Brion McClanahan discusses the Southern constitutional tradition, from the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School at…
Abbeville InstituteSeptember 20, 2022
From Gustavus Pinckney, Life of John C. Calhoun. The attentive reader will not have forgotten…
Abbeville InstituteAugust 26, 2022
As we progress into old age, our perspectives tend to change. Things that occupied most…
Clyde WilsonJuly 29, 2022
Going back to Jefferson, you can say that Jefferson’s vision of radical Federalism was of…
Marco BassaniJune 1, 2022
Delivered at the 2013 Abbeville Institute Summer School. What I want to do is thoroughly…
William WilsonMarch 8, 2022
Though John C. Calhoun was a distinguished American statesman and thinker, he is little appreciated…
John DevannyOctober 26, 2021
Over half a century before the Imperial German Navy launched its new and deadly method…
John MarquardtMay 13, 2021
In 1960, the great Southern political philosopher Richard Weaver penned an essay titled “Conservatism and…
Brion McClanahanMay 7, 2021
The spring of 1850 is an ominous perpetrator. Notwithstanding the crisis our country faced during…
Brad PondApril 16, 2021
No American is more vilified than John C. Calhoun. A recent biography has labeled him…
Brion McClanahanMarch 30, 2021
Editor's Note: This speech was delivered before the Senate on March 12, 1910, at the…
Henry Cabot LodgeMarch 18, 2021
As part of its campaign to pander to the important and urgent needs of African-Americans…
James Rutledge RoeschMarch 12, 2021
“A fig for the Constitution” if it does not protect our most basic rights was…
James Ronald KennedyFebruary 11, 2021
Southern conservatism is considered an enigma when juxtaposed against the bipartisan political configuration having been…
Brad PondFebruary 4, 2021
As some business owners and residents on King Street described it, “Charleston was raped” on…
Stewart O. JonesOctober 30, 2020
Perhaps no American thinker has suffered more in recent days than John C. Calhoun, whose…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.July 6, 2020
On June 13, 2020, Clemson University president Jim Clements proclaimed, “this was an important day…
Andrew P. CalhounJune 18, 2020
In a gosh attempt at virtue signaling, the Clemson University Board of Trustees has unanimously…
William J. WatkinsJune 15, 2020
A review of In Defense of Andrew Jackson (Regnery History, 2018) by Bradley J. Birzer…
James Rutledge RoeschApril 21, 2020
Union and liberty are not two terms most people associate with John C. Calhoun, a…
John GroveApril 20, 2020
John C. Calhoun was the last eloquent political philosopher to stand against the ideology and…
Barry ClarkMarch 18, 2020
5. Spielberg’s Amistad (1997) If Amistad is not yet a household word like ET or…
Clyde WilsonDecember 19, 2019
Increasingly, America’s past is becoming a lightning rod for contemporary ideological struggles. Colleges, highways and…
John GroveSeptember 16, 2019
A review of The Southern Tradition: The Achievements and Limitations of Southern Conservatism (Harvard, 1994)…
Won KimSeptember 3, 2019
J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power, 1966 and The Price of Empire, 1967 Robert…
Clyde WilsonJuly 30, 2019
I attended a protest to tear down the John C. Calhoun monument in Charleston on…
Michael MartinMay 23, 2019
Of all the American vice-presidents, none is more vilified than John C. Calhoun. Calhoun is…
Brion McClanahanApril 18, 2019
A review of Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, Vol II. (Washington, 1900) edited by J.…
Edward G. BourneMarch 19, 2019
“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Among Catholic students of political thought, few…
Jerry SalyerFebruary 20, 2019
The dominant powers in American discourse today have succeeded in confining the South to a…
Clyde WilsonJanuary 23, 2019
In November 2018 Will Hiott, Director and Curator of Historic Properties at Clemson University, included…
Andrew P. CalhounDecember 10, 2018
I grew up in Summerville, South Carolina, just a few miles from historic Charleston. This…
Michael MartinNovember 7, 2018
Writing about the “Great Triumvirate” of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun during the third Nullification controversy…
W. Kirk WoodSeptember 26, 2018
The 1850s is viewed by most scholars as the crucial decade of the sectional crisis…
John DevannySeptember 24, 2018
Much of John C. Calhoun’s criticism stems from his 1837 speech in the Senate where…
Michael MartinSeptember 6, 2018
A review of Original Intent and the Framers of the Constitution by Harry Jafffa, (Regnery,…
William J. WatkinsDecember 19, 2017
John C. Calhoun–valedictorian of his class at Yale, Vice President, Secretary of War, and Senator–was…
Donald LivingstonNovember 17, 2017
Thomas Sumter in his encounters with the Indian nations enters the pages of recorded history.…
M.E. BradfordNovember 1, 2017
Agitation, Abstraction, Disruption, Distraction… These words are the most primal reasons that southern, and arguably…
Michael MartinSeptember 8, 2017
Neo-conservatives can’t seem to make up their mind about the Confederacy. They all agree that…
Brion McClanahanAugust 10, 2017
Want to learn about one of the greatest statesmen that the United States has ever…
Clyde WilsonMarch 17, 2017
According to the modern historical establishment, John C. Calhoun is the ultimate American villain. These…
Brion McClanahanMarch 14, 2017
. .the South—alone among the civilized communities of the nineteenth century—had hardihood sufficient for an…
Alan CornettMarch 9, 2017
The great body of the nation has no real interest in party. — James Fenimore…
Clyde WilsonFebruary 23, 2017
By H. Lee Cheek, Jr. and Sean Busick The effort to rename Calhoun College at…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.February 15, 2017
I am always glad to talk about my favourite subject–-John C. Calhoun. I think it…
Clyde WilsonFebruary 8, 2017
But I oppose war, not simply on the patriotic ground of a citizen looking to…
John C. CalhounNovember 3, 2016
The mission of the Abbeville Institute, to redeem what is worthwhile in the Southern tradition,…
Clyde WilsonSeptember 22, 2016
My friends, there is one issue before you, and to all sensible men but one…
James Rutledge RoeschAugust 1, 2016
John C. Culhoon. Culhoon is the right pronunciation by the way. John C. Culhoon was…
Clyde WilsonMarch 18, 2016
The post was originally published at LewRockwell.com. I’ve recently received information that Yale University may…
Paul GottfriedMarch 14, 2016
This essay is taken from The South in the Building of the Nation Series, Vol.…
George PetrieFebruary 11, 2016
Throughout most of American history region has been a better predictor of political position than…
Clyde WilsonJanuary 27, 2016
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, December 28, 2015-January 1, 2016. Topics: Southern…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 3, 2016
‘If only I can restore to our institutions their primitive simplicity and purity, can only…
James Rutledge RoeschNovember 3, 2015
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he…
Clyde WilsonOctober 28, 2015
I can still recall one of my college economics professor's witticisms. When a student mentioned…
Gail JarvisOctober 26, 2015
This article was originally published at Townhall.com. Victor Davis Hanson has a strange and misguided…
Brion McClanahanOctober 22, 2015
“. . . and bank-notes will become as plentiful as oak leaves.” —Thomas Jefferson “They…
Clyde WilsonAugust 26, 2015
The following is an abridged version of a chapter which will appear in the…
James Rutledge RoeschAugust 25, 2015
Delivered as the commencement address for South Carolina College, 1887. What theme is most fitting…
John Randolph TuckerJune 11, 2015
This piece was originally printed in Southern Partisan magazine in 1986. Some miles beyond Charlotte…
Russell KirkJune 2, 2015
It seems my mission here is to bring to your attention unfamiliar and unfashionable truths…
Clyde WilsonMay 13, 2015
In talking about the Southern political tradition, it is most appropriate to point to the…
Clyde WilsonApril 1, 2015
If "history is the essence of innumerable biographies," as Thomas Carlyle wrote, then the historian…
Brion McClanahanMarch 20, 2015
"When it comes to be once understood that politics is a game; that those who…
Clyde WilsonMarch 19, 2015
This selection was originally printed in Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson, Forgotten Conservatives in American…
Clyde WilsonMarch 18, 2015
Born in 1782 near Abbeville, South Carolina, Calhoun's educational opportunities were limited, albeit advanced by…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.March 18, 2015
This essay was first printed in the Southern Partisan Magazine, Volume III, Number 1 (1983).…
Russell KirkMarch 17, 2015
Your ordinary run-of-the mill historian will tell you that John C. Calhoun, having defended the…
Clyde WilsonMarch 16, 2015
I have seen enough of publick men to come to the conclusion, that there are…
Clyde WilsonFebruary 25, 2015
South Carolina will preserve its sovereignty, or be buried beneath its ruins. --Governor Robert Y.…
Clyde WilsonJanuary 8, 2015
Experience has taught me, that in politicks, it is much more easy to gain the…
Clyde WilsonDecember 31, 2014
It has been a rule with me, from which I have rarely departed, to pass…
Clyde WilsonDecember 26, 2014
The fiercely contested, yet inconclusive election of 1824 set the stage for one of the…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.December 5, 2014
When did the South ever lay its hand on the North? --Calhoun The body of…
Clyde WilsonOctober 28, 2014
The “positive good” speech of February 6, 1837, is vintage Calhoun, an exercise of his…
Clyde WilsonJune 26, 2014
In what became the United States, servitude of people of the black African race existed…
Clyde WilsonJune 25, 2014
With the destructive evil of centralized power becoming every day more evident and 10th Amendment…
Clyde WilsonJune 2, 2014
Equipped with an abundant knowledge of history, Michael Tuggle has cast a discerning eye on…
Clyde WilsonMay 14, 2014
The historian Andrew C. McLaughlin in 1932 wrote that the British imperial system was characterized…
Brion McClanahanApril 15, 2014
This lecture was delivered at the 1995 Ludvig von Mises seminar "Secession, State, and Economy"…
Clyde WilsonApril 8, 2014
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