Monthly Archives

December 2015

Media Posts

The Confederate Rule of Law

Marshall DeRosa on "The Confederate Rule of Law: An American Patrimony Worth Fighting For, Then and Now," from the October 2015 Abbeville Institute Conference in Stone Mountain, GA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzAqFXj3Fds
Marshall DeRosa
December 31, 2015
Blog

So Red the Rose

You might not find Stark Young's So Red The Rose in current recommendations of novels set during the civil war era, but Young's novel, published in 1934, was a record-breaking best seller, so popular with the reading public that it was made into a Hollywood film. It differs from most novels in that it doesn't have a protagonist, nor is…
Gail Jarvis
December 31, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

Introduction to James Pettigrew’s Notes on Spain

Introduction This is James Johnston Pettigrew’s only book, privately printed in Charleston in the first weeks of the War between the States and here for the first time published. In the opening passage the author describes himself crossing the Alps on his way to seek service in the army of the king of Sardinia. His mission was to take part…
Clyde Wilson
December 30, 2015
Review Posts

The Immortals

THE IMMORTALS: A STORY OF LOVE AND WAR In 1861, as a deadly conflict looms between North and South, Charleston sits like a queen upon the waters—beautiful, proud and prosperous—and no native son loves her more than George Taylor. A successful Broad Street lawyer, Taylor has won the heart of an enchanting young woman and looks forward to a brilliant…
Karen Stokes
December 29, 2015
Podcast

Podcast Episode 6

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, December 21-25, 2015 Topics: Christmas, Paris, Mt. Vernon, Arlington House, Nathaniel Macon https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-6
Brion McClanahan
December 28, 2015
Blog

Rebels of the Golden State

On July fourth 1861, Major J.P. Gillis made a public display of his support of colonial secession from the British Empire as well as Southern secession from the United States by parading in the streets with a Confederate flag of his own design. He drew cheers from a large crowd of onlookers, but two men named Curtis Clark and J.W.…
Matt De Santi
December 28, 2015
Review Posts

Christmas in Richmond, 1864

This piece is taken from Varina Davis's recollections of life in the South, published in the New York World on December 13, 1896, and reprinted here. ...Rice, flour, molasses and tiny pieces of meat, most of them sent to the President's wife anonymously to be distributed to the poor, had all be weighed and issued, and the playtime of the…
Varina Davis
December 25, 2015
Blog

A Christmas Story for the Old South

This piece was originally published on the Canada Free Press. Much to the annoyance of multiculturists, Christmas is still America’s most celebrated holiday, and in the weeks preceding this festive time, traditional Christmas stories will appear on television screens. We can expect to see numerous versions of Charles Dickens renowned tale, A Christmas Carol, O.Henry’s The Gift of the Magi,and…
Gail Jarvis
December 24, 2015
Blog

Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXIII

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter -- Winston Churchill Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other kind that has been tried. --Churchill The lowest common denominator in America is a lot lower than it used to be. –Clyde Wilson The rebels have exhibited a most wonderful energy and skill…
Clyde Wilson
December 23, 2015
Review Posts

For the Paris Dead

The Wehrmacht coveted the wealth of France, its grain, vines, ports, its past—and Paris most of all.  They planned, and took their shining chance. Admiring it, they didn’t want its ghost,   or ruins!  They too were Franks.  “Leben wie Gott in Frankreich” was their watchword.   Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Concorde, the Louvre besot them: vital presence, history, art.  The…
Catharine Savage Brosman
December 22, 2015
Podcast

Podcast Episode 5

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, December 14-18, 2015 Host: Brion McClanahan Topics: The PC Attack on the South, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Southern politics, Northern opposition to Mr. Lincoln's War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-5
Brion McClanahan
December 21, 2015
Blog

A Tale of Two Plantations

In the 1850s, Ann Pamela Cunningham, a frail woman from South Carolina, was responsible for preserving the plantation home of George Washington, founding the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, an organization which still maintains this historic site. Thanks to her efforts, Mount Vernon remained virtually untouched during the War for Southern Independence. Arlington Plantation, the beautiful Virginia home of Robert E.…
Karen Stokes
December 21, 2015
Blog

South from Egypt

Illinois has been known as the “Land of Lincoln” for the past sixty years . . . the state legislature having officially adopted the motto in 1955, but a century prior to that most residents of the state’s sixteen southern counties would certainly have objected to the term.  That area of Illinois has been called “Little Egypt” or merely “Egypt”…
John Marquardt
December 18, 2015
Review Posts

A Wisconsin Copperhead

We have been taught that the North was united behind Lincoln in his war. This is simply not true. It is an outright lie told and taught by the victors of the war who, after implementing the government (“public”) schools called for by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto, now control education in this land. As a Copperhead, I was…
John Battell
December 17, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

The Jeffersonian Democrat Rediscovered

A Review of A Plague on Both Your Houses, by Robert W. Whitaker. New York: Robert B. Luce, 1976, 208 pages. Hardly anyone has commented upon the seeming disappearance from American life of the Jeffersonian democrat. The Jeffersonian democrat was a hardy American breed, perhaps the only political type original to this continent. Outnumbering all other species between 1800 and…
Clyde Wilson
December 16, 2015
Review Posts

“We want not Gascons, but Southern gentlemen, honorable, high-toned men of strict integrity and straight hair.”

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 of the great events in the history of North Carolina, and to. embalm the memories of the illustrious actors therein. Perhaps, it may not be amiss in me to pursue…
Daniel Harvey Hill
December 15, 2015
Blog

Jefferson Was Right

I am writing in response to the recently posted piece at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, entitled “History proves Thomas Jefferson was wrong (whew).” The author of this article drastically overstates Madison's role in the finalized Constitution. Madison desired a highly nationalistic government, with a national legislature that had general legislative authority, two houses of Congress both of which were apportioned…
Dave Benner
December 14, 2015
Podcast

Podcast Episode 4

The Week in Review, December 7-11, 2015, with your host, Brion McClanahan Topics: The origins of the Southern and American tradition, George Mason, Henry Timrod, Abraham Lincoln, and the PC attack on the South and Western Civilization https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-4
Brion McClanahan
December 12, 2015
Blog

A Brave New World…in the South

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? George Orwell, 1984 The Abbeville Institute was founded over a decade ago to preserve and defend the South… her traditions, literature, history, arts, and faiths. Recently we came across the memorandum below from a student affairs office at a major Southern university. The officers…
William Wilson
December 11, 2015
Review Posts

The Dark Side of Abraham Lincoln

By way of prologue, let me say that all of us like the Lincoln whose face appears on the penny. He is the Lincoln of myth: kindly, hum­ble, a man of sorrows who believes in malice toward none and char­ity toward all, who simply wants to preserve the Union so that we can all live together as one people. The…
Thomas Landess
December 10, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

The Virginia Roots of American Values

"There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians." — Barnard Elliott Bee A Review of Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture, by Jack P. Greene, Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1988, 284 pages. We were British colonists for a long time.…
Clyde Wilson
December 9, 2015
Blog

What Was the Confederacy After All?

This article was originally published at lewrockwell.com. In all the recent fuss over symbols of the Confederacy, whether to honor them or get rid of the lot, not much attention has been paid to what that Confederacy was, after all, and why it might  be something that anyone would want to commemorate. Of course one side doesn’t care.  It is…
Kirkpatrick Sale
December 7, 2015
Podcast

Podcast Episode 3

The Week in Review, November 30-December 4, 2015 with your host, Brion McClanahan. Topics: The Pilgrims, the Jeffersonian tradition, secession, and the original Constitution. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-3
Brion McClanahan
December 6, 2015
Blog

Remembering Hugh Williamson

One of the most unknown, yet substantial political leaders in the founding generation was a patriot named Hugh Williamson. In his life he surrounded himself with the most famous people in North America, and gradually became an instrumental leader who contributed to the cause of American independence. Serving the role of an intellectual erudite, military hero, and champion of republican…
Dave Benner
December 4, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

Can the Republic Be Restored: Presidency

The American President began as Cincinnatus, a patriot called to the temporary service of his country (a republican confederation). The President ends as Caesar, a despot of almost unlimited power, presiding over a global empire. Like the Caesars, in some quarters the President is even worshiped as a god. Cincinnatus was called because of his proven ability and patriotism. Caesar…
Clyde Wilson
December 2, 2015
Blog

November Top Ten

The Top Ten posts for November.  If you haven't read 'em yet, do so.  If you have, read 'em again.  And don't forget our new podcast. 1. Andrew Jackson: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by James Rutledge Roesch 2. Is The Campaign To Eradicate Southern Heritage Losing Steam? by Gail Jarvis 3. Thomas Jefferson, Southern Man of Letters,…
Brion McClanahan
December 2, 2015
Review Posts

The Same Old Stand?

This essay was published in Why the South Will Survive: Fifteen Southerners Look at Their Region a Half Century after I'll Take My Stand, edited by Clyde Wilson, 1981. When the Southern Agrarians took their stand, they did it stoutly, on two feet. Some emphasized the "Southern," others the "Agrarian," but fifty years ago it seemed that the two loyalties, to the South…
John Shelton Reed
December 1, 2015