Monthly Archives

March 2017

Blog

Why Lee? Why Acton?

A prevailing notion throughout the grand land of America is that the constant brouhaha down South among many of us regarding monuments and flags and statues is much ado. . .so forth and so on. . . and that neo confederates (so-called) are living in the past. While not calling myself a neo-confederate (paleo) I certainly live for the past.…
Paul H. Yarbrough
March 31, 2017
Blog

Yankee Foreign Policy and the Cold War

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is rattling his sabers and threatening war against the United States. He blew up an American aircraft carrier in one propaganda video and has goaded the Trump administration in several other statements, ostensibly to create the image of manly firmness to his people. Obviously, high profile assassinations and executions along with staged videos showing Jong-un…
Brion McClanahan
March 30, 2017
Blog

A Disease of the Public Mind

Historian and novelist Thomas Fleming is the author of more than fifty books, including two very good revisionist histories of the two world wars: The New Dealers’ War, and The Illusion of Victory in World War I. He has authored biographies of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and has written extensively about the founding generation, including his best-selling book, Liberty!…
Thomas DiLorenzo
March 29, 2017
Review Posts

Maryland’s Confederate Sisterhood

“If you, who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace.  If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to…
J.L. Bennett
March 28, 2017
Blog

Jefferson and Slavery

Every so often, contemporary opponents of the Jeffersonian tradition make the argument that the legacy of the “Sage of Monticello” has been tainted by patent hypocrisy. The barrage of attacks Jefferson levied against slavery, they suggest, should be discounted on the grounds that he was a slave owner himself. Beyond this, some go as far as to claim that all…
Dave Benner
March 27, 2017
Podcast

Podcast Episode 64

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 20-24, 2017. Topics: Thomas Jefferson, Southern culture, Southern heritage, Southern history, Bernard Baruch, Southern literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-64
Brion McClanahan
March 25, 2017
Blog

Bernard Baruch: Son of the South

On the morning of July 5, 1880, Colonel E.B.C. Cash and Colonel William M. Shannon faced each other with pistols near Du Bose's bridge in Darlington County, S,C. At a word of command, Shannon fired quickly, splashing the muddy ground at the feet of his adversary. Colonel Cash, an experienced duelist with a sinister reputation, coolly took aim and fired.…
Charles Goolsby
March 24, 2017
Blog

Manly Wade Wellman: The Voice of the Mountains

Manly Wade Wellman never penned an autobiography, despite the fact he published 500 stories and articles, won the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award, and even edged out William Faulkner to win the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Award in 1946. Yet, in one of his most famous short stories, Wellman did reveal how he must have seen himself…
Mike C. Tuggle
March 23, 2017
Blog

Southern Heritage Then and Now

Order of the Southern Cross Banquet, Sons of Confederate Veterans National Reunion, Asheville, North Carolina, August 1, 2003 As the direct descendant of a private in the 42nd North Carolina and a sergeant in the 20th North Carolina, I am honoured to talk to a group descended from notable officers in our War of Independence--or the War to Prevent Southern…
Clyde Wilson
March 22, 2017
Review Posts

The Shining Spirits

Why the South Will Survive, by Fifteen Southerners. Edited by Clyde N. Wilson. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1981. As a naturalized Southerner (born in the North but educated in the South) it is a delight to discover this hard intellectual diamond among the soft dunghills of contemporary American publishing. The fifteen separate essays contained in this work deserve…
Jeffrey St. John
March 21, 2017
Blog

Jefferson the Man

Thomas Jefferson, Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America. Kevin R. C. Gutzman (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2017). The challenge a historian faces when writing about Thomas Jefferson is which Jefferson does one choose?  The choices of “Jeffersons” include: Jefferson the radical, Jefferson the democrat, Jefferson the philosophe, Jefferson the scientist, Jefferson the statesman, and Jefferson the planter, just…
John Devanny
March 20, 2017
Podcast

Podcast Episode 63

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Mar 13-17, 2017 Topics: Southern culture, John C. Calhoun, the American presidency, Robert Lewis Dabney https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-63
Brion McClanahan
March 18, 2017
Blog

Coit’s Calhoun

Want to learn about one of the greatest statesmen that the United States has ever produced?  Then get hold of John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Coit. When this beautifully-written book received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1951, it was generally agreed that Coit had redeemed Calhoun as a major and admirable, even heroic, figure in American history.  Even…
Clyde Wilson
March 17, 2017
Blog

Heil to the Chief

A Review of: The American Presidency: An Intellectual History by Forrest McDonald Kansas, 1994. Since the surrender at Appomattox, the South has been virtually excluded from two of the three branches of the national government. We can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Southerners who have been appointed to the Supreme Court or elected to the…
James McClellan
March 16, 2017
Blog

The South’s Gonna Do It Again

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 don't see what makes Southern life so wonderful that you and your friends want to impose it on the rest of the country." I did my best to reassure him…
Thomas Fleming
March 15, 2017
Review Posts

A Deep Devotion to the Constitution

According to the modern historical establishment, John C. Calhoun is the ultimate American villain. These esteemed historians think lofty assessments from previous decades failed to account for his glaring inconsistencies in regard to federal power, his advocacy for American imperialism, or his well-known defense of slavery and racism. Historians may have been critical of Calhoun's advancement of the "positive good"…
Brion McClanahan
March 14, 2017
Blog

The Timely Wisdom of Robert Lewis Dabney

Many of the destructive ideas and “isms” of our century in America had their roots in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a number of Southern writers and clergymen recognized their nature and warned against them. Among these men was Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) of Virginia, one of the South’s great Presbyterian thinkers.  He was the author of a number…
Karen Stokes
March 13, 2017
Podcast

Podcast Episode 62

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Mar 6-10, 2017. Topics: Southern culture, Southern religion, Southern language. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-62
Brion McClanahan
March 11, 2017
Blog

H.L. Mencken and the South

Mencken's "Sahara of the Bozart" is one of the most famous essays of 20th century American let­ters. Since its appearance in 1919, the essay has become widely regarded as Mencken's "slur on the South," as his acid-laced repudiation of Southern culture (indeed his assertion that the South had no culture). "The Sahara of the Bozart" is a bit more complex…
Guy Story Brown
March 10, 2017
Blog

Russell Kirk’s Southern Sensibilities: A Celebration

. .the South—alone among the civilized communities of the nine­teenth century—had hardihood sufficient for an appeal to arms against the iron new order which, a vague instinct whispered to Southerners, was inimical to the sort of humanity they knew." —Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind Certainly those south of the Mason-Dixon line expect little by way of understanding from non-natives, especially…
Alan Cornett
March 9, 2017
Blog

The Bonus Bill Veto and the Southern Tradition

On March 3, 1817, President James Madison vetoed the Bonus Bill of 1817 – a plan that called for the federal construction of various roads, bridges, and canals throughout the country. In a letter to Congress, the president explained his rationale. Out of all historical writings on constitutional interpretation, I believe it stands today as one of the most important.…
Dave Benner
March 8, 2017
Review Posts

God, Gallup, and the Episcopalians

The rejection of the old Prayer Book was something like the demolition of a historic building. For over four centuries it has been regarded as a monument of great prose. It has influenced the English language with memorable images and phrasing. Only the King James trans­lation of the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare have affected our language so…
Cleanth Brooks
March 7, 2017
Blog

Films from the South

Like it or not, movies are the main art form of our time, the story-telling medium that reaches the largest audience and captures the attention of us all, high and low, wise and foolish. It is also true that movies, like literature and architecture, reflect something of the soul of the particular nation that produces them. If so, we indeed…
Clyde Wilson
March 6, 2017
Podcast

Podcast Episode 61

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Feb 27- Mar 3, 2017 Topics: Southern culture, Southern literature, North over South, Secession https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-61
Brion McClanahan
March 4, 2017
Blog

The Sense of “Southernizing”

For as long as people have been writing about Southern character—and that's getting to be a pretty long time now—they've been inclined to mention Southern individualism. From Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Mar­quis de Chastellux to Charlie Daniels' "Long-haired Coun­try Boy," Southerners have been inclined to mention or exemplify this trait themselves. W.J. Cash has probably discussed it most thoroughly,…
John Shelton Reed
March 3, 2017
Blog

New England Against America

The Fiction of Mr. Simms gave indication, we repeat, of genius, and that of no common order. Had he been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately manifest to his countrymen, but unhappily (perhaps) he was a Southerner His book, therefore, depended entirely upon its own intrinsic value and resources, but with these it made its way…
Clyde Wilson
March 2, 2017
Review Posts

A Pilgrim’s Progress: Nathaniel Hawthorne Reconsidered

At first glance, Nathaniel Hawthorne seems the quintessential Yankee, one not at all likely to be claimed or adopted by Southerners. His great, great, great grandfather, William Hathorne, came to America with John Winthrop's company in 1630. William and his son John were Puritans; they are conspicuous in history books as great persecutors of Quakers and witches. The second Hathorne…
Michael Jordan
March 1, 2017
Blog

February Top Ten

The top ten articles for February 2017: 1. Attack on Robert E. Lee is an Assault on American History Itself by Allan Brownfield 2. Presidents Quiz by Clyde Wilson 3. Washington vs. Lincoln by Brion McClanahan 4. Why the South Fought by Sheldon Vanuaken 5. Union or Else by Karen Stokes 6. The Black Confederate and the Teddy Bear by…
Brion McClanahan
March 1, 2017