that can be…
Brion McClanahan
April 16, 2014
Review Posts

‘Counsellors That Feelingly Persuade Me What I Am:’ Jefferson and Fletcher on Education

In an age such as ours—beset by the conceit that the noblest political act is individual self-actualization—any philosophic discussion of education will be tenuous and fragile. True, our time has witnessed heated debates over educational policy—over the processes through which public schools are funded, over the criteria by which educators’ performance is evaluated, over the students injured by our current…
Jefferson Viridi
April 15, 2014
Blog

Top 11 Southern Rock Bands

I decided to rank my own favorite Top Southern Rock Bands with some added personal memories. Forgive me if your favorite is not named, but this list goes to eleven. 1) The Allman Brothers Band – Before he died, Duane Allman sure kicked a lot of musical butt. He was an early one of “The Swampers” in Muscle Shoals, and…
Tom Daniel
April 15, 2014
Blog

Illegal, Unconstitutional, and Unjust

The historian Andrew C. McLaughlin in 1932 wrote that the British imperial system was characterized “by diversification and not by centralization....The empire of the mid-eighteenth century was a diversified empire” with power “actually distributed and exercised by various governments.” British colonies, including Ireland, “had long existed” as “bodies, corporate, constituent members of the Empire,” each with its own constitution and…
Brion McClanahan
April 15, 2014
Review Posts

State Sovereignty and Centralism in 19th-Century Argentina

Introduction: Centers and Peripheries A look at the early history of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata -- a political structure ancestral (partly) to the modern-day Argentine nation-state -- reveals many interesting parallels with our own experience in the United States. The European empires’ settler colonies in the New World had much in common: their European-derived populations…
Joseph R. Stromberg
April 14, 2014
Blog

The Virus of Centralization

In my previous post on this website I addressed the Lincoln’s 1863 revelation to Governor Pierpont that the war must be protracted in order for the politically connected to rape the South of its cotton. The recent events in Nevada, during which the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) squared off with rancher Cliven Bundy, are symptoms of a sick…
Marshall DeRosa
April 14, 2014
Blog

War is a Racket

“It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” General Robert E. Lee My wife’s grandfather was a WW II veteran. He served in North Africa, was wounded in Sicily, and was sent back into action after D-Day, which he’d missed while healing in a hospital. He didn’t talk about the war. He…
Carl Jones
April 14, 2014
Blog

Jefferson Davis and the Kenner Mission

A few months back, I had a student ask me about Don Livingston's characterization of Jefferson Davis in a paper he presented to the Mises Institute in 1995 titled "The Secession Tradition in America." The student wondered if Livingston's statement, "Jefferson Davis was an enlightened slave holder who said that once the Confederacy gained its independence, it would mean the…
Brion McClanahan
April 14, 2014
Blog

Lincoln’s War for Cotton

Early in the winter of 1863 Francis Pierpont, the Governor of the Restored Government of Virginia, met with President Lincoln at the White House requesting he countermand the order sending General Nathaniel P. Banks to New Orleans. Governor Pierpont argued that Union forces be focused on Richmond, with the objective of forcing the CSA Government to flee and thereby resulting…
Marshall DeRosa
April 12, 2014
Blog

Welcome to Alabama

Just a few days ago I read a post on this blog which discussed the influence of Southern Rock on American culture in the 1970s and early 80s. Having grown up in that era, I remember it well. Skynyrd, Hank Jr and numerous others proudly proclaimed that they were unapologetically Southern. Tom Petty’s song “Rebels” from his Southern Accents Album…
Carl Jones
April 12, 2014
Blog

Southern Rock

Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about Southern Rock, which is something very meaningful to me. I’m a musician (guitar), and I can play 60’s and 70’s rock, jazz, folk, and classical music very well, because I had great formal and practical training. I played in a lot of bands when I was younger, and I especially loved…
Tom Daniel
April 11, 2014
Blog

Daniel Boone Was A Man

Daniel Boone by John James Audubon "Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man." So began the (now not so) famous Ballad of Daniel Boone by legendary Southern actor Fess Parker. Parker portrayed Boone from 1964-1970 on the television series of the same name. It would be impossible to produce that show today. Boone is the antithesis of the…
Brion McClanahan
April 11, 2014
Review Posts

Lee in the Mountains

Walking into the shadows, walking alone Where the sun falls through the ruined boughs of locust Up to the president's office. . . . Hearing the voices Whisper, Hush, it is General Lee! And strangely Hearing my own voice say, Good morning, boys. (Don't get up. You are early. It is long Before the bell. You will have long to…
Donald Davidson
April 10, 2014
Review Posts

The Fight

IN the younger days of the Republic there lived in the county of -- two men, who were admitted on all hands to be the very best men in the county; which, in the Georgia vocabulary, means they could flog any other two men in the county. Each, through many a hard-fought battle, had acquired the mastery of his own…
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
April 10, 2014
Blog

Pronouncing Talladega

My commute to work was a little bit spirited the other day. First of all, I noticed a newly awakened hornet clinging to the inside of my windshield. Thank goodness it was a cool morning, because he/she never really got enough juices flowing to be active. Secondly, during my hornet-harrowing commute, I got a chance to yell at the radio.…
Tom Daniel
April 10, 2014
Blog

BBQ and the Hillbilly Homeboy

February 2014 saw the passing of Maurice Bessinger and Tim Wilson, two Southerners who represented different elements of Southern culture: barbeque and comedy respectively. No one cooks like Southerners. This dates to the colonial period. It used to be said that Southerners dined, Yankees just ate. David Hackett Fischer noted in his significant work Albion's Seed that colonial Virginians enjoyed…
Brion McClanahan
April 10, 2014
Blog

Sunnyside and Sleepy Hollow

April 3 was Washington Irving's birthday. While not a Southerner, Irving would have supported the South in its fight for independence in 1861 had he been alive to see it. He at least would have been opposed to coercion. Many notable New Yorkers, and for that matter Canadians, too, believed the same. Two fine treatments on this issue are Clint…
Brion McClanahan
April 9, 2014
Blog

Don’t Hold Your Breath

Jonathan Kozol seems to be one of those innumerable relentless reformers who are determined to make the world resemble their idea of what it should be. American society breeds the type like the proverbial rabbits--ever since the 1830s when New England started sending out Unitarians, abolitionists, convent-burners, free lovers, vegetarians, suffragettes, Mormons, and such. (I note Professor Kozol was born…
Clyde Wilson
April 9, 2014
Review Posts

Violating the Lieber Code: The March From the Sea

On April 24, 1863—-just three months after the cruel and retaliatory Emancipation Proclamation--Lincoln issued an order drafted by Columbia University law professor Francis Lieber that codified the generally accepted universal standards of warfare, particularly as it related to the lives and property of civilians. Among the actions it deemed to be criminal and prohibited were the “wanton devastation of a…
Kirkpatrick Sale
April 8, 2014
Blog

Local Color

Every Southern town has a local historian, a life-long resident who loves the tales and culture of the region and its people. They are not professionals who have been indoctrinated by the graduate programs at the university. They aren't concerned with the fashionable theories about the South and many times know more about Southern history than the leading experts. They…
Brion McClanahan
April 8, 2014
Blog

Jackson and Ewell

General Richard S. Ewell had a reputation for being a heavy drinker, foul mouthed, and blasphemous. During the War to Prevent Southern Independence, he was under the Command of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, whom he hated and referred to as "That Crazy Presbyterian." One night, he went to pay a visit to Jackson in his tent. He looked through the…
Carl Jones
April 8, 2014
Blog

American Idol

We Southerners know a little bit about music. “American Idol,” for those who haven’t watched, is a reality-based music singing competition on the Fox Network. The very nature of what anybody would call “American music” is the definition of a blending of diverse American sub-cultures into one representative “sound,” and that alone is the definition of growing up Southern. The…
Tom Daniel
April 8, 2014
Blog

Constitutional Deists

According to Deist belief, God does not get involved in the affairs of mankind. He built the celestial clock, wound up the spring and then walked away. There is no point in praying, since the Almighty is not listening. He apparently has other fish to fry. We are left to our own devices. Some look at the system of government…
Jonathan White
April 8, 2014
Blog

Sweet Home Alabama

Forty years ago today, Lynyrd Skynyrd released their second album titled Second Helping. The effort contained what has become the quintessential Southern rock anthem, Sweet Home Alabama. Skynyrd, along with Georgia's The Allman Brothers Band, Tennessee's Charlie Daniels Band, and South Carolina's Marshall Tucker Band, were part of a Southern music revival in the 1970s. Being Southern was chic. Everyone…
Brion McClanahan
April 7, 2014
Blog

Winter Rest

The consummation of farming year number six arrived abruptly, almost automatic like the next breath. The ease of external inhalation and exhalation mask a clandestine, internal arrangement intimately crafted and forever dependent on so many parts cooperating. Much like the farm days of early winter, our working hours unravel effortlessly, unrevealing of the exhaustion and feverish efficiency demanded of warmer…
Chris Jackson
April 6, 2014
Blog

Getting Right with Mr. Hamilton?

“…the borrower is servant to him that lendeth” (Proverbs 22:7) “There is an elegant memorial in Washington to Jefferson, but none to Hamilton. However, if you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country . . .” (George Will, Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy, 1992)…
John Devanny
April 6, 2014
Blog

Watch What You’re Doing

“Watch what you’re doing – you never know who’s watching you.” I can still hear my mama say that. No, literally – she still says that to me. I have heard people say this is not a uniquely Southern thing, and it is universal in small towns across America. I disagree, because I’ve never seen this concept applied and executed…
Tom Daniel
April 4, 2014
Review Posts

Fugitive Agrarians

I’ll Take My Stand, the classic statement of Southern Agrarianism, was first published in 1930. Since that time, it has never been out of print. You have to ask yourself why people have continued to read it. There are several good reasons why they shouldn’t. It’s a quirky book. The 12 essays—written by men of varying backgrounds and talents—are uneven…
Thomas Landess
April 3, 2014
Review Posts

Southern Conservatism and the “Gilded Age”

Russell Kirk called the early post-bellum period in American history the age of “Conservatism Frustrated.” He lamented that the leading members of the conservative mind from 1865-1918 flirted with the radicalism of their compeers both before and during the Civil War and now were left with the daunting task of closing Pandora’s Box, a Box they helped open: The New…
Brion McClanahan
April 3, 2014
Media Posts

Jefferson vs. Lincoln

This two part lecture by Abbeville Institute founder Don Livingston concentrates on the dichotomy between Thomas Jefferson's conception of Union and Abraham Lincoln's "national" argument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CAYAkt3KFY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpuADcC2bM
Donald Livingston
April 3, 2014
Blog

My Court House and Their “Judicial Center”

When I first moved here, more than forty years ago, the county was mostly rural, inhabited by families whose land patents went back to the late 17th century and by black people with equally ancient pedigree--- the descendants of slaves, the numbers of which had been modest by South Carolina standards. Few people ever bothered to cross the river to…
Clyde Wilson
April 3, 2014
Blog

Coming Home

Many black Southerners headed North in the early twentieth century in search of a better life. Most didn't find it. Now, many are coming home. The Christian Science Monitor recently made this trend a cover story. In the early twentieth century, black Americans constituted less than five percent of the total population of every Northern State. This was not by…
Brion McClanahan
April 3, 2014
Review Posts

The Shooting Match

SHOOTING-MATCHES are probably nearly coeval with the colonization of Georgia. They are still common throughout the Southern States, though they are not as common as they were twenty-five or thirty years ago. Chance led me to one about a year ago. I was travelling in one of the northeastern counties, when I overtook a swarthy, bright-eyed, smerky little fellow, riding…
Brion McClanahan
January 1, 1970
Media Posts

Audio: Lecture Test A

http://abbevilleinstitute.org/media/lectures/2013SS_03_abb13_DL_natmcos.mp3 Download mp3 You can have some summary text about this lecture here. The .mp3 url can just be added directly to the WP content field just like this text and it will automatically convert it to the audio player. If you want to add a direct link to the mp3 you can do that as well. Also, I assume…
Brion McClanahan
January 1, 1970
Blog

Four Puzzles

Washington, where I have been living for the past six months, is an intriguing city in at least two meanings of the word. Let’s take care of the more sinister meaning first. You can’t step into a Washington elevator without hearing a conversation suddenly die. You move to the rear, smile, and stare straight ahead as the two intriguers look…
Thomas Landess
January 1, 1970
Blog

Who Controls Public Schools?

In America education has taken on many of the characteristics of a religion: the state is God and the school is that institution in which good (i.e. productive) servants of God (citizens) are formed. Democracy, we have been told since the time of Jefferson, can succeed only if the average man is educated; and in turn, general education will insure…
Warren Leamon
January 1, 1970
Blog

Sam Houston and Texas Independence

The triangular racial duel, fought for so long a time for the mastery of North America, came to an end April n, 1836, when in the battle of San Jacinto, the Anglo-American colonists of Texas won their freedom. Since that day — in some respects one of the most significant in our history — the United States has passed through…
Andrew Nelson Lytle
January 1, 1970
Blog

                                    Slavery & Abortion – A False Analogy Frequently the pro-life leadership draws a parallel between slavery and abortion.  You Say Abortion Is Legal?  The Supreme Court Also Legalized Slavery, reads one popular bumper-sticker.  The motivation for this comparison is understandable, since slavery and the Civil War occupy central places in the American historical imagination.  By gesturing toward one of…
Andrew Nelson Lytle
January 1, 1970
Blog

Another Hack Wants to Rewrite History

Tom Steyer has been one of the largest left-wing donors in recent memory. From 2014-2016 alone, he reportedly spent at least $193 million dollars to help push climate change agendas and fund Democratic candidates. In 2018, he also pledged at least $30 million to get Democrats elected with the goal of impeaching Donald Trump. Steyer also repeatedly runs campaign ads…
Michael Martin
January 1, 1970
Blog

Dixieland Despite

Dixieland Despite. Lorn, the city burns Aphelion, the world turns Cracked lips whisper, yearn Embers glow still yet Wind dying as dusk sets Illuminate her silhouette Vespertine eyes Incandescently cry All gone awry Granddaddy’s hearth turned to rust Ma-maw’s gown to dust Pecan tree reclaimed by crust Pulsing bodies, a mechanical rite Consecrated in the neon bright Drowned in squalid…
Neil Kumar
January 1, 1970
Blog

Asian Confederates?

Over the last several years the American public has been conditioned, like Pavlov’s dog, to think of white supremacy and slavery anytime they hear or see things that are connected to the Confederacy or the South. These conditioned people believe these lies because they are told to and usually without ever doing any research of there own, as I have…
Wayne Pease
January 1, 1970