Monthly Archives

June 2019

Podcast

Podcast Episode 175

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 24-28, 2019 Topics: Southern history, Southern statesmen https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-175
Brion McClanahan
June 29, 2019
Blog

Driving Through Virginia’s Historic Triangle

Virginia’s  Historic Triangle: Jamestowne, Williamsburg and Yorktowne encompasses the first permanent English settlement in America, the most important colonial capital, and the last major military engagement of the American War for Independence.  John Smith, Pocahontas, and John Rolfe trod the paths on Jamestown Island. Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason, James Madison, Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot Lee walked the…
Brett Moffatt
June 28, 2019
Blog

The Place of Nathaniel Macon in Southern History

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 North Carolinian, as a Georgian, or simply as a Southern Democrat. His share in the political development of the South is but vaguely known, yet every southern state has either…
William E. Dodd
June 27, 2019
Blog

The South Carolina Federalists

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 cases when attempting to interpret Southern developments. The Federalists of the South have suffered particularly from misrepresentation and neglect. Their Democratic-Republican contemporaries of course abused them; the American public at…
Ulrich B. Phillips
June 26, 2019
Review Posts

Dabney on Fire

A review of Dabney on Fire: A Theology of Parenting, Education, Feminism, and Government (2019) by Zachary Garris, ed. During his lifetime, Southern theologian and writer Robert Lewis Dabney was most notably known for his 1866 biography of General “Stonewall” Jackson (The Life and Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson) and for his post-war apologia for the Southern cause, A…
Boyd Cathey
June 25, 2019
Blog

Secessionville

Battle of Secessionville Commemoration Address by Gene Kizer, Jr. on the battle site at Fort Lamar Heritage Preserve on James Island in Charleston, South Carolina June 15, 2019. This was a memorial service honoring the 157th anniversary of the brilliant Confederate victory of June 16, 1862. The Battle of Secessionville was an extremely important battle because, if the Confederates had…
Gene Kizer, Jr.
June 24, 2019
Podcast

Podcast Episode 174

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 17-21, 2019 Topics: Southern history, R.L. Dabney, Federalism https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-174
Brion McClanahan
June 22, 2019
Blog

Make America States Again

I am honored to speak at the graduation from high school of these young men and women who were once my students and who are now my friends. We’ve grown so close, in fact, I’ve decided to graduate with them! Over the last few weeks, as the day of my departure grew near, many of these dear friends have thanked…
Joe Wolverton
June 21, 2019
Blog

Washington’s Money

Congress has a far greater number of wealthy people than the general population.  Consequently, the bureaucrats that Congress has created by their legislation also have brought unto themselves great wealth. Much of their wealth comes prior to serving in Congress it can be said. But much more from assets to the immediate temptation of graft and corruption euphemistically referred to…
Paul H. Yarbrough
June 20, 2019
Blog

Was Dabney a Prophet?

The writings of Robert Lewis Dabney (1820–1898) often read like prophecy. After the War Between the States, Dabney wrote essays on a variety of cultural and political issues, both in defense of the South and as an assault on progressivism. Along the way, he made predictions regarding the secularization of public schools, the future of feminism, and the decline of…
Zachary Garris
June 19, 2019
Review Posts

American Diplomacy Under Tyler and Polk

A review of American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk (Johns Hopkins, 1907) by Jesse S. Reeves. Both as an interesting chapter in the history of the diplomacy of the United States, and as dealing with an important and but recently exploited period of our national politics, Dr. Jesse S. Reeves’s American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk is a timely and…
St. George Sioussat
June 18, 2019
Podcast

Podcast Episode 173

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 10-14, 2019 Topics: Democracy, Southern Political Tradition, Agrarianism, Robert E. Lee https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-173
Brion McClanahan
June 15, 2019
Blog

Democracy vs. Aristocracy in Virginia in 1830

There is in some of our libraries a certain book which the writer of this article ventures to believe is not gener­ally as familiar as it should be to the student of politics. For himself, he chanced one day, several years ago, to blow the dust from off its time-worn binding and nine hun­dred dreary-looking pages of fine print, to…
Jeffrey R. Brackett
June 14, 2019
Blog

Ten Things You Don’t Know About Robert E. Lee

To those Americans who revere him—sadly, a dwindling number these days—Robert E. Lee is still much a “Marble Man”: the noble face of the antebellum South, the tragic embodiment of the Lost Cause, the “perfect” man, as a contemporary deemed him. Even his admirers are unaware of the some of the more interesting details of the life of this very…
Blog

The GMO Threat

Genetically engineered crops have been grown in large numbers across the States since 1996.  These genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are created by taking a gene (or genes) from an unrelated species like a bacterium and splicing it (them) into a crop like corn or cotton with the intention of improving some aspect of it (to protect against herbicides, drought, etc.). …
Walt Garlington
June 12, 2019
Review Posts

The First South

A review of The First South (LSU Press, 1961) by John Richard Alden One of the things I've discovered since I began studying Civil War history is that the roots of that conflict go back to before the United States were declared "free, sovereign and independent", and so a knowledge of the history of the early South is very useful…
Shane Anderson
June 11, 2019
Blog

The Limits of a Politics of Tolerance

Secession, nullification, and interposition, like the poor, we shall always have with us. These are as American, indeed more American, than apple pie and baseball. Our new federal union, outlined in the Constitution written at the Philadelphia Convention and ratified by the independent states in their separate conventions, was barely out of the gate before the first constitutional crisis hit…
John Devanny
June 10, 2019
Podcast

Podcast Episode 172

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 3-7 2019 Topics: Political Correctness, Secession, Abraham Lincoln, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-172
Brion McClanahan
June 8, 2019
Blog

Carr Washing

Silent Sam was a Confederate statue that stood on the University of North Carolina campus at Chapel Hill for 104 years after its 1913 dedication. A student mob toppled it in 2017 for being an allegedly racist symbol. Student hatred had been growing since 2011 when UNC graduate student Adam Domby discovered an outrageously racist incident described by one of…
Philip Leigh
June 7, 2019
Blog

Abraham Lincoln Crushes Civil Liberties in Maryland

Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as one of the nation's greatest Presidents. He is the subject of at least 15,000 books. A popular poem (later set to music) responded to Lincoln's call for troops in biblical terms: "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.…" Upon Lincoln's death, Bishop Horatio Potter wrote that " glorious career of service and…
Michael Schearer
June 6, 2019
Blog

Remembering Real Southern Statesmen

Over the years I have known a few—very few—politicians whom I have admired greatly. It seems that the age of those remarkable statesmen and political leaders who once gave substance and guidance to this nation and to our states has passed for good. Think of it: during the first half century of the existence of the old American Republic we…
Boyd Cathey
June 5, 2019
Review Posts

Loosiana Poets

A review of Louisiana Poets: A Literary Guide, (U. Press of Mississippi, 2019) by Catharine Savage Brosman and Olivia McNeely Pass. The poet and the scholar are reportedly different sorts of people. Rarely do you find high performance in both roles combined in one person. Catharine Brosman has done it. The only other example I can think of is the…
Clyde Wilson
June 4, 2019
Blog

The Southern Tradition Promotes Domestic Peace

I want to tell you a story that you won’t read in the mainstream news. It is a positive story, about people from different backgrounds, who have different cultures, coming together to work for a shared dream. It is a story of people who know they are different from each other, but recognize they can still respect each other and…
Marcus Ruiz Evans
June 3, 2019
Podcast

Podcast Episode 171

The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 27-31, 2019 Topics: Memorial Day, Monuments, Political Correctness, Patrick Henry https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-171
Brion McClanahan
June 1, 2019