Monthly Archives

September 2024

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Coming of the War Between the States: An Interpretation

When Lee surrendered at Appomattox a tall gaunt North Carolinian stolidly stacked arms and fell back into line. He was worn, hungry, and dirty. The insistent Yankees had granted him little time during the past weeks for relaxation. Food had been scarce; the opportunities for cleanliness lacking. He had gone on fighting more from habit than purpose. He had quit…
Avery O. Craven
September 30, 2024
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Keystones and Linchpins

Everyone understands the concept of the keystone and the linchpin. Even those who do not comprehend why these objects are of supreme importance, understand that, in fact, they are. For if one destroys the keystone, the arch dependent upon it will fall and if one removes the linchpin, the apparatus it binds together comes apart. There are keystones and linchpins…
Valerie Protopapas
September 27, 2024
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The Battle of the Confederate Monuments

This essay was originally published at Mises.org. Various justifications have been advanced by those removing or destroying Confederate monuments to explain why they deem it necessary to dismantle the Confederate heritage. For example, the memorial to Zebulon Vance in Asheville, North Carolina was demolished on grounds that it was “a painful symbol of racism.” In the tumult surrounding the Black Lives Matter riots, “168…
Wanjiru Njoya
September 26, 2024
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An Ode to Jack and Darlene

Back in 82’, John Cougar Mellencamp wrote a little ditty about Jack and Diane, two American kids growing up in the Heartland. It has become a classic. I like it fine, but I wish John had been from the South so he could have written an ode to Jake and Darlene. Jake and Darlene are a couple from somewhere around…
Brandon Meeks
September 25, 2024
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Atlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture

Sam Bowers Hilliard understood power—not the kind that flows from political office or great wealth, but the power of the land itself. Born in 1930, in a Georgia hamlet that bore his mother's maiden name, Hilliard grew to recognize how the soil, the crops, and the very food on Southern tables shaped the course of history. Hilliard joined the Department…
Chase Steely
September 24, 2024
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Jefferson’s Greatest Legacy

It is well-known today that Thomas Jefferson considered his Declaration of Independence, his Bill for Religious Freedom, and his University of Virginia to be his greatest contributions to humanity. That is why he had those deeds inscribed proudly on his tombstone. Yet perhaps his greatest legacy, mostly flouted today because of scholarly indifference to the large moral dimension of his…
M. Andrew Holowchak
September 23, 2024
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Reconstruction

Reconstruction is one of the most important topics in American history. It used to be a complex story, and as one historian called it a "tragic era." Historians now call it an "unfinished revolution." What changed? Only interpretation. https://youtu.be/KRbQjvano1s
Abbeville Institute
September 20, 2024
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John Rutledge

John Rutledge was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in September, 1739. His father, Dr. John Rutledge, was a native of Ireland, who emigrated to South Carolina in 1735. He married Sarah Hext, a lady of liberal endowments and cultivation, who became the mother of the future jurist in the fifteenth year of her age. She was left a widow at…
William Horatio Barnes
September 18, 2024
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From the Archive–Hooray for the Confederate Flag

The Rev. Al Sharpton is a darling of the national news media, primarily because he has a talent for making outrageous statements and the lack of scruples to go with it. You should keep this in mind. In today's media-saturated world, nobody can be a successful demagogue without the cooperation of the national news media. Sharpton has even outdone Jesse…
Charley Reese
September 17, 2024
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Why Maryland Did Not Secede

After Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers on April 15, 1861, to force the seven cotton states back into the Union, four Upper South states—Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas—seceded and joined the Confederacy. They deemed Federal coercion against any state to be an unconstitutional abuse of power. Maryland’s experience underscores the point. The first fatality of the Civil War was…
Philip Leigh
September 16, 2024
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Jefferson and Kosciuszko

He is as pure a son of liberty, as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone – Thomas Jefferson Modern scholars consider the friendship expressed in the letters exchanged between Tadeusz Kościuszko and Thomas Jefferson as one of the main historical sources on the…
Karol Mazur
September 13, 2024
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The Old South and the New South

Brion McClanahan discusses the continuity between the Old South and the New South and the Jeffersonian understanding of the War for Southern Independence at the October 2015 Conference in Stone Mountain, GA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYzD2vhNE3c
Brion McClanahan
September 12, 2024
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From the Archives: James Iredell: Neglected Southern Federalist

Born in Lewes, England (October 5, 1751), Iredell spent his childhood in Bristol. The eldest of five sons born to Francis and Margaret McCulloh Iredell, he was forced to leave school after his father suffered a debilitating stroke in 1766. With the assistance of relatives, Iredell came to America in 1768 to accept an appointment as Comptroller of the Customs…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.
September 11, 2024
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“The Whole Affair Has Been Conducted by Amateurs”

In the November 5, 1998, piece for Nature, a group of scientists, led by pathologist Dr. Eugene Foster, had published a piece titled “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child.” Utilizing what was at the time state-of-the-art Y-chromosome DNA analysis—the Y-chromosome is identical in a particular line of males (e.g., Jefferson’s Y-chromosome is the same as this father’s, his grandfather’s, his brother’s,…
M. Andrew Holowchak
September 10, 2024
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Neo-Abolitionist Hypocrisy

Many modern Americans believe that slavery was a national unpardonable sin and that slaveholders were evil people unworthy of any respect or admiration. No one escapes this denunciation, including the Founding Fathers. They will give innumerable reasons why slavery was morally wrong, and while modern Western Civilization has generally accepted slavery as a morally reprehensible institution, judging historical actors by…
Jeff Wolverton
September 9, 2024
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The Battle of Secessionville

My Talk at the 129th Annual Reunion of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Charleston, South Carolina, July 16, 2024 Good evening and WELCOME to God's Holy City of Charleston, South Carolina, where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers come together to FORM the Atlantic Ocean! It's also where the FIRST Ordinance of Secession passed 169 - 0 on December 20,…
Gene Kizer, Jr.
September 6, 2024
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Jefferson v. Adams on “The Natural Aristocracy”

After a lengthy respite due to tensions between the two that began during Adams’ presidency, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, with the intervention of Benjamin Rush, resumed their correspondence with a brief letter from Adams to Jefferson on January 1, 1812. On June 15, 1813, Jefferson aims to clear the air, as it were. He brings up partisan differences concerning…
M. Andrew Holowchak
September 5, 2024
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The War Against the South

Originally published at LewRockwell.com In the past few decades, the federal government has been engaged in a concerted effort to destroy the heritage of the South, and this effort has intensified under so-called “President” Joe Biden and his gang of neo-con controllers. We can be sure that if Kamala Harris takes office as his successor, these efforts will continue. After…
Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr.
September 4, 2024
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Too Many Skunks

I hate to take it out on Donald Trump. Whoever or whatever he is, he has spent a lot of time and money when he didn’t have to. He did most likely earn his money, unlike many of the disgusting and vile yard-dog Democrats, such as the Clintons, Obamas, Willie Brown, Pelosis, and of course there is the Biden Ukraine…
Paul H. Yarbrough
September 3, 2024
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Muslim Slavery

The following remarks were delivered at the fourth annual Jefferson Davis Conference at Mount Crawford, Virginia on June 27, 2024. When we hear about slavery, what do we hear about it? We hear that it was invented by white people when they enslaved black people. Actually, slavery has been in the world since the beginning of recorded history. Historian John…
Timothy A. Duskin
September 2, 2024