Podcast

Podcast Episode 150

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Dec 10-14, 2018 Topics: Political Correctness, Southern History, Southern Culture, Southern Music, Southern Sport https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-150
Brion McClanahan
December 15, 2018
Blog

Southern Music is American Music

Why do Southerners continue to fall into that trap where we only talk about the years1861-1865?  There are almost 400 years of Southern culture to talk about, yet we keep limiting ourselves to just four of them.  And it doesn’t matter how much of an expert someone becomes about Fredericksburg, Yankees will always have that same ace-in-the-hole comeback, “You lost.” But…
Tom Daniel
December 14, 2018
Blog

Shoeless Joe

Two of the poems I most admire are very short. One is simply a name - Shoeless Joe Jackson. Read it aloud and feel the assonance and alliteration. The other is a phrase Say it ain't so, Joe, delivered sadly, with its final rhyme. There is a mythic quality in both of these poems. The name, Shoeless Joe Jackson; the…
Ray Merlock
December 13, 2018
Blog

Black Southerners in American Wars

President Trump recently used his executive powers to designate a national monument to honor African Americans’ role as soldiers during the War Between the States. The monument will be a 380-acre site in Kentucky to commemorate Camp Nelson, which was one of the largest recruitment stations for the United States Colored Troops. The unfortunate reality is that the monument will…
Michael Martin
December 12, 2018
Review Posts

Forrest McDonald and the Art of History

A review of Recovering the Past: A Historian's Memoir (University Press of Kansas, 2004) by Forrest McDonald “History is marble, and remains forever cold, even under the most artistic hand, unless life is breathed into it by the imagination. Then the marble becomes flesh and blood—then it feels, it thinks, it moves, and is immortal.” —Charles Gayarré (1805-1895) It is…
Stephen M. Klugewicz
December 11, 2018
Blog

Social Justice and Clemson University

In November 2018 Will Hiott, Director and Curator of Historic Properties at Clemson University, included a thinly disguised political paper from Clemson University History Professor Rhondda Robinson Thomas as part a packet distributed to Historic Properties Advisory Committee members. The essay has no relevance to ongoing volunteer efforts toward the Preservation of Historic campus buildings and is nothing more than…
Andrew P. Calhoun
December 10, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 149

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Dec 3-7, 2018 Topics: Agrarianism, United States Constitution, John Marshall, Andrew Johnson, Thomas Johnson https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-149
Brion McClanahan
December 8, 2018
Blog

Steady Hand at the Wheel

Thomas Johnson was born in Calvert County, Maryland, on his father's lands near the mouth of St. Leonard's Creek. He was the son of Thomas and Dorcas Sedgwick Johnson and the grandson of Thomas Johnson, barrister, who was the first of the line to reside in Maryland, having fled there after running away with a chancery ward. All of these…
M.E. Bradford
December 7, 2018
Blog

Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson was born into poverty in rural North Carolina. His father died after saving some town locals from drowning and left the family to fend for themselves in a two-room shack. A young Andrew began working as a tailor’s apprentice and developed an appreciation for the laboring class early on. Johnson was poorly educated and learned how to write…
Michael Martin
December 6, 2018
Blog

The Problem with Lawyers and the Constitution

On November 10, 2018, the Abbeville Institute hosted an event called The Revival of Nullification and Secession in Dallas, TX. The purpose was to educate people on the means by which we can escape the hatred and hostility that is consuming not only headlines, but our very souls. The population of these United States is split pretty much equally in…
Suzanne Sherman
December 5, 2018
Review Posts

The Man Who Made the Supreme Court

A review of John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court (Basic Books, 2018) by Richard Brookhiser John Marshall presents a curious problem for Southern history. How can a man, born and bred in the same State, who breathed the same air and shared the same blood with Thomas Jefferson, have been such an ardent nationalist? The same question…
Brion McClanahan
December 4, 2018
Blog

The Tragedy of Land Use in the South

For all of the pontificating of the virtues of the South, we have increasingly seen our agrarian landscape polluted by strip malls and environmental contamination. I make the case that neither of these things are inherently Southern in character, and as I believe, are contributing negatives to the soul and character of our region. We must work to correct these…
Nicole Williams
December 3, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 148

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Nov 26-30, 2018 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Southern music, Southern culture, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-148
Brion McClanahan
December 1, 2018
Blog

The King and the Fool

The King of Rock and Roll brought himself up by his bootstraps, served Uncle Sam as a soldier and before his early demise came he had made an honest fortune for himself and many others. For that, he is belittled by those who hardly knew him. “A little nod to the good old days, back when black visionaries could invent…
Paul H. Yarbrough
November 30, 2018
Blog

The Washington Post March of Infamy

Yesterday The Washington Post published an Op-Ed by former General Stanley McChrystal in which he boasted of removing a long-displayed Robert E. Lee painting from his home to “send it on its way to a local landfill for burial.” It is but one of perhaps a dozen Post articles during the last three years disparaging Lee, Confederate monuments and Southern heritage.  All condemn Lee…
Philip Leigh
November 29, 2018
Review Posts

How Europeans Viewed the War

A review of Slavery, Secession, & Civil War: Views from the United Kingdom and Europe, 1856-1865 (Scarecrow Press, 2007) by Charles Adams. At long last Charles Adams’s new book, Slavery, Secession, & Civil War: Views from the United Kingdom and Europe, 1856-1865, has been published. I’ve been anxiously waiting for this book for about five years. The book contains about…
Thomas DiLorenzo
November 27, 2018
Blog

Operation Desert Storm: Lee or Sherman

As the brilliant American military victory in the Persian Gulf approaches its second anniversary, the focus has shifted from the emotions of homecoming celebrations to the seriousness of lessons learned and lessons validated. While the ingredients of victory are a combination of many factors, from logistics to training to armament, history has shown that one of the most important elements…
Jeffrey Addicott
November 26, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 147

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Nov 19-23, 2018. Topics: Southern literature, black slaveowners, historical myths https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-147
Brion McClanahan
November 24, 2018
Blog

How to Run the American Revolution: Belated Advice

In the spirit of historical course correction, I herewith submit some thoughts to those who may find themselves in an American Revolution between 1774 and 1783. 1. Rule number one. Don’t cooperate with any leaders, even if you appointed them. If you do, such cooperation will later be taken as proof that you were just obeying the commands of some…
Joseph R. Stromberg
November 23, 2018
Blog

Driving Through Dixie

Citizens of Dixie…. This is a call to arms, or rather, a call to your legs and feet.  Get up off that couch! If you don’t have family plans, ballgame, school play, or church event- get out and tour Dixie!  Take a few hours, a day, or a weekend, and see the beauty and history of Dixie. Start local; tour…
Brett Moffatt
November 22, 2018
Blog

Poe of Virginia

The opinion has been often stated that Edgar Allan Poe was bizarre and amoral; that he was a lover of morbid beauty only; that he was unrelated to worldly circumstances-aloof from the affairs of the world; that his epitaph might well be: “Out of space-out of time.” But it is dangerous to attempt to separate any historical figure from his…
Robert E. Merry
November 21, 2018
Review Posts

A Black Sugar Planter in the Old South

A review of Andrew Durnford, A Black Sugar Planter in the Antebellum South by David O. Whitten, (Transaction Publishers, 1995). I In the year 1800 the Viceroyalty of New Spain was still intact, and Louisiana still part of the Spanish Empire. So, too, was Mexico, Texas, all the Southwest of today's America, north to Kansas and clear to the West Coast…
Vito Mussomeli
November 20, 2018
Blog

How Jakob Emig Fought the Yankees

From the front porch, Jakob Emig could look across fields where his winter wheat greened nicely. An old man now, with sons gone off to war, he lived mainly in a woman's world of married daughters and daughters-in-law on farms scattered nearby. He himself lived alone, widowed now for two years, hard work during war-time finally having taken its toll…
James Everett Kibler
November 19, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 146

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Nov 12-16, 2018 Topics: Secession, Nullification, Federalism, American Imperialism, Southern Culture, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-146
Brion McClanahan
November 17, 2018
Blog

Securing the Blessings: Today the South, Tomorrow….

We are threatened by a powerful, dangerous, conspiracy of evil men. The conspiracy is the enemy of free institutions and civil liberties, of democracy and free speech; it is the enemy of religion. It is cruel and oppressive to its subjects. Its economic system is unfree and inefficient, condemning its people to poverty and deprivation. It has a relentless determination…
Ludwell H. Johnson
November 16, 2018
Blog

Defusing a Second Civil War Through Peaceful Secession?

Secession? Nullification? A second Civil War in the presently not-so United States of America? According to a historic and highly fascinating Abbeville Institute event that took place November 9 and 10, 2018 in Dallas, Texas, a number of influential American thinkers, political figures and activists gathered to discuss how peaceful secession and nullification could very well be one of the most important…
Matthew Silber
November 15, 2018
Blog

The Southern Political Tradition is Winning

Nationalist Jeff Sessions gets canned and a nullifier takes his job. This is actually an odd twist of fate. A friend of mine knows Sessions personally, and he continually expressed disappointment at Sessions's actions as AG. Jeff Sessions is from Alabama and is named after two famous Confederate heroes, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard.  His replacement, Matthew Whitaker, hails from…
Brion McClanahan
November 14, 2018
Review Posts

A Visit to Clay Bank County

A review of four novels by Dr. James Everett Kibler, Jr: Walking Toward Home (Pelican Publishing, 2004), Memory’s Keep (Pelican Publishing, 2006), The Education of Chauncey Doolittle (Pelican Publishing, 2008), and Tiller (Shotwell Publishing, 2016). At the heart of every good work of fiction are characters that are believable and a real or imagined setting that allows readers to inhabit,…
Robin Spencer Lattimore
November 13, 2018
Blog

A Return to Barbarism

Prehistoric warfare was total war in which victors normally killed all enemy women, children, and adult males, according to groundbreaking research published by Lawrence H. Keeley, in his book War Before Civilization1. Keeley wrote that primitive war was always a struggle between societies and their economies, and warriors carried out that struggle. Rome fielded great armies, in historical time, and…
Norman Black
November 12, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 145

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Nov 5-9, 2018. Topics: History, Southern Culture, Political Correctness https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-145
Brion McClanahan
November 10, 2018
Blog

Why Aren’t Americans Interested in History?

The study of history cannot be neatly contained behind the tall foreboding doors of an ivory tower nor swept under the rugs of dusty corner offices housing stacks of paper. It bleeds into other fields as it serves to inform both individual and group identity. It gives context to the current world and helps one understand their place in it…
Jonathan Harris
November 9, 2018
Blog

History and Social Justice Activism

I recently traveled with ten undergraduate students to the Conference on Faith and History (CFH) held at Calvin College, Grand Rapids Michigan.  This was an exciting and enriching trip for our students.  They, along with other history students from across the country, presented research papers at the undergraduate portion of the conference. For the past fifteen years I have attended…
Samuel C. Smith
November 8, 2018
Blog

Charleston’s Faulty “Contextualization”

I grew up in Summerville, South Carolina, just a few miles from historic Charleston. This quiet little town is separated from the Holy City by some plantations, swamps, and marsh but shares the same fascination with local history. Folklore states that Summerville is the birthplace of sweet tea, the source being a newspaper article from 1890 that lists the menu…
Michael Martin
November 7, 2018
Review Posts

An Arch Rebel Like Myself

A review of “An Arch Rebel Like Myself;” Dan Showalter and the Civil War in California and Texas, by by Gene Armistead and Robert D. Arconti (North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2018). Discussion of the War for Southern Independence often includes facts about who were the last to lay down their arms.  It is commonly argued that Gen. Stand Waite’s…
Daniel Peters
November 6, 2018
Blog

Stone Mountain and the “Monument Man”

When National Socialism came to power in Germany in 1933, it sought an ethnic and cultural cleansing of the country. Jewish culture and art was not considered fully human and underwent a purge. Once Nazi Germany started World War II in 1939, it also sought the same purge for all of Europe. Art considered Germanic was confiscated from all over…
Timothy A. Duskin
November 5, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 144

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 29 - Nov 2, 2018 Topics: Southern political tradition, Lincoln https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-144
Brion McClanahan
November 3, 2018
Blog

Was Lincoln a “Conservative?”

The latest in Lincoln polemics comes courtesy of Rich Lowry, editor of National Review.  In the latest issue of the latter, Lowry both promotes his new work and takes aim at those of our 16th president’s detractors that are to Lowry’s political right—the “Lincoln haters.” The “Lincoln haters,” Lowry insists, are limited “mostly, but not entirely,” to a libertarian “fringe”…
Jack Kerwick
November 2, 2018
Blog

McChrystal vs. Lee

Retired General Stanley McChrystal who never led troops in a winning war bravely threw out a picture of Robert E. Lee because his wife apparently made him do so. As a defense of the action he went into a brief explanation that he no longer considered Lee one of the great leaders. Lee, he said was a great soldier for…
Paul H. Yarbrough
November 1, 2018
Blog

A Neoconservative Wakes Up

Pro-Southern writers have long been suspicious of Victor Davis Hanson, given his association with the neoconservative ascendance of the Bush II era.   Yet unlike most of his former colleagues, the California classicist seems to have learned something from the dramatic transformations of recent years.  His book Mexifornia marked his enlistment in the unfashionable cause of border control, in part because…
Jerry Salyer
October 31, 2018
Review Posts

From Founding Fathers to Fire Eaters

A review of From Founding Fathers to Fire-Eaters: The Constitutional Doctrine of States’ Rights in the Old South (Columbia, SC: Shotwell Publishing, 2018) by James Rutledge Roesch. Mr. James Rutledge Roesch is doing God’s work with the publication of his book, From Founding Fathers to Fire-Eaters: The Constitutional Doctrine of States’ Rights in the Old South.  Riding to the sound…
John Devanny
October 30, 2018
Blog

Progressive Neo-Confederates?

Greetings fellow neo-Confederates. You have been right all along. How do I know this? Hillary Clinton said so, and if the smartest woman in the world said it, then it has to be true. Of course, she did not directly call herself a "neo-Confederate," but the progressives have rediscovered federalism and by default have vindicated every evil "neo-Confederate" in America.…
Brion McClanahan
October 29, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 143

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institutes, Oct 22-26, 2018. Topics: Secession, Nullification, Federalism, Lincoln, the Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-143
Brion McClanahan
October 27, 2018
Blog

The “Desert Blooming Like The Rose.”

In 21st–century America, it’s difficult to imagine life without the ability to access information at an electronic click or command. But it was not always so. Two centuries ago, outside of New England, many small towns and rural communities lacked the institutions and the formally educated individuals (especially higher-learning institutions and pastors) that might have been expected to provide the…
Forrest L. Marion
October 26, 2018
Blog

An Act of Tyranny

Constitutional Violation: Amendment One. Freedom of Speech Denied. Vallandigham Imprisoned in Ohio. “From the beginning to the end of these proceedings law and justice were set at naught;…the President should have rescinded the sentence and released Vallandigham:…a large portion of the Republican press of the east condemned Vallandigham’s arrest and the tribunal before which he was arraigned.” James Ford Rhodes, historian and…
John M. Taylor
October 25, 2018
Blog

Was the Old South Feudal?

Was the Old South Feudal? Eugene Genovese wrote several works on antebellum slavery that essentially argued the Old South was neither feudal nor capitalist. His book Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism and earlier writings on slave economies postulated that the Southern mode of production was pre-capitalist and utilized a type…
Michael Martin
October 24, 2018
Review Posts

Lincoln As He Really Was

A review of Lincoln: As He Really Was by Charles T. Pace (Shotwell Publishing, 2018). Abraham Lincoln was American’s Robespierre, but his crimes only reflected the character flaws he had while in office. Dr. Charles T. Pace, a medical doctor from Greenville, North Carolina, has written a masterful political biography of Lincoln. He portrays Lincoln as a “politician’s politician, a…
Michael Potts
October 23, 2018
Blog

Could “Calexit” Create a Left-Right Confederacy?

“Politics makes for strange bedfellows.” The 2016 Presidential election of Donald Trump produced the wedding of Bible Belt social conservatives and a flamboyant New York Billionaire with a legitimately questionable history of less than “Christian” moral social values. But the wedding of these “strange bedfellows” appears to be working out quite well—at least for the time being. As presidential politics…
James Ronald Kennedy
October 22, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 142

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 15-19, 2018 Topics: Decentralization, Secession, Nullification, Culture War, Political Correctness, Agrarianism https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-142
Brion McClanahan
October 20, 2018
Blog

Accuse-Convict-Remove

In the past few weeks two major interrelated events took place in these once United States of America that should serve as a warning for all Americans.  First, after the most contentious confirmation process for a Supreme Court justice in over 100 years, America has displayed its political-cultural division to the world and second, the ever-growing campaign of cultural genocide…
Walter D. (Donnie) Kennedy
October 18, 2018
Blog

Justice Kavanaugh and the Triumph of Symbol over Reality

“History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Attributed to Mark Twain Americans at their best are a pragmatic “can do” folk, be it “Yankee ingenuity” or good old fashioned “get ‘r done.”  We are at our worst when we stray from this pragmatic bent into the misty fields of sacerdotal ideology, which is to say when we ascribe…
John Devanny
October 17, 2018
Review Posts

Taking Root

A review of Taking Root: The Nature Writing of William and Adam Summer of Pomaria by James Kibler (editor) and Wendell Berry (Foreword) (University of South Carolina Press, 2017). Perhaps land is more important to the Southern tradition than any other aspect of the region’s experience. Historians continue to grapple with questions that ask how Southerners understood land and nature.…
Alan Harrelson
October 16, 2018
Blog

A Red and Blue Coalition?

On June 20, 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Crawford: “If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in union, I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let us separate.’” Jefferson thought secession can be a good thing. Lincoln in his first inaugural presented secession as something always bad: “Secession,” he said, “is…
Donald Livingston
October 15, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 141

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 8-12, 2018. Topics: Southern Founders, Andrew Jackson, Poor Whites of the Old and New South. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-141
Brion McClanahan
October 13, 2018
Blog

Southern Memories of the Good Ol’ Days

Having traveled in all fifty states, I must admit there are certain areas of this great country that continue to draw me back, time and again, to enjoy their natural beauty, pleasing climate, and their historical sites. The most fascinating place I’ve traveled is the tiny village of Barrow, Alaska, the northern most of cities in the United States. However,…
Cary Lindsay
October 12, 2018
Blog

The Old South’s Poor Whites

There was a time, before universal white male suffrage and the closing of the frontier, when the poor whites of the South were considered shiftless and without caste. If we were to look at the South as a hierarchical system, it could be argued that the poor whites were a kind of pariah. There’s a common misconception that all whites…
Michael Martin
October 11, 2018
Blog

What if We Listened to the Southern Founders?

Mel Bradford's outstanding tome A Better Guide Than Reason lifted that phrase from a speech John Dickinson made during the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. Dickinson worried that the delegates to what we now call the "Constitutional Convention" were insistent on crafting a document that would reinvent the government of the United States, something James Madison proposed with his now famous…
Brion McClanahan
October 10, 2018
Review Posts

In Defense of Andrew Jackson

A review of In Defense of Andrew Jackson by Brad Birzer (Regnery History, 2018). Andrew Jackson, who Davy Crockett famously mocked as “the great man in the white house,” occupies an entire epoch in American history. In almost every conceivable way, he was a classic paradox – a benevolent crusader to his friends, and a despotic tyrant to his enemies.…
Dave Benner
October 9, 2018
Blog

The Supreme Selection Supported by Senator Sasse and the Several Dwarfs

Why does congress have hearings for people who are paraded through their judiciary committee- noise for examination as to their qualifications. Quality of what?  Those jobs, for example the Supreme Court Justices, certainly only require little more than a reasonably educated person. And the people examining these people seemingly requires virtually no intelligence at all. It is a monstrous show…
Paul H. Yarbrough
October 8, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 140

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 1-5, 2018. Topics: The New South and Nu South, Ty Cobb, Southern history, Southern culture. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-140
Brion McClanahan
October 6, 2018
Blog

The Left Edge of Insanity

A Short Story of a Dystopian America To my fellow Associates: My name is Diversity-26, although my family and friends knew me as John before the Great Purge of Christianity. Today, as part of my punishment, I have been required to give you my story and beg you all for forgiveness for having disrupted your safe and happy lives. According…
Lewis Liberman
October 5, 2018
Blog

Why Was General Earl Van Dorn Murdered?

In some ways, historians are like anyone else: they hate to make mistakes. But if you write enough, sooner or later, you will make a mistake—I assure you. I certainly have, but I have been more fortunate than most. Sometimes, mistakes benefit you. What I suppose are my two most significant errors to date came more than two decades apart,…
Samuel W. Mitcham
October 4, 2018
Blog

Confederate Soldiers Were Not Traitors

The following is a letter-to-the-editor of the Charleston, SC Post and Courier September 15, 2018 defending the crew of the CSS Hunley. It applies to all Confederates soldiers. Dear Editor of The Post and Courier, A letter writer on September 12, 2018 is adamant that the proposed museum for the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley should not be incorporated into…
Gene Kizer, Jr.
October 3, 2018
Review Posts

The Real Ty Cobb

A Review of Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen, (Simon & Schuster, 2015). Baseball fans familiar with major league records remember Ty Cobb for his .366 lifetime batting average during the dead-ball era. Some may even remember that he held more than 90 baseball records. During his career, Cobb was the idol of millions of fans and received…
Norman Black
October 2, 2018
Blog

Reconstructing the New South

“Nashville’s going to be a progressive, diverse city and there’s nothing that you can do about it. Millennials moving from up north and foreigners immigrating from across the border have changed the city’s population and thus changed the city’s way of life – for the better. Nashville isn’t a Southern city anymore and is never going to be a Southern…
James Rutledge Roesch
October 1, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 139

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Sept 17-28, 2018 Topics: Federalism, Southern Culture, Southern History https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-139
Brion McClanahan
September 29, 2018
Blog

What’s in a (Generational) Name?

The whole 20th century was a horrible time for the friends of tradition:  the mild rule of Europe’s Christian monarchs - Habsburgs, Romanovs, and others - was replaced by the ruthless Communists and later the despotism of the European Union, amongst other totalitarian ‘isms’; Mao overthrew Confucius in China; the natural rhythms of the agrarian life in many places of…
Walt Garlington
September 28, 2018
Blog

Was Jesse James a Southern Robin Hood?

There is a dichotomy to how people view Jesse James. While some have viewed him as a murdering thief, others have argued that he was like a modern-day Robin Hood. To really understand the man requires an examination of his life and an honest analysis of the events that shaped him in Missouri. WHO WAS JESSE JAMES? Jesse James was…
Michael Martin
September 27, 2018
Blog

Calhoun, Not Webster, Was Right

Writing about the “Great Triumvirate” of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun during the third Nullification controversy in America of 1828-1832, and in particular about the Webster-Hayne debate of 1830, the late Prof. Merrill D. Peterson made this telling point:  “In the course of answering Hayne point by point, Webster unfolded a  conception of the Union and the Constitution that stood in stark…
W. Kirk Wood
September 26, 2018
Review Posts

Republicans Knew Where Their Brot Was Buttered In 1860

A Review of The Election of 1860: “A Campaign Fraught with Consequences” by Michael F. Holt (University Press of Kansas, 2017). Chapter One of Michael F. Holt’s contribution to the corpulent body of work covering the election of 1860 is called “Republican Storm Rising” and it was political perfect storm that blew Abraham Lincoln into the White House. One of,…
Joe Wolverton
September 25, 2018
Blog

Rhetoric, Reality, and the Late Unpleasantness

The 1850s is viewed by most scholars as the crucial decade of the sectional crisis that resulted in the War Between the States. The Great Triumvirate of John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster had passed from the scene.  These giants were replaced by lesser lights, and “the war came” as Mr. Lincoln claimed.  As historical explanations go, there…
John Devanny
September 24, 2018
Blog

First Kiss

Back in 1958, when I was fifteen years old, I made the most critical and important decision in my youthful life. I made the choice any all-American fifteen-year-old farm boy would have made. It was time for me to get my first kiss from a girl. You see, I had a crush on Mary Sue! Mary Sue and her brother…
Cary Lindsay
September 21, 2018
Blog

Six Reasons to Love the Confederate Battle Flag

Some claim offense by the red white and blue image of the Confederate Battle flag and demand its immediate removal from public places. Others embrace it and fly it proudly. Why would in individual chose one side over the other? Here are some possible reasons. 1. Christianity A prominent feature of the Confederate Battle Flag is the “X” emblazoned boldly…
Lola Sanchez
September 20, 2018
Blog

Fighters

Editor's Note: The text is taken from Tom Skeyhill's, His Own Life Story And War Diary, a collection of interviews Skeyhill conducted with World War I Medal of Honor recipient Alvin C. York of Pall Mall, TN in the 1920s. I ain’t had much of the larnin’ that comes out of books. I’m a-trying to overcome that, but it ain’t…
Alvin C. York
September 19, 2018
Review Posts

The Legacy of Anti-Federalism

A review of The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828 by Saul Cornell (University of North Carolina Press, 1999). The Anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the Constitution have not fared well among American historians and political , scientists. Nothing reveals more starkly the near-complete disinterest in Anti-Federalist thought than a bibliographical check of books and essays on…
James McClellan
September 18, 2018
Blog

Fractured Federalism

Proposals to turn national programs over to the states are abound in Washington. The failure of federal programs over the past 60 years demonstrates that centralized solutions to local problems are ineffective. Federalism—the constitutional distribution of power between the states and national government— is once again on the agenda. Lessons regarding centralization have been learned the hard way. For example,…
William J. Watkins
September 17, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 138

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Sept 10-14, 2018. Topics: Southern literature, the War, Southern music, Bobby Horton https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-138
Brion McClanahan
September 15, 2018
Blog

Myth of a Nation

Galactic Imperium News Service (GINS) Special Report: Will Democrats and Republicans in America finally set aside their differences and save the world through the imperial aspirations of big government, a robust Presidential ruler and visionary leaders like Abraham Lincoln? Such are the much heralded promises made surrounding Dinesh D’Lousa’s most recent unveiling of his controversial film, Myth of a Nation:…
Lewis Liberman
September 14, 2018
Blog

Mule Breeding

“Why don’t you get a tractor? You could get more done.” “Don’t need more done.” “But you could get it done faster.” “Faster than what?” “Faster than that mule goes.” The Yankee machine man really wanted to sell this down-south farm boy a tractor on account of the boy seemed to really be struggling with the mule (whom the boy…
Paul H. Yarbrough
September 13, 2018
Blog

When the Yankees Shut Down the First Amendment

Constitutional Violation: Amendment One: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. “Freedom of speech and freedom of the press, precious relics of…
John M. Taylor
September 12, 2018
Review Posts

My Own Darling Wife

A review of My Own Darling Wife: Letters from a Confederate Volunteer by Andrew P. Calhoun (Shotwell Publishing, 2018). This is not just a book of family letters from the War Between the States. You will learn more about the typical Confederate soldier in these 208 pages than in most books. The author of these letters is John Francis Calhoun,…
John C. Whatley
September 11, 2018
Blog

Was the Louisiana Purchase Constitutional?

When the evolution of presidential power in early American history is discussed, it is sometimes alleged that the Louisiana Purchase was a particularly unconstitutional act and an example of presidential malfeasance. According to this line of reasoning, President Thomas Jefferson expanded the bounds of the presidency and betrayed his republican inclinations by favoring desired outcomes over executive restraint. Those that…
Dave Benner
September 10, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 137

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Sept 3-7, 2018 Topics: Secession, nullification, federalism, Thomas Jefferson, United States Constitution. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-137
Brion McClanahan
September 8, 2018
Blog

When New Yorkers Cheered Dixie

On October 31, 1910—seven years after the Wright Brother’s first airplane flight of less than a minute—seventy-five thousand spectators gathered at Belmont Park to watch a day of competition among pioneering aviators. Events culminated with a thirty-six mile round trip race between Belmont Park to the Statue of Liberty. Only three aviators attempted the trip, which had about one million…
Philip Leigh
September 7, 2018
Blog

Calhoun and Modern Economics

Much of John C. Calhoun’s criticism stems from his 1837 speech in the Senate where he stated slavery was “a positive good.” This quote is often paraded as evidence of Southern racism and is used in attempts diminish Calhoun’s legacy. Quite possibly no other politician, aside from Lincoln, is so often misrepresented and misunderstood. The reason is that nowadays, we…
Michael Martin
September 6, 2018
Blog

Upholding Voter ID in the South

The punitive “preclearance” regime under the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) of 1965, imposed on seven “covered” southern states and a number of counties in two others, was essentially invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013.   The lifting of this incubus freed the previously “covered”  states and emboldened others to introduce legislation, notably a requirement…
Michael Arnheim
September 5, 2018
Review Posts

The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson

A review of The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson by David N. Mayer (University of Virginia Press, 1994). Thomas Jefferson’s reputation is that of a great thinker. He is popularly (and I believe wrongly, but that is a different matter) believed to have been the greatest thinker among American’s Revolutionaries. It is as a writer and as an unofficial pontifex…
Kevin R.C. Gutzman
September 4, 2018
Blog

Nullification and Secession: Solutions or Talking Points?

Many of us in the South have maintained our faith in the Constitutional right of nullification and secession despite the efforts of massed, bloody, Yankee bayonets. But is the talk about nullification and secession an earnest effort to put forward solutions to an out of control, Deep State, supreme federal government or is it merely an exercise in heady political…
James Ronald Kennedy
September 3, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 136

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 27-31, 2018 Topics: Fake History, Political Correctness, Alexander Stephens, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-136
Brion McClanahan
September 1, 2018
Blog

Fake News and Fake History

The “Fake News” appellation has been applied to just about every outlet that presents itself as something on the order of a news outlet, manned (yes--the word) by what are christened as journalists. The ill-use of the “J-Word” provides enough tidings for an essay a yard and a half long, but that is another write for another day (Charly Reese…
Paul H. Yarbrough
August 31, 2018
Blog

History as a (Leftist) Weapon

There is a tendency for each generation to assume its opinions are the ultimate correct opinions. But each generation's beliefs are typically modified by succeeding generations. Unfortunately, societal structures are sometimes altered based on contemporary notions that lose credence over time. This is the case with Social Justice Warriors in this generation. They demand that whatever doesn't suit present-day social…
Gail Jarvis
August 30, 2018
Blog

Robert E. Lee vs. Twitter Historians

In June 2017, The Atlantic published a hit-piece on Robert E. Lee titled "The Myth of the Kindly General Lee." The article made the rounds on Leftist echo chamber social media accounts and quickly found favor with the popular Leftist Twitter historians, a collection of "distinguished professors," some without a substantial publication record, who like to trumpet their status as "actual…
Brion McClanahan
August 29, 2018
Review Posts

Union At All Costs

A Review of Union At All Costs: From Confederation to Consolidation by John M. Taylor (Booklocker, 2016). Most of the time, finding historical gems requires a lot of work and often long hours of arduous research. On rare occasions, they just fall into your lap. It is even more unusual for someone to simply drop one onto your plate. However,…
Samuel W. Mitcham
August 28, 2018
Blog

Revisiting the “Cornerstone Speech”

Most mainstream historians point to the “Cornerstone” speech by Alexander Stephens as the clearest piece of evidence that slavery and white supremacy alone were the reasons for Southern secession. After all, most transcriptions show Stephens having stated that the Confederate government was founded on the “great physical, philosophical, and moral truth” of white superiority. A major quote that the historians…
Michael Martin
August 27, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 135

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 20-24, 2018. Topics: Jimmy Carter, Silent Sam, Confederate Monuments, Slavery, Political Correctness, Abraham Lincoln https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-135
Brion McClanahan
August 25, 2018
Blog

Lincoln on Mars

There is a 1909 “Lincoln penny” attached to the probe arm of Curiosity, a unit of currency, as it were, stuck to its palm. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem such a remarkable idea, but on the coin there are three inscriptions: “In God We Trust,” “Liberty,” and the date. That money should precede us in the exploration…
Malcolm McNeill
August 24, 2018
Blog

Silent Sam and Me

In September of 1961, I left my job at a basket factory in Wilmington, North Carolina and hitch-hiked up to Chapel Hill to become a student there. I followed in the path of UNC’s very first student, a boy named Hinton James, who had famously walked those roads up from Pender County back in 1789. As befits the first student…
Ben Jones
August 22, 2018
Review Posts

A Society With Slaves

A review Slave and Free on Virginia’s Eastern Shore by Kirk Mariner (Onancok, VA: Miona Publications, 2014). The book can be purchased by emailing Miona Publications. One of the ironies that plague the proponents of the “South is about slavery and slavery is about the South” school of history is the lack of knowledge we possess regarding the everyday lives and social…
John Devanny
August 21, 2018
Blog

The Last republican President

Jimmy Carter may have been the last Jeffersonian to be president. A recent article in the Washington Post labeled him the "Un-Celebrity President." In either case, Carter is a reflection of a people and a place. He is the most authentic man elected president since Calvin Coolidge, and like Coolidge a true Christian gentleman. At the very minimum, Carter represented the…
Brion McClanahan
August 20, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 134

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 13-17, 2018. Topics: Reconciliation, Southern music, Southern culture, agrarianism, Ronnie Van Zant, Wendell Berry https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-134
Brion McClanahan
August 18, 2018
Blog

End of an Era

I was saddened to hear that Phil Harris had died. I knew the man. You might say we were old friends. As a matter of fact, we first met in 1954 in Monterey, California. I was attending the Army Language School, learning Russian, and Phil was playing in the Bing Crosby Pro-Am tournament. His professional partner was Dutch Harrison, a…
Thomas Landess
August 17, 2018
Blog

The Sounds of the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia

Because we live in such a hurried time, we hear countless “noises” but have little time to appreciate actual “sounds.” Sound is a sensation that you can feel, not just something you can hear. To understand this idea, consider how some musicians have actually played concerts for the deaf, who cannot hear the music but still feel the vibrations. These…
Michael Martin
August 16, 2018
Blog

Anything Is Nice If It Come From Dixieland

In October 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the executive mansion. This was an unprecedented move. No African-American had ever been asked to dine with the president, and while neither Roosevelt or his staff said much of the event, it was surely done in the spirit of reconciliation and Roosevelt's desire to be "the people's…
Brion McClanahan
August 15, 2018
Review Posts

What Are People For?

A review of What Are People For? by Wendell Berry (North Point Press, 1990) "We should love life," Dostoyevski once said, "more than the idea of life." It is this concreteness, this rootedness, that seemingly inspirits the life and writings of Wendell Berry, whose most recent collection of essays, What Are People For?, further establishes him as one of the…
Tom Rash
August 14, 2018
Blog

The Southern Muse of Ronnie Van Zant

The 1970’s were an interesting time in the South. The 1970's were the last time Southerners could be Southern without feeling the need to apologize for, or be ironic about, their Southern identity. In fact, in the 1970's, it seemed to actually go a little beyond this. We shouldn’t push this too far, but in 1970’s America there seemed to…
Jeff Rogers
August 13, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 133

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 6-10, 2018 Topics: the War, Political Correctness, Neoconservatives, Reconstruction, Southern Culture, Southern Literature. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-133
Brion McClanahan
August 11, 2018
Blog

The Southern Saga

In the book The Mystery of the Wonder-Worker of Ostrog, the main character, Mladjen, a fictional representation of the modern Serb uprooted from his traditions by the lingering effects of Communism (who is very much akin to many of those inhabiting the New South, shorn of so much of their past by the all-too-present effects of Communism’s alter-ego, Capitalism), has…
Walt Garlington
August 10, 2018
Blog

Causes of the “Civil War”

In a PBS interview seven years ago historian and Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust identified slavery as the cause of the Civil War. “Historians are pretty united on the cause of the Civil War being slavery,” she said before adding, . . . “when the various states announced their plans for secession, they uniformly said that the main motivating factor was…
Philip Leigh
August 9, 2018
Blog

Southward Returning/Sanctuary

Southward Returning To you, Virginia, Tennessee, To Georgia’s red roads, to the past That binds the delta and the sea, Your Southern sons return at last. No more the always going forth From ruin and our old regret, No more the sundering of faiths By some who taught us to forget. For us, the long remembering Of all our hearts…
Donald Davidson
August 8, 2018
Review Posts

The Power of Memory: How to Remember America’s Most Traumatic Crisis

A review of  Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David Blight (Harvard University Press, 2001). In Race and Reunion, historian David Blight recounts the first fifty years after the Civil War in order to describe how Americans of all backgrounds remembered the experiences and lessons of the conflict.  He contends that three distinct visions of Civil War memory…
Josh Phillips
August 7, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 132

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 30 - Aug 3, 2018 Topics: the War, Abraham Lincoln, myth-making, Southern culture, Southern history. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-132
Brion McClanahan
August 4, 2018
Blog

Lead Belly’s Southern Roots

Sometime around 1939, Lead Belly sang the song Daddy I’m Coming Back to You, which features the interesting lyrics: “I’m dreaming tonight of an old Southern town, the best friend I ever had...I’ve had my way, but now I’ll stay, I long for you and for home.” The song was a tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, who is often considered one…
Michael Martin
August 3, 2018
Blog

July 4 Comes and Goes, but Doesn’t Square with The Swamp

“Living in Washington, you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to.” Tucker Carlson My opinion on Trump’s election is that those who voted for him (by states, as required) was because those people who voted knew, and know,…
Paul H. Yarbrough
August 2, 2018
Blog

Lost Cause Myth or Yankee Propaganda

Whether it's the Civil War, War Between the States, the War for Southern Independence or Lincoln's War, this extremely important period of American history continues to resonate powerfully over 150 years later. And with American Veterans monuments and artwork being censored and removed throughout the country, some might even say that Reconstruction and the fight over Jeffersonian ideals vs. Hamiltonianism never…
Lewis Liberman
August 1, 2018
Review Posts

The Saints Are Marching On, and On, and On…

A review of Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North by Jennifer L. Weber (Oxford University Press, 2007). They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case it is worth much more: 217 pages of them. The text comes wrapped in a handsome dust jacket, colored black and gold and featuring an arresting…
H. A. Scott Trask
July 31, 2018
Blog

Colonel Baldwin Meets Mr. Lincoln

This essay is Chapter 13 in Mr. Taylor's Union At All Costs: From Confederation to Consolidation (2016). “I supported President Lincoln. I believed his war policy would be the only way to save the country, but I see my mistake. I visited Washington a few weeks ago, and I saw the corruption of the present administration—and so long as Abraham…
John M. Taylor
July 30, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 131

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 23-27, 2018 Topics: the War, Southern history, Southern politics, Yankee myths https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-131
Brion McClanahan
July 28, 2018
Blog

The Late Unpleasantness: Memory, Meaning and Understanding

The War Between the States is called by many names, the most genteel being “The Late Unpleasantness.”  The low country districts of South Carolina, including the environs of Charleston, is the geographic origin of this title for America’s most bloody and divisive conflict.  There is a deeper significance to the term than a polite and refined attempt to soften an…
John Devanny
July 27, 2018
Blog

The Dukes of “Hazzard”

Following the senseless racial murders at a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015, Hollywood’s moonshining Duke boys from fictitious Hazzard County, and more particularly their 1969 Dodge Charger “General Lee,” replete with a Confederate Battle Flag painted on its roof, were placed on the growing list of Southern images to be erased from public view. Not only were scheduled reruns…
John Marquardt
July 26, 2018
Blog

Time for the South to Ban Affirmative Action

The leading authority on this aspect of affirmative action is Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (by a plurality) that it is permissible for a state to ban affirmative action.  The case arose out of a voter-approved initiative amending the constitution of Michigan that made affirmative action illegal in public education,…
Michael Arnheim
July 25, 2018
Review Posts

Confederates in Mexico

A review of Maximilian and Carlota: Europe’s Last Empire in Mexico by Mary Margaret McAllen (Trinity University Press, 2014). Leaving forever the land of your fathers is painful, yet many Southerners turned further south, contemplating that choice on the eve of their destruction by the North. With most of their wealth bound to the land, what resource could they find…
Terry Hulsey
July 24, 2018
Blog

Nationally Acclaimed, Locally Detested

The Tricentennial celebration of New Orleans has stirred much interest into different facets of the city’s history. The search for the quintessential old New Orleans novel yields few results. The rich culture of New Orleans makes it one of America’s great cities. The Crescent City has served as muse for a litany of writers, accomplished and rising, yet it remains a near impossible place…
Abbeville Institute
July 23, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 130

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 16-20, 2018 Topics: Neoconservatives, Southern identity, Southern culture, the War New banjo introduction by Barrow Wheary. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-130
Brion McClanahan
July 22, 2018
Blog

The Southron’s Burden

Southerners confronted by Northerners touring our section are made aware of the difference in their speech from ours. They approach us speaking a form of English known outside the United States as "American." We of the South also like to consider ourselves American; however, it has long been an accepted belief that we Southerners have an accent. And not just…
Laurie Hibbett
July 20, 2018
Blog

Bushwacking the Bill of Rights

Last November, when President Bush issued an executive order establishing a system of military commissions to punish non-citizens, I asked myself, as no doubt countless other Americans did, “But what about Ex Parte Milligan (1866)?” Surely George W. and his Dad had studied this landmark Supreme Court decision in the course of those searching discussions of American history they must…
Ludwell H. Johnson
July 19, 2018
Blog

The Americanization of James Iredell

James Iredell was born at Lewes, Sussex County, England. He was the eldest of the five sons of Francis Iredell, a Bristol merchant, and Margaret McCulloh Iredell, originally of Dublin. Young James came to the New World in 1768 because, after his father suffered a stroke in the mid-1760’s, it was necessary for the boy to leave school and accept…
M.E. Bradford
July 18, 2018
Review Posts

Wall Street Journal’s Confederate Animus

A review of Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. (Regnery History, 2018). On the eve of the War for Southern Independence an article was published in The New York Times which unequivocally announced why the North had to invade and conquer the South.  The author of the article declared, “The…
Walter D. (Donnie) Kennedy
July 17, 2018
Blog

Nathan Bedford Forrest and Southern Folkways

There are many examples of heroism that illustrate spiritedness in America’s history. Indeed, the American Revolution was won because of the indomitable spirit of the Patriots and a growing unwillingness of the British to put down the campaign for independence. The same spirit was present a century later during the War between the States. It is routinely acknowledged that Confederate…
Benjamin Alexander
July 16, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 129

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 9-13, 2018 Topics: Southern independence, Southern culture, Southern architecture, the War, Sam Houston https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-129
Brion McClanahan
July 14, 2018
Blog

I Heard A Voice

They were standing at the ledge. Their view mirrored a panorama of buildings and smoke stacks. Great edifices, heaving asymmetrically, skewed with monster cylinders venting plumes of expended energy. The farms, the land, scarcely discernible, were hiding from the crowding machines in ambient spaces where life of life and lives of lives grappled and struggled for survival. The agrarians had…
Paul H. Yarbrough
July 13, 2018
Blog

Sam Houston and Texas Secession

"Lincoln, under no circumstances, would I vote for ... So, I say, stand by the 'Constitution and the Union', and so long as the laws are enacted and administered according to the Constitution we are safe ..." (emphasis added) Letter from Sam Houston to Colonel A. Daly, August 14, 1860 The 1860 Election was still 3 months in the future and…
Vito Mussomeli
July 12, 2018
Blog

Saving Architectural Treasures of the Old South

In the film version of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, after Atlanta has been burned and Scarlett O’Hara is fleeing to Tara, there is a scene where she arrives at neighboring Twelve Oaks Plantation to find it burned by Yankee troops and in ruins. The mansion’s once-grand double staircase is open to the night sky, and a cow appears…
Robin Spencer Lattimore
July 11, 2018
Review Posts

America Aflame

A review of America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation, by David Goldfield (Bloomsbury Press, 2011). Whether or not the American Civil War might have been avoided has long been a subject of debate among historians. Some, like Allan Nevins and Charles and Mary Beard, saw the war as “an irrepressible conflict,” in the words of Abraham Lincoln’s…
Stephen M. Klugewicz
July 10, 2018
Blog

Is Dixie A Captive Nation?

Is the South today a captive nation? Most Southerners would never consider the question—most likely because they would deem the issue to be absurd. But is it inane to ask such a question—is it forbidden in politically correct America to ask such a “confrontational” question? Conservatives would immediately dismiss such rhetorical questions as being unpatriotic or even treasonous—after all, everyone…
James Ronald Kennedy
July 9, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 128

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 2-6, 2018 Topics: Independence, secession, the War, Political Correctness, Southern religion, Southern founding https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-128
Brion McClanahan
July 7, 2018
Blog

The Ministry of ‘Ordinary Means’ and the Kentucky Revivals of 1828

In his important 1994 work, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858, the Rev. Iain H. Murray examined the periods in American church history known as the first and second awakenings. Focusing mainly on the spiritual movements in the North, Murray argued persuasively that in general the First Awakening period of the mid-18th century was characterized…
Forrest L. Marion
July 6, 2018
Blog

The Spirit of ’61

The bloody conflict of 1861 to 1865 is often called the Civil War, but most Southerners regarded it as a war for independence and self-government. Many if not most Confederate soldiers and officers who fought in it had fathers or grandfathers who served in the first American war of independence, and they were mindful of their heritage. Southerners were proud…
Karen Stokes
July 4, 2018
Review Posts

The Confederate Cherokee

A review of The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles by W. Craig Gaines (LSU Press, 2017). When most people think of Confederate Cherokees, the name Stand Watie immediately comes to mind. This book is not about Stand Watie’s troops but about John Drew’s Regiment of Mounted Rifles. It is also not so much about Confederate Cherokees as…
John C. Whatley
July 3, 2018
Blog

Richard Henry Lee

Richard Henry Lee was a patriot, Anti-Federalist, and statesman from his “country,” Virginia.  He led the charge for independence in 1776 and was a powerful figure in Virginia political life.  He served one term as president of the Continental Congress and was elected a United States Senator from Virginia immediately after the ratification of the Constitution.  His role in the…
Brion McClanahan
July 2, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 127

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 25-29, 2018. Topics: Southern history, perception, United States Constitution, Southern culture. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-127
Brion McClanahan
June 30, 2018
Blog

Why the South Erected Confederate Statues

The diagram below graphs the number of Confederate statues erected between 1870 and 1980. Since the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) compiled the data, they suggest the memorials were most frequently put in place during periods of flagrant anti-black sentiment in the South. In short they imply that racism was the prime motive for Confederate monument-building. In truth, however, more…
Philip Leigh
June 29, 2018
Blog

Why the South Needs the Electoral College

The Electoral College, a bulwark of federalism,  is under attack.  Straightforward abolition of the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, which is most unlikely to be passed in the foreseeable future.  But the Electoral College now faces a more serious,  insidious threat from the so-called  National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC,) which purports to operate through the Electoral College…
Michael Arnheim
June 28, 2018
Blog

Shrine of the South

One of the foremost scholars of the Southern Cause lives in New Market, Virginia. He has never written a book, authored a scholarly thesis, or lectured at a university. Instead, he built a museum – a rather impressive museum – dedicated to historical truth and brimming with valuable period artifacts. Having visited just about all the “Civil War” and Confederate…
Louis T. March
June 27, 2018
Review Posts

The Art of the Old South

A review of The Art of the Old South: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture & the Products of Craftsmen (1560-1860) by Jessie Poesch (Harrison Press, 1989). The Art of the Old South encompasses architecture, painting, sculpture, and the products of craftsmen. We are given a tour of a great variety of private and public buildings-from the formal mansions and elegant townhouses that followed…
Jeff Wolverton
June 26, 2018
Blog

Juneteenth: A Celebration of Nothing

On June 19, 1865, Union forces arrived in Galveston, Texas and declared to the population of that state that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed its slaves. Called "Juneteenth," it was initially celebrated in Texas, but it is now recognized in one way or another by 45 states and the District of Columbia. But what is it a celebration of? President…
Timothy A. Duskin
June 25, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 126

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 18-22, 2018. Topics: Dixie, the South in pop culture, Confederate symbols, Robert E. Lee https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-126
Brion McClanahan
June 23, 2018
Blog

The Attack on “Dixie” in Sports and Music

Sound was the first victim of the attack on southern heritage. In October 1971, the University of Georgia’s “Dixie Redcoat Marching Band”  dropped the word “Dixie” from its name and discontinued playing the song “Dixie” after the National Anthem. Many people, even to this day, will argue that “Dixie” was played and perpetuated to uphold white supremacy. But the tradition…
Michael Martin
June 22, 2018
Blog

Why Confederate Monuments Matter

First of all, I wish to state that I teach history. I do not try to erase it, and I do not desecrate graves, like the “politically correct” did in Memphis and elsewhere. I understand why corrupt political nonentities like the mayors of Memphis and New Orleans would want Confederate statues removed. They want to divert the voters’ attention from…
Samuel W. Mitcham
June 21, 2018
Blog

Tom Foolery

There are neither Confederate monuments to be torn down in Japan nor Battle Flags to be lowered . . . but if there were, there could well be some Japanese who might wish to protest such symbols. While my wife Rieko would certainly not be among them, when she was attending high school one of her standard 1953 English text…
John Marquardt
June 20, 2018
Review Posts

Rock and Roll Civil War

When you think of America’s so-called “Civil War”, rock music may not be one of the first things that come to mind. However, as one of the most deadly wars in American history, with Missouri being the 3rd bloodiest of all the states (in terms of war-related deaths and human rights atrocities), the War Between the States continues to resonate…
Matthew Silber
June 19, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 125

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 11-15, 2018 Topics: Treason, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Secession https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-125
Brion McClanahan
June 16, 2018
Blog

All the News That’s Fit to Print

Fort Sumter was the beginning not only of a bloody conflict, but it forged a generation of war correspondents that would culminate in live action reporting one-hundred and thirty years later. These faltering beginnings by the Civil War correspondents would reach their highest form during the Desert Storm war. During this action, Americans saw on prime time television the missiles…
Norman E. Rourke
June 15, 2018
Blog

Two Southern Presidents in History

It was Wednesday, April 19, 1865. The Confederate States of America lay prostrate under the twin plagues of starvation and despair. Richmond had fallen and Lee’s surrendered Army of Northern Virginia was heading home. Four years of near constant fighting had depleted the South’s resources and killed a generation of its sons. On the military front, General William T. Sherman…
David E. Johnson
June 14, 2018
Blog

Awake for the Living: Lee and the “Feeling of Loyalty”

“Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” —Revelation 2:5 The Attack on Confederate Monuments is a subspecies of what Richard M. Weaver called the “attack on memory.”  To understand why the attack on…
Aaron Wolf
June 13, 2018
Review Posts

Is Secession Treason?

A review of With Malice Toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era by William A. Blair (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) and Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis by Cynthia Nicoletti (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Was the act of secession in 1860-61 treason? This is one of the more important and lasting questions…
Brion McClanahan
June 12, 2018
Blog

Southern Cultural Genocide

  The quote below indirectly warns about the implications of Confederate statue removals and the censorship of Southern interpretations regarding the Civil War and Reconstruction. Kundera is presently a French novelist born in Brno when the city was located in Czechoslovakia. He lived through both Nazi and Communist totalitarianism before fleeing to France in 1975. His books were banned in…
Philip Leigh
June 11, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 124

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 4-8, 2018 Topics: West Virginia myth, war crimes myth, Pilgrims myth, Righteous Cause Myth, incorporation myth https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-124
Brion McClanahan
June 9, 2018
Blog

First Amendment Establishment

The Phoenix, Arizona city council has been forced by self-declared “Satanists” to cease opening its meetings with prayer. The Arizona Republic reports the details of the events leading to this decision: “Followers of the Satanic Temple, a group promoting religious agnosticism, had been scheduled to give the prayer at the council's Feb. 17 meeting. News of the planned Satanic invocation…
Joe Wolverton
June 8, 2018
Blog

The Cult of the Lost Cause

History is the propaganda of the victorious. - Voltaire According to an explanation of “The Lost Cause” from the web site of the Virginia Historical Society: Former Confederates crafted a historical interpretation of the Civil War to reconcile the prewar society they admired and the devastation that accompanied southern defeat. The “Lost Cause” narrative was developed by former Confederates who…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
June 7, 2018
Blog

Redeeming the Time

Picture it. A book store in Madison, Wisconsin, in the mid-’90s. Quite the unlikely place you’d expect to be exposed to the true history of the Pilgrims being totalitarian religionists, not the freedom-seeking refugees in funny hats, bonnets, and buckled-shoes we hear about in grade school. This took place at a book signing and lecture, not given by a historian,…
Dissident Mama
June 6, 2018
Review Posts

War Crimes Against Southern Civilians

Originally published at amazon.com, 30 September 2009. A Review of War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco (Pelican, 2007). Walter Brian Cisco is lifelong scholar of American Civil War history, a professional writer, and researcher with many respected publications on the subject including States Rights Gist: A South Carolina General of the Civil War, Taking a Stand: Portraits from…
Stephen Hendrick
June 5, 2018
Blog

Confederate West Virginia

Confederate West Virginia has always been an enigma. A bright fellow riding through Monroe County was intrigued by the Confederate monument in a field near Union. This biker-hiker-writer Michael Abraham wondered why. For clues, he went straight to local historians ‘Bud’ Robertson and Stuart McGeehee. In his thoughtful book, The Spine of the Virginias (2010, Pocahontas Press; Blacksburg, Virginia) he…
Frank Ball
June 4, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 123

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 28-June 1, 2018 Topics: Treasury of Virtue, Confederate monuments, Political Correctness, Robert E. Lee https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-123
Brion McClanahan
June 3, 2018
Blog

The Wrong Side of History

I've always been fascinated by those tricky slogans politicians and social activists use to dupe the public. These cleverly crafted catchphrases are short, simple, easily understood and tend to stick with people. A currently popular catchphrase is “The wrong side of history” which has been defined as: “Having policies or practices that are perceived as not progressive or enlightened; behaving…
Gail Jarvis
June 1, 2018
Blog

Lee the Philosopher

Our culture has, of late, become rather fixated on the idea that every historical figure in our past should have anticipated how moral worldviews would evolve after his or her death. Now, clearly, this is impossible. Picasso and Hemingway, to take two great artists who were also generally terrible people, could not (and should not) have thought about how their…
R.M. Stangler
May 31, 2018
Review Posts

Cracks in the Treasury of Virtue

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 Movement, by Otto Scott, New York: Times Books, 1979, 375 pages. It was Flannery O'Connor who remarked, in one of her short essays, that people will believe anything about the…
Clyde Wilson
May 29, 2018
Blog

The Only Way to Drain the Swamp

“When you are up to your hindquarters in alligators—it is hard to remember that your intentions were to drain the swamp.”  This old country-boy saying seems most appropriate for President Trump as he attempts to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. The continuing efforts of the ruling elite in Washington to destroy a lawfully elected president because “their” anointed candidate…
James Ronald Kennedy
May 28, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 122

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 21-25, 2018 Topics: Yankees, Nationalism, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-122
Brion McClanahan
May 26, 2018
Blog

Star Wars and Gone With The Wind

Given that the Star Wars franchise seems to have degenerated into yet another vehicle for the transmission of political-correctness, it seems a little ironic that the newest installment of the series will revolve around the one character with an undeniable connection to the South -- Han Solo.  George Lucas's wisecracking smuggler borrowed some of his best lines from the cynical…
Jerry Salyer
May 25, 2018
Blog

White Knights of the North

When the majority of people think of the Ku Klux Klan, there undoubtedly comes to mind a relic of post-Confederate racism that has now morphed into dangerous groups of rabidly anti-Black Southerners dressed in white hoods, burning crosses and waving Confederate Battle Flags. However, the real story of the White Knights of the Invisible Empire, as they were also referred…
John Marquardt
May 24, 2018
Blog

An Appeal to Southern Graduates

This spring thousands of graduates coming out of the high schools and colleges across the South will be hearing a similar message: Go far!  Dream big!  Succeed!  Break the mold! But we hope they will not listen to it.  We hope they will do the opposite: Stay home, dream small, be content, be unknown. The duty of the young is…
Walt Garlington
May 23, 2018
Review Posts

Killing the Incorporation Doctrine

A review of The 14th Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine by David Benner (Minneapolis: Life and Liberty Publishing Group, 2017) Even though I have always been a strong advocate of states’ rights and sovereignty, and for safeguarding the federal system, the “incorporation doctrine” had always troubled me. What is meant by the “incorporation doctrine”? The application, by the federal courts,…
Ryan Walters
May 22, 2018
Blog

Texas Vs. The Pacific Coast: Explaining The Yankee Mindset

I recently traveled to Texas to speak about South Africa, at the Free Speech Forum of  the Texas A & M University. To travel from the Pacific Northwest all the way to College Station, Texas, without experiencing more of the Lone Star State was not an option. So, after driving from Austin eastward to College Station (where I was hosted…
Ilana Mercer
May 21, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 121

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 14-18, 2018 Topics: Southern tradition, Yankees, Confederate symbols, Jeffersonianism, Southern identity https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-121
Brion McClanahan
May 19, 2018
Blog

On Remaining Humble in Modern Academia

After reading Richard Weaver’s monumental work Ideas Have Consequences last semester I was struck with one characterization of the “ideal man” that has since been shaping the way I look at my own academic future. For a young seminary student like myself pursuing “Christ-likeness” was a given, but my eyes were never fully open to what that meant in relation…
Jonathan Harris
May 18, 2018
Blog

Confederate Monuments and Racism

When New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu succeeded in removing three Confederate monuments, he said those three statues to Lee, Beauregard and Davis represented “terrorism.” “. . . hey were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city,” he added. Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio…
Thomas J. Crane
May 17, 2018
Blog

Yankee Sanctification

“It was my first introduction to damn Yankees,” my oldest sister remarked of her first semester at James Madison University in the fall of 1982. It was here, at this university nestled in the mountains of Virginia and named after one of the state’s most famous sons, that her Northern dormitory suite-mates were horrified by such flagrant abuse of their…
Dissident Mama
May 16, 2018
Review Posts

Death by Taxes

A review of For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization by Charles Adams (Madison Books, 2001). Why can’t American Presidents learn that if you raise taxes on the American people they will vote you out? George Bush crashed because he raised taxes, and Bill Clinton will go down as soon as the people get…
William J. Quirk
May 15, 2018
Blog

Southern Identity in the 21st Century

What exactly does it mean to be a Southerner in the 21st Century? Is it spending countless hours finding out who your Confederate ancestor is and joining up with the local Sons of Confederate Veterans? Or is it driving around town with a Confederate flag bumper sticker on the back of your pickup truck? Or maybe it’s being “that guy”…
Lewis Liberman
May 14, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 120

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 7-11, 2018. Topics: Southern culture, Southern history, the War, "Memory Studies" https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-120
Brion McClanahan
May 12, 2018
Blog

That Embarrassing Analogy

Is there a genuine analogy between the secession of South Carolina from the USA and the secession of Lithuania from the USSR? Or between the actions of Lincoln and Gorbachev? The press either ignores the parallels or asserts that the two secessions are somehow different. Of course they're different; but an analogy stresses what different things have in common. World…
Sheldon Vanauken
May 11, 2018
Blog

Donald Davidson Revisted

Mel Bradford has argued that no individual has exerted more influence upon the development of a profession of letters this century in the South than Donald Davidson. The poet, essayist, and social critic is well known to most literary scholars and historians of the South; however, Davidson’s critique of the Southern experience remains largely unappreciated. Several years ago the author…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.
May 10, 2018
Blog

In Search of the Real Abe Lincoln

No one interested in American history can escape Abraham Lincoln. Over the years the outpouring of books, articles, essays, and poems has been enormous, so much so that this form of activity is sometimes referred to as “the Lincoln industry.” With all of this attention devoted to one man, how can there be a “Lincoln puzzle”? Surely all Americans know…
Ludwell H. Johnson
May 9, 2018
Review Posts

Making the Southern Canon

A review of Fifty Southern Writers After 1900: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook. Ed. by Joseph M. Flora and Robert Bain. Greenwood Press, 1987. A few years ago, before I had been sold upriver to Clemson, some colleagues and I were busily devising a graduate reading list for the Ph.D. program in English at the University of Southern Mississippi. (I had been…
Mark Royden Winchell
May 8, 2018
Blog

Confederate Dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK9z0zwThtw The Confederate Dead (1867) By Latienne From the broad and calm Potomac, To the Rio Grande's waves, Have the brave and noble fallen — And the earth is strewn with graves, In the vale and on the hill-side, Through the wood and by the stream, Has the martial pageant faded, Like the vision of a dream. Where the reveille…
Brion McClanahan
May 7, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 119

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Apr 30-May 4, 2018 Topics: Southern conservatism, Yankees, Neoconservatives, Northern secession, the French Revolution https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-119
Brion McClanahan
May 5, 2018
Blog

The Essex Junto

It was the purchase of Louisiana, therefore, which gave impetus to a plan which had been creeping upon New England, aided and stimulated by the Essex Junto. They agreed that the inevitable consequences of the annexation of this vast territory would be to diminish the relative weight and influence of the Northern section; that it would aggravate the evils of…
Charles Raymond Brown
May 4, 2018
Blog

The Sensory Poetry of Dubose Heyward

Dubose Heyward once described himself as a “synthetic Charlestonian.” Having been part French Huguenot and part English Cavalier, he was a direct descendant of South Carolina’s Thomas Heyward Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Born in Charleston in 1885, he was a major part of the Southern Literary Renaissance and wrote extensive poetry and fiction. Southern identity came…
Michael Martin
May 3, 2018
Review Posts

The Last Gasp

A review of The Last Hurrah by Kyle S. Sinisi (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). General Sterling Price’s attempt to liberate Missouri from Union occupation in late 1864 was the last gasp of the Confederacy. Price was a late convert to secessionism and President Jefferson Davis suspected his loyalty. There were also unsubstantiated rumors that unknown people intended to overthrow Davis and put…
John C. Whatley
May 1, 2018
Blog

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

The old adage “history repeats itself'' refers to striking similarities between past events and contemporary events. Consequently, historical accounts of past events not only help us understand what has happened but also better understand what is happening. This insight is badly needed at this time. Unfortunately, knowing the public has a weak grasp of history, some portrayals of past events…
Gail Jarvis
April 30, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 118

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Apr 23-27, 2018 Topics: the War, Lincoln, Historical Myths, Confederate Memorial Day https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-118
Brion McClanahan
April 28, 2018
Blog

The United States of Despotism?

In an era in which serious concerns are discussed regarding police abuse, government surveillance, standing armies, increasing division and strife and the potential loss of constitutional rights, American Bastille details the accounts of the imprisonment and sufferings of approximately 70 people at the hands of the State (including pastors, Judges, U.S. Senators, Doctors, Farmers, Editors, Foreign Ministers and women) from…
Lewis Liberman
April 27, 2018
Blog

Save the Souls of the Lords of Gray– in Eleven Stanzas

Oh! Save the souls of the Lords of Gray. Donned their swords and scabbards. Rode into cause valiant to pray. Ever still they cease from marching forth; Holding their cause against a vile North. Men in gray suits though equal in stripe, Bare their hearts and sinew. Defend the world against the snipe, They bleed into soul far from Lord’s…
Paul H. Yarbrough
April 26, 2018
Blog

Unlearning “Fake History”

An African-American columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has opined that it is time to unlearn the “fake history” of slavery and “The Lost Cause” that ostensibly has been taught in schools in Virginia and the South. I am an advocate for the Truth in all things, and I am not opposed to his premise, although much “fake history” comes from…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
April 25, 2018
Review Posts

Knights of the Golden Circle

A review of Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War by David C. Keehn (LSU, 2013). “Maybe,” “Likely,” “It seems that.” Those are hardly the words of an author certain of the truth of his thesis, but these are indeed the words David C. Keehn uses in his book, Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire,…
Joe Wolverton
April 24, 2018
Blog

The Pickens Plot

When the Pacific phase of World War Two began in December of 1941, Great Britain’s main bastion of power in Southeast Asia was its eighty-five thousand man army behind the fortifications at Singapore, the so-called Gibraltar of the Pacific. The problem was, however, that all the island’s massive protective firepower faced the Straits of Singapore rather than the Malay Peninsula…
John Marquardt
April 23, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 117

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Apr 16-20, 2018. Topics: Reconciliation, Political Correctness, the War, Southern Culture, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-117/s-E63oJ
Brion McClanahan
April 21, 2018
Blog

Southern Themes in The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton published The Outsiders in 1967 at the age of eighteen. It’s a coming of age story that is widely read within schools and takes place in Oklahoma in 1965. The novel focuses on two rival groups, the Greasers and Socs, who are divided by their social status. The Greasers are described as wilder, having longer hair, and being…
Michael Martin
April 20, 2018
Blog

The Marseillaise of the South Plays On, For Now

As the 2018 legislative session was winding down in Annapolis, the Senate passed a bill retiring the Old Line State’s Confederate call to arms, but that bill was to die in committee in the House of Delegates. So, once again, though “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” has been archived, “My Old Kentucky Home,” “updated,” “Maryland! My Maryland!”—some would say…
J.L. Bennett
April 19, 2018
Blog

Modern Heresy

Essayist William Deresiewicz recently lamented that modern college students, and college life in general, have become "profoundly unintellectual." The "snowflake" generation is the byproduct of educational institutionalization. Will this be on the test, and will I get a study guide? Deresiewicz should also indict the faculty and administration who encourage this "unintellectual" environment. This results in a crop of students…
Donald Livingston
April 18, 2018
Review Posts

Zombies No More: Secession, Nullification, and the Academy

A review of Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought. Sanford Levinson, ed. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2016. The undead walk among us still, or so asserts Sanford Levinson, the editor of an important collection of essays on nullification and secession.  Levinson and company are as mainstream a group political scientists, law professors, and historians as one might…
John Devanny
April 17, 2018
Blog

A Bloodless Victory

Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, is known as the place where the “Civil War” began. The South is normally portrayed as the aggressor, the side which fired the “first shot,” and is thus given the blame for starting the war. The whole truth is, however, that the governments of South Carolina and the Confederate States of America made repeated…
Karen Stokes
April 16, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 116

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Apr 9-13, 2018. Topics: Political Correctness, the New South, the War, Thomas Jefferson, Southern History https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-116
Brion McClanahan
April 14, 2018
Blog

Jefferson the President

Of all the presidents of the United States, none save Washington and Lincoln have inspired half so much historical writing as Thomas Jefferson. Books and articles by the score have dealt with the Sage of Monticello in one or another of his myriad aspects— Virginian, statesman, philosopher, scientist, farmer, architect, rationalist, theologian, slaveholder, apostle of liberty, author of the Declaration…
Forrest McDonald
April 13, 2018
Blog

When Historians Lie

Eminent historian Dr. Clyde Wilson in one of his many books on American history expresses this sentiment about the "old-style history:" History is not an expression of abstract laws, or the record of progress. It is a description of the actions of men, of life, which in turn is an expression of the (partly unknowable) mind of God. The historical…
Jonathan Harris
April 11, 2018
Review Posts

The Unknown Confederate West

A review of The Civil War in the American West by Alvin M. Josephy (Vintage, 1993). As the “history” books to which government school students are subjected begin to deal with the War of Northern Aggression, they tend to make little mention of those states and territories west of the Mississippi, with the exception of Missouri and Kansas. Missouri, so…
Al Benson
April 10, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 115

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Apr 2-6, 2018 Topics: the New South, Agrarianism, Confederate Monuments, World War II https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-115
Brion McClanahan
April 7, 2018
Blog

Okinawa Confederate Flag

Five days ago I posted an article citing Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed that stated the first American flag to fly over the conquered Japanese fortress at Shuri Castle during the World War II battle of Okinawa was the Confederate battle flag. Sledge, who was present, wrote: Earlier in the morning . . . Marines had attacked eastward into the rains of…
Philip Leigh
April 6, 2018
Blog

The Arkansas Traveler

It was Tuesday evening, September 16th, and people all across America were settling down for the first performance of a new CBS comedy and music program.  Rather than watching the show on fifty-inch TV screens with names like Sony, Samsung and Panasonic, since the year was 1941, they would be gathered in front of AM radio sets bearing such then…
John Marquardt
April 5, 2018
Blog

Reconsidering William Jennings Bryan

When William Jennings Bryan died in 1925, H.L. Mencken wrote a scathing eulogy stating: “There was something peculiarly fitting in the fact that last days were spent in a one-horse Tennessee village, and that death found him there. The man felt home in such scenes. He liked people who sweated freely, and were not debauched by the refinements of the…
Michael Martin
April 4, 2018
Review Posts

I’ll Take My Stand

A review of I'll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners (LSU, 2006). In this age where the homogenization of our culture is nearly complete, thanks largely to widespread media and rampant industrialism, I'll Take My Stand remains as fresh and relevant as the day it was published more than seventy years ago. Instead of indulging in reactionary daydreams or nostalgia,…
Randall Ivey
April 3, 2018
Blog

New Orleans Remains in Crisis After Historic Monuments Removed

An international organization recently released a ranking of the 50 most dangerous cities in the entire world. Four of the world's most dangerous cities are located in the United States; Detroit, Baltimore, St Louis, and New Orleans. As Mitch Landrieu's two terms as New Orleans mayor ends, he leaves behind a city characterized by rampant crime, unsafe streets and neighborhoods…
Gail Jarvis
April 2, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 114

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Mar. 26-30, 2018. Topics: the New South, Southern Culture, Hank Williams, Confederate Symbols https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-114
Brion McClanahan
March 31, 2018
Blog

Trump’s Aluminum Tariff: A Teachable Moment

President Trump’s proposed ten-percent tariff on refined aluminum yields a teachable moment for Southern history students. Historical analysis of the industry reveals an echo of the Northern tariff policies that angered Southerners during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the South was generally a raw materials exporter and feedstock supplier to Northern manufacturers. Tariffs during the era usually…
Philip Leigh
March 30, 2018
Blog

With Friends Like That…

The recent Klan activities in Forsyth County, Georgia and Summerville, South Carolina make it more and more difficult for those of us who are trying to keep the battle flag flying and Dixie in the repertoire of bands around the region. You saw them on your television screen: angry little clusters of the ignorant, assembled in front of the ravenous…
Thomas Landess
March 29, 2018
Blog

30 Years From Hank Williams

This piece was originally printed in Southern Partisan magazine in 1985. Hank Williams has now been dead longer than he lived. And outside of a hundred or more fine songs, his thrity-year-old memory survives best among some of his cousins down in Georgiana, Alabama, about sixty miles south of Montgomery. Among them are Taft and Erleen Skipper (Taft’s daddy and…
Bill Koon
March 28, 2018
Review Posts

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

A review of Regionalism and Nationalism in the United States: The Attack on Leviathan by Donald Davidson (Transaction Books, 1991). August 18, 1993 will mark the centennial of Donald Davidson’s birth. On April 25 of that year, he will have been dead a quarter of a century. During his lifetime Davidson was considered the most minor of the major Fugitives,…
Mark Royden Winchell
March 27, 2018
Blog

Stony Creek and Virginia History

On an abnormally warm early Spring day, I took a 150 mile motorcycle ride from Portsmouth to Stony Creek, Virginia. It is where my Great Great Grandpa, Randolph Page, was captured by Federal Forces in 1864. He rode with the SC 6th Insurgent Cavalry (Aka: the Dixie Raiders). His unit fought in nearly every major engagement in Virginia from 1862,…
Cliff Page
March 26, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 113

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Mar 19-23, 2018 Topics: the War, Southern culture, the New South, Reconstruction, Yankees https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-113
Brion McClanahan
March 24, 2018
Blog

His Truth is Marching On

Social activist Julia Ward wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1861, the same year that Henry Timrod composed his “Ethnogenesis” (the poem which kicked off part 2 of this series). In it, she penned that God will use His “terrible swift sword” to bring judgment upon “condemners” and “crush the serpent with his heel.” The wicked this New…
Dissident Mama
March 23, 2018
Blog

States’ Rights

Most modern historians reject any suggestion that the South fought the Civil War over states’ rights. They insist that the only states’ rights the South cared about, “as neo-confederates are loath to admit,” was slavery.  (According to Wikipedia, “neo-confederate is a term that describes the views of who use historical revisionism* to portray the and its actions in the Civil War…
Philip Leigh
March 22, 2018
Blog

Streety

John Randolph of Roanoke with his dogs on the floor of Congress. There was a little dog down the street from us named Streety. My brother and I hadn’t got our own dog yet; that was five or six months in the future. So, we had adopted Streety as our own--though many in the neighborhood had done the same. He…
Paul H. Yarbrough
March 21, 2018
Review Posts

Southern Horizons

A review of Southern Horizons: The Autobiography of Thomas Dixon (IWV Publishing, 1994). The name of Thomas Dixon today is little remembered, North or South, but seventy years ago Dixon was one of the most prominent and controversial public figures in the country. The discovery and publication of his autobiography ought to be considered a significant event in the cultural…
Stephen P. Smith
March 20, 2018
Blog

The Lost Tribes of the Irish in the South

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I am speaking but the plain truth when I tell you that I would rather be here tonight facing an assemblage of men and women of Irish blood and Irish breeding than in any other banquet hall on earth. For I am one who is Irish and didn't know it; but now that I…
Irvin S. Cobb
March 19, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 112

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Mar 12-16, 2018 Topics: the War, Southern culture, Southern literature, Abraham Lincoln, 20th century Southern history https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-112
Brion McClanahan
March 17, 2018
Blog

Parallel Lines Of Division

The complex issues which have and continue to divide America’s North and South have a long and at times violent history, as well as having involved an extensive list of differences.  Almost a century before the War Between the States and even prior to the establishment of a formal geographic boundary roughly dividing the two sections along the thirty-ninth parallel,…
John Marquardt
March 16, 2018
Blog

Calley’s Civil War

In November 1970, Lt. William Calley (a Florida native born in 1943) went on trial for his life. He was being court-martialed by the U.S. military for his participation in the My Lai Massacre and was accused of killing twenty-two civilians. Even though twenty-six officers participated and an estimated five hundred South Vietnamese were killed, Calley was the only man…
Michael Martin
March 15, 2018
Blog

Tom’s Comedy Club

There was a social order at Tom’s Service Station.  It wasn’t posted on the wall.  The “Welcome Wagon” didn’t slip it into the baskets they gave to the newcomers.  It wasn’t revealed as part of an initiation along with the rumored secret handshake. But the old men who held court on the long bench outside of Tom’s knew.  And the…
Frank Clark
March 14, 2018
Review Posts

Two Against Lincoln

A review of Two Against Lincoln: Reverdy Johnson and Horatio Seymour, Champions of the Loyal Opposition (University Press of Kansas, 2017) by William C. Harris In a speech before the Senate in 1863, James A. Bayard of Delaware stated that “The truth will out, ultimately…though they may be voted down by the majority of the hour, though they may not…
Brion McClanahan
March 13, 2018
Blog

Sacred Harp Singing

If I was forced to give an example of at least one good thing we got out of the Puritans, I would quickly point to Sacred Harp singing.  Sacred Harp is a traditional, primitive method of church singing still favored in the Deep South, and it even comes complete with several different annual conventions.  Brion McClanahan and others have written…
Tom Daniel
March 12, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 111

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 5-9, 2018. Topics: the War, Maryland, the U.S. Constitution, Southern Founders, 2nd Amendment, Political Correctness, Southern Culture. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-111
Brion McClanahan
March 10, 2018
Blog

This is why the Founding Generation Crafted the 2nd Amendment

With the current heated debate over gun rights and the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution (which serves to affirm our natural rights…rights we have whether the State recognizes them or not), I thought it might be interesting to talk briefly about the Battle of Athens. If you’re like a lot of people, you probably haven’t heard about this…
Lewis Liberman
March 9, 2018
Blog

The Barbarians at the Gates

Since the 1960s, the interpretation of Southern history and the War Between the States put forth by most of the news media and academia is largely a fraud. It is driven by the racist identity politics of the Democrat Party and not historical truth. If Southern history was interpreted objectively as it was before 1960, instead of with liberal political…
Gene Kizer, Jr.
March 8, 2018
Blog

The Little Town with the Big Heart

If you travel I-20 east from Jackson, Mississippi, somewhere about 20 miles short of Meridian you’ll see a sign: Hickory Exit. This sign is one almost ad infinitum of green signs along a monster interstate that has sucked the life out of localism, particularly important throughout the South. But should you drive into downtown from old Highway 80, you’ll see…
Paul H. Yarbrough
March 7, 2018
Review Posts

Founding Intentions

A review of Original Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the United States Constitution by M.E. Bradford (Georgia, 1993). Since the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, numberless books re-examining the document and the convention that made it have issued forth from commercial publishing houses and university presses. While some of them are excellent and make important contributions in the…
W. Kirk Wood
March 6, 2018
Blog

Confederate History of the Maryland Flag

It is near impossible to express any admiration of the antebellum South without incurring the wrath of the perpetually offended mob, online or otherwise.  Even acknowledgment in the accomplishments of those men once universally and unequivocally admired by all Americans, such as Washington, Jefferson, and Lee, now brings the occasional sneer or mark of condemnation from “polite” society.  Unfortunately, for…
Reverdy Johnson
March 5, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 110

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Feb 26- Mar 2, 2018 Topics: the War, Confederate symbols, Southern culture, Yankees, Spencer Roane https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-110
Brion McClanahan
March 3, 2018
Blog

The New England Pharisees

“Religion, taking every mortal form But that pure and Christian faith makes warm, Where not to vile fanatic passion urged, Or not in vague philosophies submerged, Repulsive with all Pharisaic leaven, And making laws to stay the laws of Heaven!” — From “Ethnogenesis,” by Henry Timrod South Carolinian Henry Timrod penned these words in February 1861 at the meeting of the First…
Dissident Mama
March 2, 2018
Blog

The Pseudoscience Attack on the South

The term “science” is applied rather loosely today. In some cases what we call science might be more appropriately labeled pseudoscience. The field of sociology comes to mind. It is more politically correct that scientifically objective, and you would be hard put to find a sociologist who doesn't hold Leftist political views. Sociological theories, questionable to begin with, are being…
Gail Jarvis
March 1, 2018
Blog

Who’s Going to Fill Their Shoes?

When I was very young, I recall my father telling me of George "No-Show" Jones, a country music legend. The moniker, I was told, was given after Jones failed to play a concert in some town in Texas. He was said to be seen riding a motorcycle in the opposite direction of his "postponed" performance, with a very attractive blonde…
Christopher J. Carter
February 28, 2018
Review Posts

Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States

A review of Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States (Charleston Athenaeum Press, 2014) by Gene Kizer, Jr. In all my growing up years I was taught that the War Between the States was fought over slavery. That's what the "history" books, so called, told us and it is certainly what the "news media" has screamed…
Al Benson
February 27, 2018
Blog

Spencer Roane

“It has been our happiness to believe, that in the partition of powers between the general and State governments, the former possessed only such as were expressly granted, or passed therewith as necessary incidents, while all the residuary powers were reserved by the latter.” Spencer Roane Had one-time friends John Adams and Thomas Jefferson not had such a high-profile and…
Joe Wolverton
February 26, 2018
Podcast

Podcast Episode 109

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Feb 19-23, 2018 Topics: the War, Reconstruction, North over South, Southern politics https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-109
Brion McClanahan
February 24, 2018
Blog

A City Upon a Hill

Recently, Business Insider editor, MSNBC contributor, and public-radio personality Josh Barro called the left’s war on American culture “annoying.” He explained that “Liberals have supplanted conservatives as moralizing busybodies.” New York Magazine‘s Jonathan Chait even tweeted support of Barro’s “sensible thoughts,” calling out the Democrats’ supposedly new-found misadventure of “liberal sanctimony.” Funny that in all his talk condemning such “moralizing,” neo-liberal Barro went on to further pontificate about the Dems suffering “from a cultural disconnect…
Dissident Mama
February 23, 2018