The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute May 10-14, 2021 Topics: Cancel Culture, Robert E. Lee, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-261
Brion McClanahanMay 15, 2021
During the ongoing debate regarding the removal of the monuments honoring Confederate Generals, those in support of the statues often say in defense, “The statues are part of America’s history; we need to learn from history.” While this statement is of course true, I do not believe it is appropriate in this context, as “learning from history” is synonymous with…
Prioleau AlexanderMay 14, 2021
Over half a century before the Imperial German Navy launched its new and deadly method of undersea warfare against the Allied navies and merchant shipping in World War One, the Confederate Army was making history’s first successful submarine attack on an enemy warship. On the night of February 17, 1864, First Lieutenant George E. Dixon, a former steamboat engineer before…
John MarquardtMay 13, 2021
Continued from Part 3. “And of all the officers or men whom I ever knew he came (save one other alone) the nearest in likeness to that classical ideal Chevalier Bayard…And if these, our modern, commercial, mechanical, utilitarian ages, ever did develop a few of these types of male chivalric virtues, which we attribute solely to those 'ages of faith,' Robert E. Lee was…
Earl StarbuckMay 12, 2021
In the early 1870s, a young pre-law student at Howard College was inspired by classmate and future wife, Mamie Friend. James Alan Bland would listen to the homesick sentiments of Mamie and her home in tidewater Virginia. During a trip to meet Ms. Friend’s family the two sat down together with pen, paper, and a banjo. Bland composed his song…
James W. Whitehead VMay 11, 2021
After the end of the War Between the States, the Union army established the District of Texas under the command of Major General Gordon Granger. The Emancipation Proclamation had been enforced by the Union army in every other state of the Confederate States of America which it had occupied. Texas escaped Union occupation during the war and the Union army…
Timothy A. DuskinMay 10, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 3-7, 2021 Topics: Southern Politics, Cancel Culture, Southern Religion, Southern Heroes, Robert E. Lee https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-260
Brion McClanahanMay 8, 2021
In 1960, the great Southern political philosopher Richard Weaver penned an essay titled “Conservatism and Libertarianism: The Common Ground.” Most people considered Weaver to be a “conservative,” and he accepted the term, but he also thought American conservatives and libertarians had much in common and should work together for a common goal: liberty. The current internal warfare in both conservative…
Brion McClanahanMay 7, 2021
Wokeism is a bit like kudzu. It’s not indigenous to the South, but once it starts growing… brother you better believe it will be hard to contain. And soon enough, you’ll wonder what life was like before it infested everything. Kudzu is pervasive south of the James River, which runs through Richmond. Wokeism, alternatively, is less common in the southern…
Casey ChalkMay 6, 2021
Continued from Part 2. “He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring…a Christian without hypocrisy…He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.” – Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill As a commander who won victory…
Earl StarbuckMay 5, 2021
A review of Preachers with Power: Four Stalwarts of the South (Banner of Truth, 1992) by Douglas F. Kelly I first became aware of Douglas F. Kelly through some videos on YouTube in which he was interviewed about his recent book Creation and Change, a defense of the book of Genesis as authentic history. His erudition and his manner (that…
Karen StokesMay 4, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 26-30. 2021 Topics: Political Correctness, Robert E. Lee, Southern Literature, Confederate Monuments, Memorial Day, Union Monuments https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-259
Brion McClanahanMay 1, 2021
Written in the Year 2021 Hampton, our stalwart Wade, As wily as Odysseus in warAs full of rage for truth in time of fraud As any celebrated Greek,He saw his son fall at his feet, Kissed him a hard farewellIn manner Hector or Odysseus Would bring to tears,Turned back to battlefield Which he controlledAs full of righteous angerAs Achilles ever…
James Everett KiblerApril 30, 2021
Marjorie Taylor Greene forced the political left into an apoplectic rage two weeks ago when they discovered she intended to form an “America First Caucus” based on “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” Clearly, this showed that Representative Greene intended to force “white supremacy” on the rest of the United States. After all, she openly displayed her racism by using the term “Anglo-Saxon.”…
Brion McClanahanApril 29, 2021
Continued from Part I. “He was a superb specimen of manly grace and elegance…There was about him a stately dignity, calm poise, absolute self-possession, entire absence of self-consciousness, and gracious consideration for all about him that made a combination of character not to be surpassed…His devotion to his invalid wife, who for many years was a martyr to rheumatic gout,…
Earl StarbuckApril 28, 2021
Daybreak in Dixie: Poems of the Confederacy by Linda Lee. Privately published, 2019. For those of us who value the history of our Southern people, these are the worst of times. Public discourse is pervaded by a Cultural Marxist hysteria that wants what we love to be dead, forever. I rightly use the term Marxist because the campaign against us,…
Clyde WilsonApril 27, 2021
On April 14, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden announced that, beginning May 1, the United States would begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. The project to extract the Yankee Empire from many other empires’ graveyard will finish, according to the American President, on September 11, 2021—twenty years to the day after a ragtag group of mujahedeen provided Washington with the excuse…
Jason MorganApril 26, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 19-23, 2021 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Cancel Culture, Political Correctness, Agrarianism, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-258
Brion McClanahanApril 24, 2021
Ah! My Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?For now I see the true old times are dead… Tennyson, from Idylls of the King My grandfather loved Tennessee Walking Horses, a breed so named for their beautiful run-walk, a gait which they carry in place of the trot found in other breeds. It is…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.April 23, 2021
In the Year of Our Lord 2021, it is fashionable for American Christians to despise the antebellum South. Many Christian leaders, Evangelical and otherwise, have defended or even applauded the destruction of Confederate statues by mobs. In 2016, the Southern Baptist Convention repudiated the Confederate battle flag. In September of 2020, J.D. Greear, President of the SBC, said the denomination…
Earl StarbuckApril 22, 2021
Robert E. Lee considered reconciliation and education to be his highest duties after the War. While many other Confederate leaders left the United States, Lee remained in Virginia and worked to heal the wounds of the War. He turned down political positions and refused to capitalize on his name, and instead accepted a position as President of Washington College to…
Philip LeighApril 21, 2021
Like many traditional-minded people of this era, I have become disenchanted with products of the modern movie industry which are mostly either filth, silliness, or formulaic pablum. To my fortunate surprise, I recently stumbled upon a gem of a movie from 2017 called Abundant Acreage Available. Written and directed by NC native Angus MacLachlan, the entire film takes place in…
Anne Wilson SmithApril 20, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 12-16, 2021 Topics: the War, Robert E. Lee, Southern Heroes, Southern Tradition, John C. Calhoun, Military Bases https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-257
Brion McClanahanApril 17, 2021
The spring of 1850 is an ominous perpetrator. Notwithstanding the crisis our country faced during those trying years leading to the so-called compromise of 1850, March 31st marks the death of one of our most favorable and forbearing men in our history, John C. Calhoun. Calhoun had always been a man of great vigor and zeal, uncompromising in his approach…
Brad PondApril 16, 2021
Robert E. Lee's tenure as President of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) should be regarded as one of the most important events in American educational history, and it was for decades. He saved the struggling school, recruited young men from around the South, and instituted the honor code, a set of principles still used by students at the…
Philip LeighApril 15, 2021
During the past half century, there has been an ever-increasing tide of derogatory comments about the South in general and the Confederacy in particular. In more recent years, what began merely as verbal sneers and written slurs have now evolved into far more sinister acts of actual violence being perpetrated on our memorials and monuments. Even worse, there is now…
John MarquardtApril 14, 2021
A Review of Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation (W.W. Norton, 2019) by Steve Luxenberg In 21st-Century America, there are precious few mediums through which the issue of race can be addressed with even a modicum of rationality. One of the few means still available is the thorough, well-researched work produced by…
Joshua DoggrellApril 13, 2021
We have been told that the first shot fired in the "Civil War” was fired by the Confederacy at Fort Sumter in response to the Lincoln government’s attempt to rearm and re-supply that federal installation. The Sumter matter is important as after all the debate over the causes of the War are exhausted, there is always that one charge made…
Valerie ProtopapasApril 12, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute April 5-9, 2021 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Political Correctness, Woke, Slavery, Secession, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-256
Brion McClanahanApril 10, 2021
Take up the White Man’s burden – Ye dare not stoop to less –Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness;By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do,The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your Gods and you… - Rudyard Kipling, from The White Man’s Burden (1) *** African slaves – purchased from African…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.April 9, 2021
Major League Baseball on 2 April announced that both the All Star Game and the draft would no longer be held in Atlanta as retribution for Georgia’s recent election laws. "I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year's All-Star Game and MLB Draft,” explained MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. The…
Casey ChalkApril 8, 2021
On the Ingraham Angle recently, guest, Craig Shirley offered an opinion that should cheer the people who have read (best seller) The South Was Right. Even those who haven’t read it but understand that the 1776 “founding” drivel of the Eric Foner socialist-mindset historical revision, is just that: drivel. Shirley, who is the author of five books on Ronald Reagan…
Paul H. YarbroughApril 7, 2021
A review of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (St. Martin's Press, 2021) by Ty Seidule A number of good historians have written reviews recently of Ty Seidule's book, Robert E. Lee and Me, including historian Phil Leigh who produced the video, Robert E. Lee and (Woke General) Please Like Me.…
Gene Kizer, Jr.April 6, 2021
Three years ago, Woke General Ty Seidule of West Point addressed the students and faculty at Washington and Lee University on the life and character of Robert E. Lee. He aimed to tarnish Lee's reputation and primacy at the institution and insisted that Lee's name and legacy be removed from the campus. Some responded that Seidule was "speaking truth to…
Abbeville InstituteApril 5, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute March 29 - April 2, 2021 Topics: History, John C. Calhoun, Southern Music, Southern Culture, Southern Tradition, Woke Social Justice https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-255
Brion McClanahanApril 3, 2021
“Take but degree away, untune that string,And hark! what discord follows! Each thing meetsIn mere oppugnancy”—Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida One of William Gilmore Simms’ abiding concerns was the almost complete absence of a profession of literature in the South. Prior to the 1850’s the South had produced only two professional writers of any note—Simms, himself, of course, and Edgar Allan…
Jack TrotterApril 2, 2021
It’s strange to think that until 1962 — when the Houston’s Colt .45’s enjoyed their inaugural season as an expansion team — the only baseball teams in the South were on its northernmost borderlands: Baltimore, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Of course, like all professional sports, baseball is about money, and profits are easily made in densely-populated urban centers, of…
Casey ChalkApril 1, 2021
Sometimes, you need to go halfway around the world in order to make a point, especially if the point to be made is not a simple one. This is one of those times. Also, it’s probably past time that I should explain the difference between a Yankee and a Northerner. “Northerner” is a geographic term that refers to anyone not…
Tom DanielMarch 31, 2021
No American is more vilified than John C. Calhoun. A recent biography has labeled him the American "heretic," and it has become fashionable to blame every political problem in American on this long deceased statesman. Is this true or fair? Calhoun was well respected during his lifetime and served in almost every important position in the United States government. He…
Brion McClanahanMarch 30, 2021
Any fool can write history, and many do. Please do not assume that I mean by this statement to vaunt the “expert” and slight the amateur. In writing history the amateur is sometimes gifted, and there is no more pestiferous fool than the smug, pretentious “expert” who thinks of his own mind as the repository of ultimate truth. What a…
Clyde WilsonMarch 29, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute March 22-26, 2021 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Ty Seidule, Southern Manners, Southern Tradition, Southern Politics, Decentralization https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-254
Brion McClanahanMarch 27, 2021
A white house sits on the outskirts of a small town in upstate South Carolina. It is modest in both size and appearance, and rather old, and in front of it next to the highway is a large cross which appears to have taken some money and effort to erect. There is a sign which invites any passerby to stop…
Tom HerveyMarch 26, 2021
Published in 2016, the book Our Man in Charleston tells the story of Robert Bunch (1820-1881), the British consul in Charleston, South Carolina, who is described in the subtitle as “Britain’s Secret Agent.”Bunch was not, for the most part, a secret agent, but he did somewhat covertly keep his government informed about conditions and developments in South Carolina. In correspondence…
Karen StokesMarch 25, 2021
Many today feel that true Southerners living in the eleven States of the former Confederacy are, in many ways, once again fighting for their very existence and face the dismal prospect of the South they once knew becoming, as in Margaret Mitchel’s classic novel, a dream that will all too soon be gone with the wind. Virtually everything they now…
John MarquardtMarch 24, 2021
A serial review of books numbering the States after a dissolution of the Union. A review of Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy (W.W. Norton, 1993) by George F. Kennan and The Nine Nations of North America (Houghton Mifflin, 1981) by Joel Garreau. Although his suggestion that the United States might be better off breaking into 12…
Terry HulseyMarch 23, 2021
Ty Seidule's mea culpa memoir, Robert E. Lee and Me, has generated the predictable supporters: mainstream media outlets, leftist dominated history departments, and neoconservative "intellectuals." This says more about Seidule than his book. He just wants to be loved. On the other hand, his book is a collection of half-truths and cherry picked propaganda designed to meet his "opinion" of…
Philip LeighMarch 22, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute March 15-19, 2021 Topics: John C. Calhoun, Woke Politics, Southern Tradition, War Crimes https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-253
Brion McClanahanMarch 20, 2021
I read this piece to the Jackson Writers Guild a year ago. Since then, we’ve not been able to meet. Here it is again. A southern writer can collect more stories from a back-porch conversation than from hours of creative writing instruction or a ten-day cruise through the Panama Canal. It’s especially true on Friday night when everybody kicks backs,…
Averyell A. KesslerMarch 19, 2021
Editor's Note: This speech was delivered before the Senate on March 12, 1910, at the dedication of John C. Calhoun's statue in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. Address of Mr. (Henry Cabot) Lodge, of Massachusetts, United States Senate, 1910 Mr. PRESIDENT: When the senior Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Tillman), whose illness we all deplore, did me the…
Henry Cabot LodgeMarch 18, 2021
A review of The Greatest of All Leathernecks (LSU Press, 2019) by Joseph Simon. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in eastern North Carolina along the Atlantic shore or was blessed to wear the insignia of the United States Marines is well-aware of the name John A. Lejeune. In this biography by Joseph Simon we are introduced to…
Rev. Benjamin GlaserMarch 16, 2021
It is time to consider the crimes committed against Southern prisoners of war by their federal captors. In 1903, Adj. Gen. F. C. Ainsworth estimated that more than 30,000 Union and 26,000 Confederates died in captivity (that is 12% died in the North and 15.5% in the South). However, the numbers and the death rate of Confederate prisoners were vastly…
Valerie ProtopapasMarch 15, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute March 8-12, 2021 Topics: Cancel Culture, Yankees, VMI, Civil Rights, Andrew Jackson https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-252
Brion McClanahanMarch 13, 2021
As part of its campaign to pander to the important and urgent needs of African-Americans with extremely divisive yet ultimately performative identity politics, the Biden-Harris administration has announced that it will resume Barack Obama’s decision in 2015 to remove Andrew Jackson from the twenty-dollar bill and replace him with Harriet Tubman. Jonathan Waldman’s celebratory and condescending column in The Washington…
James Rutledge RoeschMarch 12, 2021
The Virginia Military Institute, ever the underdog. . . . For longtime VMI football fans, the above score may be all-too-painfully reminiscent. I recall the first time I heard of VMI. It was a University of Maryland vs. VMI football game in 1971. I was captivated by VMI from then on and began there as a “Rat” five years later.…
Forrest L. MarionMarch 11, 2021
These past several years, we Americans have been living in an accelerating anti-cultural vortex. Day by day the Yankee juggernaut gains steam. Once content with carpetbombing Hanoi and Baghdad, the Yankees are now taking their civilizational demolition derby back South, where it all began. Topple the Southern statues, spraypaint the Southern monuments, mock the Southern accents and folkways, and cancel…
Jason MorganMarch 10, 2021
“Dear me, what’s the good of being a Southerner?” asks one of the characters on the very first page of Henry James’ nineteenth-century novel The Bostonians. Though this question may not be the most important theme of James’ widely-hailed book, the idiosyncrasies and paradoxes of the South serve as a backdrop for the entire story. Indeed, James, a native New…
Casey ChalkMarch 9, 2021
I have written here before about my beloved hometown of Tuskegee, Alabama. Forgive me if you’ve read this before, but Tuskegee was unique among small rural Southern towns because of its large, well-educated, and fairly empowered Black population. I wish I could find the reference source for this data, but years ago I read that the Black-to-White ratio in Tuskegee…
Tom DanielMarch 8, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 1-5, 2021 Topics: Cancel Culture, Political Correctness, Southern Tradition, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-251
Brion McClanahanMarch 6, 2021
Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which He hath made crooked? Ecclesiastes 7: 13 Scott Howard, in his book The Trans-gender Industrial Complex, says on pages 164-5: The so-called Enlightenment made man the center of the universe, a premise no less ridiculous than the not-long-discarded geocentric theory. When man is the center of the universe, he is God -…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.March 5, 2021
During last week’s ice storm misery, I thought a lot about my southern upbringing and the good things I’ve received from my small, poor state with a jagged past and uncertain future. I received many of these gifts from loving parents, my scamp of a grandfather, and friends, but also from enthusiastic Sunday School folks, teachers, and pearls of Power…
Averyell A. KesslerMarch 4, 2021
It was a late night in Boone County, Arkansas when me and my newly married wife attended a party not far from our home in Lead Hill. The ol' boy that invited us had built a fire and we were all sitting around, drinking and telling stories, feeding the fire and enjoying the camaraderie, when his granddaughter walked out with…
Travis HoltMarch 3, 2021
In June 1863, Fitzgerald Ross, a British military man who was collecting information about the war in America, paid a visit to Richmond, Virginia, the capital city of the Confederacy. There he met with some high officials of the government, one of whom was Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. Ross described their meeting his 1865 book A Visit to…
Karen StokesMarch 2, 2021
Two terms that are tossed about with great liberality today are “racist” and “white supremacist.” Like other words with specific definitions, such as “fascist” and “Nazi,” these labels are losing their specific social, economic, political, and legal meaning, and have essentially become nondescript slurs thrown at anyone a Progressive disagrees with.All of these words are routinely used against those who…
Rev. Larry BeaneMarch 1, 2021
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Feb 22-26, 2021 Topics: George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Political Correctness, Southern History, Nullification https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-250
Brion McClanahanFebruary 27, 2021
“The Burning of Atlanta,” 82 minutes. Produced and directed by Christopher Forbes. 2020. I have written a great deal on the Abbeville Institute site in the past on the portrayal of the South in films. I have tried to keep up with the subject. So, I took this from the shelf in fond anticipation. Few times in my life have I…
Clyde WilsonFebruary 26, 2021
The principal character in Joyce Maynard’s 1992 novel “To Die For” said that if you look too closely at a black and white photograph, all you see are a series of black dots on a white background and then added that one must step back in order to see the big picture. That, of course, is the problem today with…
John MarquardtFebruary 25, 2021
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 14:29:17 +0000 Joseph R. Stromberg Download MP3
Joseph R. StrombergFebruary 24, 2021
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Joseph R. StrombergFebruary 24, 2021
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Catharine Savage BrosmanFebruary 24, 2021
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Catharine Savage BrosmanFebruary 24, 2021
The War to Prevent Southern Independence: My Myth or Yours by Clyde Wilson Read by Donald Livingston
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Donald LivingstonFebruary 24, 2021
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Kent Masterson BrownFebruary 24, 2021
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Joseph R. StrombergFebruary 24, 2021
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