Many Southerners are familiar with James “Ron” Kennedy and his brother, Walter “Donnie” Kennedy, who are prolific writers and staunch defenders of (what is left of) Southern tradition and heritage….
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In 1960, the great Southern political philosopher Richard Weaver penned an essay titled “Conservatism and Libertarianism: The Common Ground.” Most people considered Weaver to be a “conservative,” and he accepted…
Abraham Lincoln has become, for most mainline conservatives, an icon, and, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., no opportunity is lost—it seems—on Fox News or in the establishment “conservative press,”…
Sometime back in the early sixties—climaxed in 1964 with Barry Goldwater’s efforts—the South with its conservative measure, almost En Masse wanted (and needed) a place to go other than the…
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 11-22, 2021 Topics: Reconciliation, Southern Politics, Southern Culture, Southern History
It is a sad thing that it should fall to a junior representative from New York to tell the truth about the South’s position in national politics and culture. Ms….
A review of Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition (All Points Books, 2018) by Sir Roger Scruton. There is no such thing as conservatism, according to Sir Roger Scruton’s…
Crises of legitimacy are rarely resolved without some resort to violence. The European experience in the seventeenth century is generously populated with examples: The English Civil War, Le Fronde I…
Editor’s Note: This lecture was delivered at our 2019 Summer School on the New South. Carey Roberts explores the relationship between the Old Whig faction in the South–e.g. Alexander H….
‘The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new…
Will Rogers had a quip for just about any situation, but he loved to talk politics. Rogers was born on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma. His father was a Confederate…
Far too many pundits and commentators live and die by polls. It seems that each day some on-air talking head or online spinmeister reveals breathlessly increasingly bad results for President…
The question before us, ‘how did the writings of Blackstone influence American political philosophy, and what evidence for this influence is seen in Tocqueville’s observations of American political life?’ is…
On various occasions I’ve made references to Chronicles Magazine and cited articles printed in it. Remarkably, Chronicles is the only print magazine of stature (it is also online) in America which has represented and aired traditionalist…
A review of The Southern Tradition: The Achievements and Limitations of Southern Conservatism (Harvard, 1994) by Eugene Genovese The notion of a Southern political tradition can be understood as conservative,…
Many who are well acquainted with Southern history are almost entirely unfamiliar with the historical character of Nathaniel Macon. He is often mentioned by the best of authors as a…
Original material for Southern history has been so scarce at the centres where American historiographers have worked, that the general writers have had to substitute conjecture for understanding in many…
A review of The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (Simon and Schuster, 2016) by Fergus Bordewich Amateur historians usually…
Pat Caddell died on February 16. Several major news outlets ran stories about his influence in both the Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump campaigns. Everyone understood Caddell’s role as the…
It was an indelible moment, one that has resonated with me up to the present day. My father and I had gone to whatever permutation of Wal-Mart existed at that…
Texas will turn blue before it’s over with its local Neocons in charge. Former sports announcer and Bankrupt, now Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick has decided that his historical…
The South is and always been conservative. But with the constant hammer of political correctness and political falsehood (redundant?) pounded on it, it has waffled among many who brand it…
The presidential election of 2016 gave promise to be a watershed in American politics. Donald Trump appeared, a non-politician and rich enough to support his own campaign without selling himself…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
“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…
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…
A review of Remember Mississippi: How Chris McDaniel Exposed the GOP Establishment and Inspired a Revolution (WND, 2017) by Ryan S. Walters. Ryan S. Walters, who is book review editor…
At the base of most of the ongoing political debates currently raging in the United Sates there are always, it seems, deeper questions, more philosophical and more historical contexts that…
Presented at the 2017 Abbeville Institute Summer School. As scholars dedicated to exploring what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition, we are most often drawn to the antebellum…
The Left is wringing its hands and talking about impeachment because of the Comey firing, but it has a very short memory–its hands resemble Lady MacBeth’s- dripping with the blood…
As readers of this column well know, I have never really trusted the Republican Party. Even in 1962, when I first worked actively for a Republican candidate (the late Bill…
Andy Jackson’s famous toast, “The Union—it must and shall be preserved,” is still recorded in most high school U.S. history books. Calhoun’s once equally famous reply, “Next to our liberties,…
A few days ago I ran into an old friend, an historian, who started in on the Partisan. “I’ve lived all my life in the South,” he grumbled, “but I…
The terms “liberal” and “conservative” were usable signs in a society in which the state was governed by politics. They are of little use the in 21st century United States…
The polls show that 33 per cent of the public still gives Dubya Bush a favourable approval rating. Who could these people be? Some of them, no doubt, are well-meaning…
When I was active in College Democrats at my small state college, in the early 2000s, we didn’t quite fancy ourselves revolutionaries. Middle class origins were universal; collared shirts were…
The Republican party is no more republican then the Democratic party is democratic. Both are oligarchies promoting their namesakes as if those in charge (power) have the interests of the…
Call me simple… But I don’t understand: Why the government spends billions on welfare but people keep saying hunger is a big problem. Why the government spends billions on education…
This article was originally published in Southern Partisan Magazine in 1997. “Being a Southerner is a spiritual condition, like being a Catholic or Jew.” So wrote Richard Weaver in his…
Twenty-three Republican Senators joined a large majority of Democrats to vote for the Bush bill to amnesty millions of present and future illegal aliens. The bill passed the Senate 62–36….
Southerners (and there are many who still proudly spell that with a capital “S” even if positioned in the middle of a sentence; we don’t simply think we are that…
The New South is one of the more misunderstood periods in American history. The contemporary narrative generally describes the period and its leaders as dense political hacks riding the coattails…
Never knew for sure where the expression came from that my grandmother voiced to my brother and me from time to time, “You lie down with dogs, you get up…
This essay appeared in the 1984 winter issue of Southern Partisan magazine. In the best of all possible worlds, President Reagan, George Will, William Buckley and I—conservatives all—or so it…
This piece was originally published in Chronicles Magazine, October 2012. “O Fame, O Fame! Many a man ere this Of no account hast thou set up on high.” —Boethius “It…
Once again, it is politicking time in the good ol’ US of A. The Democrats, the party of youth, vision, and vigor, present to the country a senile old socialist…
The origin of the elephant as a symbol of the Republican Party occurred in 1874 after a political cartoon by Thomas Nast appeared in the popular New York newspaper, “Harper’s…
I promised to keep you updated on our government’s radio ads. In the latest, the Department of Justice offers you its benevolent services for any problem you might be experiencing…
Throughout most of American history region has been a better predictor of political position than party. That aspect of our reality has been neglected and suppressed in recent times as…
Gentlemen of the Historical Society of Mecklenburg (1876): Our president has appropriately introduced the series of historical lectures with the inquiry, why so few have attempted to preserve the record…
History is a liberal art and one profits by studying the whole of it, including the lost causes. All of us arc under a mortal temptation to grant the accomplished…
This piece was originally published at The American Conservative. When John William Corrington died in 1988, Southern conservatives lost one of their most talented writers, a refined Cajun cowboy with…
This article is reprinted from Edward Spencer, An Outline Public Life and Services Of Thomas F. Bayard, Senator of the United States from the State Of Delaware, 1869-1880. With Extractions from His Speeches and…
“Daddy was a veteran, a southern democrat, They oughta get a rich man to vote like that.” Bob McDill, “Song of the South” The presidential candidacy of Jim Webb marks,…
There are several attributes of Donald Trump’s bid for the U.S. Presidency that this Paleo-Conservative finds to be interesting. To follow is an adumbration of the more salient. His campaign…
In one of Henry James’s less unreadable novels, The Bostonians, the hero is Basil Ransom, an impoverished ex-Confederate from Mississippi who is trying to make his way professionally in the…
It is not necessary to detail Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner. Suffice it to say that we have been informed that Bruce’s inner self was at war with his…
The awful Obama is pushing terrible things on our country like socialised medicine, big spending, corporate bailouts, affirmative action, and amnesty for illegal aliens. He must be defeated so the…
On November 21, 1793, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill titled “An Act declaratory of certain parts of the retained sovereignty of the State of Georgia.” It’s unclear…
The recent riots in Baltimore gave most Americans pause as they struggled to make sense of the violence that tore at the fabric of some of the city’s most impoverished…
The title of this article is how the radical Muslim organization, ISIS, characterizes its callous destruction of Jewish, Christian, and other pre-Islamic religious statuary; places of worship, libraries, and…
Maryland Redeemed Everybody knows that our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was written by Francis Scott Key as he watched the British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor during…
“We the people” of Dixie are in a unique position in today’s America. We are, though most Southerners do not realize it, a conquered and occupied people. A people of…
The phrase, “The New South”, appears in the 1886 speech that Atlanta newspaper editor, Henry Grady, delivered to the New England Society in New York. In fact, the origination of…
This piece is taken from Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson Forgotten Conservatives in American History. Two dates changed the course of American political history. On 13 September 1841, the Whigs…
In honor of John Tyler’s birthday (March 29), I thought it proper to include a excerpt from my new book, Compact of the Republic: The League of States and the…
“When it comes to be once understood that politics is a game; that those who are engaged in it but act a part; that they make this or that profession,…
Born in 1782 near Abbeville, South Carolina, Calhoun’s educational opportunities were limited, albeit advanced by the occasional tutelage offered by his brother-in-law, Reverend Moses Waddel. After his parents’ death and…
The lack of interest in the film “Selma” by both the public and the film industry is a healthy sign. It is an indication that the public is growing tired…
To the chagrin and mortification of many liberals, Rolling Stone magazine had to apologize for its “lack of accuracy,” otherwise known as a lie, in a highly publicized article. In…
The defeat of liberal Democrat Mary Landrieu removed the Deep South’s last Democratic U.S. Senator. It is interesting to see the reaction of Yankee liberals (pardon the redundancy) as they…
Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast believes “It’s Time to Dump Dixie.” Please do. He also thinks that there may be a point in the future when the South should…
While cleaning my study the other day I ran across my copy of a $10.00 “Dix” note. This paper money was issued by the Bank of New Orleans up to…
Judged by the quality of the men it brought to power the eighteenth-century Virginia way of selecting political leadership was extremely good; but judged by modem standards of political excellence,…
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