Monthly Archives

April 2025

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Whiskey Men

Originally published at In The Shadow of Red Rock As the New Year 1930 dawned across the hills, it seemed prohibition had made little difference to the tough and resilient mountaineers of my home. The cat and mouse game of whiskey men and revenuers seemed to be less-covered by the papers as of late, but it undoubtedly was still being…
Travis Holt
April 24, 2025
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The Federal Government Did Not Create the States

Originally published at Mises.org One of the statues that was taken down in the 2020 purge of the Southern statues was that of the great American statesman from South Carolina, John. C. Calhoun. The then mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, John Tecklenburg, said that “while we acknowledge Calhoun’s efforts as a statesman, we can’t ignore his positions on slavery and…
Wanjiru Njoya
April 23, 2025
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Calhoun’s Lesson for Europe

The Union, next to our liberty, most dear. May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union – John C. Calhoun In A Disquisition on Government John C. Calhoun sought support for his political concepts among European solutions that had developed…
Karol Mazur
April 22, 2025
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American Refugees

A Review American Refugees: The Untold Story of the Mass Migration from Blue States to Red States (Encounter Books, 2023) by Roger L. Simon Your eyes do not deceive you: the South is growing in population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, since 2020 domestic migration trends have led to five of the top seven destination states being in the…
Thomas Ellen
April 21, 2025
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Jefferson v. Trump on Executive Power

In a comment to a recent essay on Jefferson, “Jefferson on Executive Action,” an Abbevillian wrote: Can’t put Biden anywhere near Jefferson. Trump. On the other hand, seems to be acting more, much more, in the interest of saving our Republic—whether he is aware of it or not. While no where near as eloquent as Jefferson—his presidential library may not…
M. Andrew Holowchak
April 18, 2025
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For God, King, and People

A Review of For God, King, and People: Forging Commonwealth Bonds in Renaissance Virginia (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) by Alexander Haskell Intellectual history is the most difficult history to write. Too often it is written in a pedestrian manner resembling a genealogy from the Book of Genesis where this thinker begat that thinker and so on. Meanwhile, the followers…
John Devanny
April 17, 2025
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The South Remembers: Corsicana, Texas; Raymond, Mississppi

The Republicans used the heartbreaking murder of black Southerners by white Southerner Dylann Roof in Charleston, South Carolina to ally with the Democrats in their long-awaited attack on the memory of the Western people. Perhaps they thought that by throwing the South to the wolves, they’d save their own hides. So Nimarata Haley, then the governor of South Carolina, courageously…
Enoch Cade
April 16, 2025
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Gordon Chang, Allies Ad Nauseum

You can call it a trifecta or any of the obvious synonyms (trio, triplex, triad, etc.), but in any event, the contemporary political abstract  is aligned as  a unit melded from three:  one of the three being mostly admirable (within the bounds of mortal sinfulness), the second, mostly consist of  pitifully weak sissified men (and their cable-news whore), and the…
Paul H. Yarbrough
April 15, 2025
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Trump in Power: A Southern View

Originally published at Reckonin.com. Donald Trump is not the kind of character who appeals readily to Southerners. However, he is a recognisable un-Woke American type who deserves credit for some virtues. His is certainly not a Southern administration although a solid South made possible his big victory in the popular vote and the Electoral College. It is nice to see…
Clyde Wilson
April 14, 2025
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1861: A Storm Over Sumter

1861: Storm Over Sumter A  Charleston Play in One Act Cast Mary Chesnut                 Robert Barnwell Charlotte Wigfall            Abraham Lincoln (voice) Virginia Kirkland            Louis Wigfall James Petigru                  Robert Anderson James Chesnut                 Lawrence Scene 1 Seated at a large table, set for tea, on the piazza center stage, Mary Chesnut,38, dark hair bobbed to just below her ears, handsome rather than beautiful,…
Kirkpatrick Sale
April 11, 2025
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Jefferson on the Possibility of White Slaves and Black Masters

Sholars today typically refer to Query XIV of his Notes on the State of Virginia as evidence of Jefferson’s racism. Jefferson states that Blacks were likely inferior in imagination, beauty, and intelligence, and more bestial and hasty in romance, but added that such sentiments must be taken cum grano salis—at least, until such time as they can be made objects…
M. Andrew Holowchak
April 10, 2025
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The Cultural Cleansing of VMI

Author's Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this piece are strictly my own. I do not presume in any fashion to speak for the Abbeville Institute or VMI. I severed all of my connections with VMI (except for the Class of 1967) when she removed "Stonewall" Jackson’s statue from the parade ground. Just before unleashing his thunderbolt on Hooker’s flank at…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.
April 9, 2025
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Impeaching Judges Should Never be off the Table

This piece was originally published at TheHill.com The judicial establishment is angry. President Trump has called for the impeachment and removal of Judge James Boasberg, who halted the administration’s deportation of Venezuelan gang members. J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge and a “Never-Trumper,” warned that the president’s complaints about the judiciary threaten a constitutional crisis. Chief Justice John Roberts…
William J. Watkins
April 8, 2025
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Getting Right With Abe

This piece was originally published at Reckonin.com America will never come right until it gets right with Lincoln. He was not a saint who saved the Union and freed the slaves. He was a pathologically ambitious man who stumbled into the bloodiest war in American history, freed the slaves in the most destructive possible way, and cost the lives of…
Clyde Wilson
April 7, 2025
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The Importance of Constitutional Government

This piece was originally published at mises.org In his book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis explained (vol. 2) the Southern cause, as he saw it: “When the cause was lost, what cause was it? Not that of the South only, but the cause of constitutional government, of the supremacy of law, of the natural rights…
Wanjiru Njoya
April 4, 2025
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Southern Story and Song

A review of  Southern Story and Song: Country Music in the 20th Century, (Shotwell Publishing, 2024) by Joseph R. Stromberg, Some claim that the zenith of Country Music’s popularity was in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. With mega-selling artists like Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and Toby Keith, Nashville record company executives certainly weren’t hurting for cash during this era and…
John L. Goodwin
April 3, 2025
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This Was a Man

On July 11, 1875, "Old Billie", the former body servant of Confederate General Henry L. Benning, led Benning's horse over eight blocks to Linwood Cemetery, the "Old Rock's" final resting place in Columbus, Georgia. "Old Billie" proudly wore his Confederate grey coat as he followed Benning's hearse on the slow march to the family plot in Linwood. Benning died of…
Brion McClanahan
April 2, 2025
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A Southern Speech

From the October 17, 1866 edition of The New York Times. On Sept. 22, Gen. Wade Hampton delivered an address at Walhalla, Pickens District, S.C. The fol­lowing is the part of the speech which relates to na­tional affairs: You may perhaps, fellow-citizens, think that any discussion of general politics is inappropriate on an occasion of this sort, but as I…
Wade Hampton, III
April 1, 2025