The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Feb 8-12, 2016. Topics: Reconstruction, Southern History, Secession, James Iredell, Southern politics. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-13
Brion McClanahanFebruary 13, 2016
Many people are familiar with the Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project of the 1930s. While some historians reject them for what has been called gross inaccuracies due in large part to the many positive memories of the institution (the negative accounts are always used), they have become the standard source for firsthand information on the institution from the…
Brion McClanahanFebruary 5, 2016
Our top ten articles for January 2016: Black Slaveowners by Larry Koger Robert E. Lee: Gallant Soldier, True Patriot, Noble Christian by Mike Scruggs Did Black People Own Slaves? by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A Southerner Repents by Fred Reed Stonewall Jackson by James I. Robertson, Jr. When the Yankees Come: Former South Carolina Slaves Remember the Invasion by Paul…
Brion McClanahanFebruary 2, 2016
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 25-29, 2016. Topics include the Southern tradition, Southern cooking, Southern politics, Thomas Jefferson, Southern education, and Robert E. Lee. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-11
Brion McClanahanJanuary 30, 2016
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 18-22, 2016. Topics: Political Correctness, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-10
Brion McClanahanJanuary 23, 2016
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 11-15, 2016. Host Brion McClanahan discusses Harper Lee, Southern literature, Southern Jews, Reconstruction, and political correctness. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-9
Brion McClanahanJanuary 16, 2016
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 4-8, 2016, hosted by Brion McClanahan. Topics include Black slaveonwers, Black Confederates, Revisionism, and Political Correctness. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-8
Brion McClanahanJanuary 9, 2016
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, December 28, 2015-January 1, 2016. Topics: Southern literature, the year in review, John C. Calhoun, slavery, the Confederate Flag, Southern film, California. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-7
Brion McClanahanJanuary 3, 2016
Our top ten for 2015: 1. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence by Clyde Wilson 2. Was the Civil War About Slavery? by Dave Benner 3. The Dark Side of Abraham Lincoln by Thomas Landess 4. What is a Southerner? by Clyde Wilson 5. Why Do They Hate the South and Its…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 2, 2016
Sean Hannity begins his nationally syndicated radio talk show by welcoming listeners to “the revolution.” This is a clever marketing ploy, but nothing Hannity discusses is truly revolutionary nor that inspiring. Many thoughtful listeners are left searching for a voice that articulates their worldview, particularly in the South. Some of these people—not just Southerners—have ended up at the Abbeville Institute. …
Brion McClanahanJanuary 1, 2016
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 McClanahanDecember 28, 2015
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 McClanahanDecember 21, 2015
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 McClanahanDecember 12, 2015
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 McClanahanDecember 6, 2015
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 McClanahanDecember 2, 2015
The week in review at the Abbeville Institute--November 23-27, 2015--with your host, Brion McClanahan. Topics: Thanksgiving, the Southern Tradition, and the "Lost Cause." https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ai-podcast-episode-2
Brion McClanahanNovember 28, 2015
Chris Stapleton is now a household name. This should have happened a long time ago. After cleaning up at the Country Music Awards, Stapleton showcased his outstanding voice in a duet with Justin Timberlake. He stole the show, both in hardware and in talent. In no time, his debut country music album, Traveller, rocketed up the charts. As I write…
Brion McClanahanNovember 27, 2015
Brion McClanahan discusses the week that was in the Abbeville Institute, November 16-20, 2015. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/episode-1
Brion McClanahanNovember 21, 2015
Catalonia has voted to secede from Spain. This is a remarkable development in modern Western civilization, particularly in the age of the modern bureaucratic unitary imperial State. It signals that not all Europeans agree with the borderless European Union pushed by the political class and that culture and true nationalism still mean something. The shocking Paris attacks this past…
Brion McClanahanNovember 16, 2015
This article was originally published at Townhall.com. Victor Davis Hanson has a strange and misguided infatuation with “Confederates.” In June, his widely read National Review piece on the Confederate Battle Flag equated the Confederacy to a “racist separatist group” like Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy, and just this week, Hanson suggested that so-called “sanctuary cities” are the new “Confederates.” Hanson’s overarching…
Brion McClanahanOctober 22, 2015
Our top ten articles for the month of September. Read 'em again and pass 'em along. 1. John C. Calhoun and States Rights by James Rutledge Roesch 2. The War for Southern Independence: My Myth or Yours? by Clyde Wilson 3. Revisiting 25 Years of Revisionist Claptrap by Gail Jarvis 4. Apostles of Racism by Brion McClanahan 5. Life in…
Brion McClanahanOctober 6, 2015
Recent attempts made by the left and the right to make Pope Francis one of “their” own has sparked considerable debate among the political class and their voices in the mainstream media. Pope Francis’s speech before Congress was nothing more than a continuation of themes he has publically endorsed throughout his time as pontiff, namely support for the environment and opposition…
Brion McClanahanOctober 1, 2015
John Rutledge of South Carolina is one of the most important men of the founding generation, but he has been lost to mainstream history. He is politically incorrect (most in the founding generation are) and his positions on the nature of federal power do not comport with modern nationalist interpretations of government. At 25, Rutledge was sent by South Carolina…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 17, 2015
If the modern historical narrative is to be believed, then the antebellum North was the happy land of butterflies, flowers, rainbows, and racist free Americans who insisted on racial equality. Only in the South did anyone encounter “Apostles of Racism” as the historian Charles Dew labeled the 1861 Confederate commissioners to other Southern States. But was this so? Would antebellum Southerners…
Brion McClanahanAugust 31, 2015
Two weeks ago, authorities combing through disgraced former IRS executive Lois Lerner's e-mails released a message she sent to a subordinate who had complained about a Texas Tea Party group. “Look my view is that Lincoln was our worst president not our best," she said. "He should let the south go. We really do seem to have different mind sets.” She…
Brion McClanahanAugust 24, 2015
Dan Smoot never considered himself to be a Southern conservative, though he was born and reared in Missouri and spent his early adult life in Texas. He was one of the leading conservative voices in the 1960s and hosted a weekly television program titled "The Dan Smoot Report." There were once principled men who were willing to carry the conservative…
Brion McClanahanAugust 20, 2015
July was another great month at the Abbeville Institute. Please keep sharing and reading our material. We can only grow with your help. Here are the top ten articles for July: 1. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence by Clyde Wilson 2. Why Do They Hate the South and Its Symbols? by…
Brion McClanahanAugust 3, 2015
https://youtu.be/XPfOL4wUuMU Thanks to Tom Daniel for shooting me this video. This was made when the History Channel had real history in its program lineup. Charlie Daniels narrates the segment. For those looking to read more into this subject, please read David Hackett Fischer's seminal Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history) and Cleanth Brooks's The Language…
Brion McClanahanJuly 27, 2015
We had another record breaking month in June. Thank you to all of those who support our efforts to explore what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition. Here are the top ten articles for June. "Lies My Teacher Told Me" is number one for the third straight month. 1. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of…
Brion McClanahanJuly 1, 2015
If any American today were to listen to the nationalists in charge of either the political class or American education at large, they would get the sense that it is settled science that the American Union is comprised of one people held together by a national government with uncontested sovereignty over all matters foreign and domestic. Certainly, States and local…
Brion McClanahanJune 8, 2015
This piece was originally published June 3, 2014 at the Abbeville Blog. Senator John Warwick Daniel (1842-1910) of Lynchburg, Virginia was a gentleman's gentleman. Daniel served in the U.S. Senate from 1887 until his death in 1910 and was known as "The Lame Lion of Lynchburg" after being severely wounded in the War for Southern Independence. He was shot through…
Brion McClanahanJune 1, 2015
1. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence by Clyde Wilson 2. The Sesquicentennial of the War for Southern Independence as Symbolic of the Fallen State of the South by William Cawthon 3. Why the South Fought by Sheldon Vanauken 4. Was the Fourteenth Amendment Constitutionally Adopted by Forrest McDonald 5. Yet Another…
Brion McClanahanJune 1, 2015
Few Americans know of the great American scientist Matthew Fontaine Maury, and those that do probably do not know of his steadfast devotion to the Confederate States during the War for Southern Independence or his firm commitment to the South and her people. Maury was a native Virginian and his father had once been a teacher to Thomas Jefferson. Maury…
Brion McClanahanMay 22, 2015
Donald Davidson's (1893-1968) Lee in the Mountains was one of the first pieces we ran for the Abbeville Review when it was launched last April. Davidson was one of the more important Southern intellectuals of the twentieth century. His forays into both fiction and non-fiction helped establish the framework for what became known as the Southern agrarian movement. His essay…
Brion McClanahanMay 11, 2015
The top ten for April 2015. Thank you for a great one year anniversary for the new and improved Abbeville Institute website. We exceeded our previous traffic for the entire year in April alone. There is more to come in the near future, so please, like, share, and tweet our material, and if you are so inclined, please consider a tax deductible…
Brion McClanahanMay 2, 2015
Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the greatest enigma of the American age. He wrote and spoke on so many topics that he has become the symbol of virtually every strain of uniquely American political thought. Jefferson is the democrat, the agrarian, the federalist, the republican, the radical, the conservative, the statesman, the planter, the intellectual, the philosopher, the educator. Volumes have…
Brion McClanahanApril 13, 2015
The closing days of the sesquicentennial has offered media outlets the chance to reflect on the outcome of the War. The results were to be expected. Both “conservative” and “liberal” websites have lamented that the end of the War did not produce the sweeping political and social revolution that could have been, or in their minds should have been. Three…
Brion McClanahanApril 10, 2015
March was another great month at the Abbeville Institute. Thank you for your support, and please consider providing a tax deductible (to the full extent of the law) donation to help us explore what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition. Here are the top ten: 1. "United States 'History' as the Yankee Makes and Takes It," by Brion…
Brion McClanahanApril 1, 2015
This piece is taken from Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson Forgotten Conservatives in American History. Two dates changed the course of American political history. On 13 September 1841, the Whigs expelled President John Tyler from their Party, outraged over his “betrayal” of what they considered true Whig political and economic principles. Shorty over two years later, on 28 February 1844,…
Brion McClanahanMarch 31, 2015
If "history is the essence of innumerable biographies," as Thomas Carlyle wrote, then the historian has the advantage of witnessing past life from beginning to end. This is a solemn task. We see the spring and vigor of youth transform into the resolution and candor of manhood. The winter of life comes quickly, often suddenly. For some, the impending doom…
Brion McClanahanMarch 20, 2015
John Cussons had enough. It was 1897, and for thirty-two years he had watched as "Northern friends of ours have been diligent in a systematic distortion of the leading facts of American history— inventing, suppressing, perverting, without scruple or shame—until our Southland stands to-day pilloried to the scorn of all the world and bearing on her front the brand of…
Brion McClanahanMarch 13, 2015
Thank you for making February the best month in the history of the Abbeville Institute! Here are the top ten: 1. Do Confederate Veterans Count? by James Rutledge Roesch 2. All Hail Abe! by Brion McClanahan 3. What Every Southern Boy Should Know by Carl Jones 4. When the Yankees Come: Former South Carolina Slaves Remember the Invasion by Paul…
Brion McClanahanMarch 2, 2015
Today we celebrate the birthday of the log cabin born, rough-hewn, rail-splitting, bare-knuckled, “pock-faced, stoop-shouldered, slab-sided assistant storekeeper,” lewd, vulgar, uninspiring, “ordinary Western man” from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s life and image is a series of irreconcilable dichotomies: He had no military experience worth noting—he waged war on wild onion fields during the Black Hawk War and cleaned up the…
Brion McClanahanFebruary 12, 2015
Thank you for making January one of the most visited months in the history of the Institute. Don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Here are the top ten articles from last month: 1. The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover Up: The Railroading of James Earl Ray by Marshall DeRosa 2. Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True…
Brion McClanahanFebruary 3, 2015
Though his life was cut short by tuberculosis (he once wrote that his entire adult life, from Confederate soldier to ill scholar, had been spent trying to avoid death), Sidney Lanier left behind a full catalog of poetry for the soul. His odes to nature, love, God, and the spirit of humanity should be better known among the American public,…
Brion McClanahanFebruary 3, 2015
Abbeville Institute Scholar Brion McClanahan argues that secession is the American tradition at the Houston Mises Circle on January 24, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_7WISmYxAg&feature=youtu.be
Brion McClanahanJanuary 30, 2015
This essay is part of the chapter "Southerners" in Brion McClanahan's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes. The Northern essayist and Republican partisan E.L. Godkin wrote following the death of “Stonewall” Jackson in 1863 that Jackson was “the most extraordinary phenomenon of this extraordinary war. Pure, honest, simple-minded, unselfish, and brave, his death is a loss to the…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 21, 2015
Brion McClanahan discusses Elizabeth Brown Pryor's Lincoln Prize winning book Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Personal Letters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJk7z2BiWzI
Brion McClanahanJanuary 19, 2015
Hiram Rhodes Revels was born in North Carolina and served as a chaplain in the A.M.E. Church in Baltimore before the War in 1861. After the War began, he helped organize two all black units for the United States Army and then settled in Mississippi at the War's conclusion. The Republican controlled Mississippi legislature sent him to the United States…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 2, 2015
Robert Barnwell Rhett, born on December 21, 1800, is remembered as one of the foremost "fire-eaters" of the South in the years leading to the War in 1861. He championed nullification between 1830 and 1859 in order to preserve the Union, but had decided after the election of 1860 that the Union of the Founders had been dissolved and replaced…
Brion McClanahanDecember 22, 2014
This essay is excerpted from Brion McClanahan's The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers and is presented here in honor of Mason's birthday, December 11. If a list were constructed of the most important Virginians in American history, George Mason would appear near the top. His influence on public policy, the Revolution, and the Constitution was far greater than…
Brion McClanahanDecember 11, 2014
Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast believes “It’s Time to Dump Dixie.” Please do. He also thinks that there may be a point in the future when the South should have its independence. Hallelujah, but we tried that once and were forced to keep company with our “kind” neighbors to the North, those like Tomasky who call the South, “one…
Brion McClanahanDecember 10, 2014
A modern student of American literature would be hard pressed to find anything written on or about Henry Timrod in a current anthology of American poetry. Bob Dylan and Langston Hughes will have text dedicated to their work, but not the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy, a man whose verse sparked men to action and whose sweet sorrow at the…
Brion McClanahanDecember 8, 2014
The best of November, 2014. 1. Rehabbing Sherman, by James Rutledge Roesch 2. 20 Million Gone: The Southern Diaspora 1900-1970, by Clyde Wilson 3. What Would Lincoln Do?, by Brion McClanahan 4. Reconstruction: Violence and Dislocation, by Clyde Wilson 5. The Republican Charade: Lincoln and His Party, by Clyde Wilson 6. A Lonely Opposition, by Brion McClanahan 7. Painting the…
Brion McClanahanDecember 1, 2014
This piece was originally published on November 16, 2012 on LewRockwell.com and is reprinted here by permission. On 20 March 1861, United States Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware began a three day speech on the prospects of war and the legality of secession. He began by offering a resolution in the hope of avoiding what he predicted would be…
Brion McClanahanNovember 17, 2014
Southern history contains many fine examples of literary and artistic merit long ignored by contemporary scholars and forgotten by the American public at large, both North and South. Much of this is due to the impact that the War had on the perception of the Southern people. Students in American literature will get a cursory understanding of Southern literature, primarily…
Brion McClanahanNovember 13, 2014
Originally published Nov. 8, 2014 on LewRockwell.com. The Republicans won. What’s next? In a November 5 opinion piece for the Washington Times, Charles Hurt postulates that this could be the “most dangerous two years in 150 years.” President Obama, Hurst fears, now has nothing to lose and will become more partisan as he moves farther to the Left. Hurst contends…
Brion McClanahanNovember 10, 2014
As with literature, nineteenth-century American art is dominated by the North and Northern subjects. The Hudson River School, which incidentally found its greatest inspiration from the West, and most American artists of the Romantic period hailed from the Deep North. After the North won the War, the focus for the American mind shifted North and those who had carved a…
Brion McClanahanNovember 7, 2014
Our top ten posts for October 2014. If you have not read any of these fine pieces, please do so and share with your friends. 1. “In All the Ancient Circles”: Tourism and the Decline of Charleston’s Elite Families by Jack Trotter 2. The Secessionist States of America by Brion McClanahan 3. Fortress Dixie by Ronnie Kennedy 4. Righteous Cause…
Brion McClanahanNovember 3, 2014
Brion McClanahan discusses nullification and the Tenth Amendment at the Reclaiming America for Christ Conference in Moore, Oklahoma, August 25, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aHX5cOEW0Q
Brion McClanahanOctober 30, 2014
Yesterday (October 29) was Thomas F. Bayard, Sr.'s birthday, the next to last member of the great Bayard congressional dynasty from Delaware. His great-grandfather, Richard Bassett, signed the Constitution. His grandfather, James A. Bayard, the elder, served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and cast the deciding vote for Thomas Jefferson in the 1800 election. His uncle,…
Brion McClanahanOctober 30, 2014
This article originally appeared on LewRockwell.com. For years those who advocated even a scholarly examination of secession were labeled “crackpots” and “fringe radicals” by the establishment. Secession had gone out of fashion with hoopskirts and mint juleps and had been “settled” by the gun in 1865. That argument worked well while the American empire seemed to be the glorious land…
Brion McClanahanOctober 17, 2014
Many current Americans, indeed perhaps most, regard the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 as a premeditated act of violence by South Carolina against the United States Government. They further assume that violence was both intended and desired by Southern leaders in the months leading to the War Between the States. After all, the South should have known that…
Brion McClanahanOctober 8, 2014
Our top ten articles for September 2014. If you have not read any of these fine pieces, you are missing out: 1. States Rights Did Not Cause the War! by James Ronald Kennedy 2. The Constitution and Secession by Brion McClanahan 3. Sayings By or For Southerners by Clyde Wilson 4. The Original Steel Magnolia by James Rutledge Roesch 5.…
Brion McClanahanOctober 1, 2014
The Scottish secession vote has led to a great number of pieces about the future of secession and its viability in the United States: 1. Ryan McMaken wrote about it at Mises Daily. 2. Business Insider featured a nice map on several secessionist movements in Europe. 3. Reuters wrote about a “shock” poll that showed one-quarter of Americans are open…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 26, 2014
Part II in a two part series. Part I. 1. Elvin Bishop: Rock My Soul Most people only know Elvin Bishop from the Charlie Daniels tune "The South's Gonna Do It Again," but he had a pretty substantial hit in "Fooled Around and Fell in Love." This tune is everything Elvin Bishop was as a performer. "When you're feeling good,…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 23, 2014
Part I of a Two Part Series A few months ago, Tommy Daniel and I posted two pieces on the Best Southern Rock Bands and the Best Southern Rock Albums. Most casual Southern music lovers have heard of the "big six" Southern rock bands--Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers Band, the Charlie Daniels Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, Blackfoot, and Molly…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 16, 2014
In March, 2014, the Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart had Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News “debate” three “distinguished” Lincoln “scholars” in a game show format called, “The Weakest Lincoln.” The panel of scholars consisted of Lincoln apologist James Oaks, Manisha Sinha, whose works on American slavery and Southern history would make Charles Sumner blush for their for their…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 4, 2014
One of the oldest and most prestigious sporting events in modern Western Civilization, “The America’s Cup,” is set to begin next year, probably in San Diego. The sailing race has been held by challenge since 1851, the year the schooner America defeated the British (under the eye of Queen Victoria) and took the coveted trophy to New York where it…
Brion McClanahanAugust 25, 2014
This essay is taken in part from the chapter "Frontiersman" in Brion McClanahan's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes (Politically Incorrect Guides) and is presented here in honor of Crockett's birthday, August 17. The modern actor Billy Bob Thornton once said David Crockett in the film The Alamo was his favorite role. John Wayne played him, too. Every…
Brion McClanahanAugust 19, 2014
Cotton and tobacco. For years those two agricultural products were as synonymous with the South as sweet tea and grits. Cotton still is, but tobacco has fallen out of favor, though Southerners still love it and use tobacco products in greater numbers per capita than any other people in America. Tobacco, not cotton, was king in Virginia throughout much of…
Brion McClanahanAugust 15, 2014
Many readers are new to our blog and Review, so I thought it would be helpful to list the top ten viewed articles since we launched the new site April 7 (in order). If you have not read any of these fine pieces yet, please do so. 1. Lies My Teacher Told Me, by Clyde Wilson 2. Monsters of Virtuous…
Brion McClanahanAugust 13, 2014
It has become fashionable among contemporary historians to claim that the Southern identity was fabricated in the late antebellum period mostly as a result of the attack on slavery. Historians like Drew Gilpin Faust capitalized on this claim and used it as a springboard to land lucrative positions in history departments across the county, or in her case, to become…
Brion McClanahanAugust 12, 2014
Brion McClanahan discusses the original Constitution at the Reclaiming America for Christ Conference in Moore, Oklahoma, July, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAxasTPZwDY
Brion McClanahanAugust 8, 2014
I will be giving a talk to a large group of Oklahomans today (July 25) at the Reclaiming America for Christ Conference on nullification. This is a great event and will have thousands in attendance. In light of this, I wanted to republish a piece I wrote for LewRockwell.com in 2009 on the Tenth Amendment. Nullification and real federalism have…
Brion McClanahanJuly 25, 2014
The introduction to Mike Church's edited volume of Albert Taylor Bledsoe's masterful work, Is Davis A Traitor? or Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861? The Congress of the Confederate States of America adopted “Deo Vindice” (God Will Vindicate) as the official motto of the Confederacy in 1864. Less than a year later, Robert E. Lee…
Brion McClanahanJuly 23, 2014
The University of South Carolina mascot is somewhat of a joke among SEC football fans. “Cocky” has won several awards for his die-hard performances, but it is the innuendo that often gets everyone excited or chuckling about the “Gamecocks.” Even before I decided to attend USC, I remember as an undergraduate (in Maryland) the running joke about Ball State playing…
Brion McClanahanJuly 16, 2014
Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in an effort to combat the “dark Federalist mills of the North” and keep Virginians home for their higher education. He was not alone in this endeavor. It had been customary for Southerners to travel north or to Europe for their advanced degrees, but by the middle of the nineteenth century, several institutions…
Brion McClanahanJuly 11, 2014
Today (July 8) is Lt. Col. John Stith Pemberton's birthday. While not as important to the Confederacy as John C. Pemberton, John Stith Pemberton contributed more to American culture and to the image of the New South than virtually any man who donned the gray during the War for Southern Independence. Pemberton studied medicine at the Reform Medical College of…
Brion McClanahanJuly 8, 2014
The article originally was published by Townhall.com on July 4, 2010. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1825 that he intended the Declaration of Independence to be “an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.” Yet, he did not propose the Declaration should “find out new principles, or…
Brion McClanahanJuly 4, 2014
The Republic of Alabama existed for a little less than a month in 1861. When the popularly elected Alabama Secession Convention of 1861 voted to secede from the Union, the State operated as a sovereign political community and freely joined the Confederate States of America as an independent State. The Confederate Constitution recognized the sovereignty of each State in its…
Brion McClanahanJune 24, 2014
On June 18, 1954, Albert Love Patterson, attorney general nominate for Alabama, was gunned down while getting into his car in a dark ally in Phenix City, Alabama. He had campaigned for months on a pledge to clean up corruption and organized crime in the State, but principally in Phenix City, a town once called the "wickedest city in America."…
Brion McClanahanJune 20, 2014
For any historian, seeing or hearing the past, holding it in your hand, is almost euphoric. We trudge around cemeteries, carefully handle old letters, documents, and newspapers while every word drips like nectar from the pages, visit historic houses and museums to “hear” the artifacts talk—to feel the past—and pour over old photographs and paintings to understand the humanity of…
Brion McClanahanJune 17, 2014
This essay is from Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson's Forgotten Conservatives in American History (Pelican, 2012). In 1973, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina was perhaps the most respected and popular member of the United States Congress. His role in the televised Watergate hearings as chairman of the Senate Select Committee led one member of Congress to remark that he…
Brion McClanahanJune 16, 2014
Most people don't know, but today (June 11) is Clyde Wilson's birthday. I had the honor of being Clyde's last doctoral student. I first met Clyde in the Spring of 1997 as a senior in college trying to decide where to attend graduate school. My top choices were South Carolina and Alabama, Clyde Wilson or Forrest McDonald. My advisor as…
Brion McClanahanJune 11, 2014
June 2 was John Randolph of Roanoke's (1773-1833) birthday. We at the Abbeville Institute missed it during our week dedicated to Jefferson Davis, but the two could have been celebrated in tandem. Davis's cause in 1861 was no less than what Randolph consistently championed during his long career in the United States Congress. The "American Burke" as he has been…
Brion McClanahanJune 10, 2014
Many music fans believe Southern rock died in 1977 when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed in the Mississippi woods. Certainly, there were Southern bands that had some commercial success afterward—Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, Charlie Daniels, Hank Williams, Jr.—but the Southern sound quickly disappeared from mainstream rock music and was replaced by the pop-driven scene out of Los Angeles and New York.…
Brion McClanahanMay 30, 2014
Many music fans believe Southern rock died in 1977 when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed in the Mississippi woods. Certainly, there were Southern bands that had some commercial success afterward—Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, Charlie Daniels, Hank Williams, Jr.—but the Southern sound quickly disappeared from mainstream rock music and was replaced by the pop-driven scene out of Los Angeles and New York.…
Brion McClanahanMay 30, 2014
One of the greatest American statesmen, Patrick Henry, was born on this day (May 29) in 1736. Jefferson once said that Henry single-handedly delivered Virginia to the cause of independence. He also said that Henry was the laziest reader he knew, and modern critics consider Henry to have been nothing more than a sliver-tongued, hayseed demagogue. Certainly, he did not…
Brion McClanahanMay 29, 2014
One of the greatest American statesmen, Patrick Henry, was born on this day (May 29) in 1736. Jefferson once said that Henry single-handedly delivered Virginia to the cause of independence. He also said that Henry was the laziest reader he knew, and modern critics consider Henry to have been nothing more than a sliver-tongued, hayseed demagogue. Certainly, he did not…
Brion McClanahanMay 29, 2014
In April, several members of the Wisconsin Republican Party inserted a resolution in the State Party platform expressly recognizing the right of their State to secede from the Union. It was voted down May 3, but the move received national press. The Daily Beast published an article on both the resolution and modern secession movements in Vermont and Alaska, and…
Brion McClanahanMay 22, 2014
In April, several members of the Wisconsin Republican Party inserted a resolution in the State Party platform expressly recognizing the right of their State to secede from the Union. It was voted down May 3, but the move received national press. The Daily Beast published an article on both the resolution and modern secession movements in Vermont and Alaska, and…
Brion McClanahanMay 22, 2014
Several months ago, The American Conservative magazine reviewed Forgotten Conservatives in American History, a book I co-authored with Clyde Wilson, and one reader left an online comment about the book. Normally, I do not discuss responses to reviews, but this one caught my eye, in particular because the reader admits that they know little about conservatism yet think they are…
Brion McClanahanMay 12, 2014
Most people who visit or live in Columbus, Georgia probably don't realize that one of the most famous houses in American literature sits on a back street near Lakebottom Park in the midtown section of the city. The impressive Greek revival home, first named El Dorado, was built by Colonel Seaborn Jones between 1828 and 1833. Jones' daughter married Hennry…
Brion McClanahanMay 9, 2014
The Callaway Gardens visitors center in Pine Mountain, Georgia shows a film explaining the history of the Callaway family, their conservation efforts, and the Gardens itself. At one point, the film directly refutes the conservation ethos made popular by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt, namely that private individuals ruin land while governments protect and preserve it. The Gardens are hailed…
Brion McClanahanMay 5, 2014
What attributes make a man? More importantly, what made a Southern man? Two famous Southern men had much to say about this. George Washington and Lighthorse Harry Lee, Robert E. Lee's father, spilled ink on the subject, Washington in a short book titled Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation and Lee in letters to his eldest…
Brion McClanahanApril 30, 2014
James Monroe was born today (April 28) in 1757. He is one of the more misunderstood and maligned Presidents of the United States. Historians typically rank him as no better than "average." This is unjust and an indictment of the historical profession. Monroe, they suggest, lacked leadership and energy in the executive office. He should have been more like Lincoln…
Brion McClanahanApril 28, 2014
The antebellum American South did not have any artists of note. This misconception has been perpetuated since the end of the War in 1865, perhaps even earlier. Sully, Trumbull, Stuart, West, and even the Peale family (though originally from Maryland) are all claimed by or hailed from the North. The Hudson River School dominated the American Romantic period, and none…
Brion McClanahanApril 26, 2014
In light of Tom Daniel's post "Top 11 Southern Rock Bands," I thought I would create a list of my top Southern rock albums. Many of these records are from the bands he mentions, but I included several others. How did I choose? I selected albums that have stood or will stand the test of time and that can be…
Brion McClanahanApril 16, 2014
The historian Andrew C. McLaughlin in 1932 wrote that the British imperial system was characterized “by diversification and not by centralization....The empire of the mid-eighteenth century was a diversified empire” with power “actually distributed and exercised by various governments.” British colonies, including Ireland, “had long existed” as “bodies, corporate, constituent members of the Empire,” each with its own constitution and…
Brion McClanahanApril 15, 2014
A few months back, I had a student ask me about Don Livingston's characterization of Jefferson Davis in a paper he presented to the Mises Institute in 1995 titled "The Secession Tradition in America." The student wondered if Livingston's statement, "Jefferson Davis was an enlightened slave holder who said that once the Confederacy gained its independence, it would mean the…
Brion McClanahanApril 14, 2014
Daniel Boone by John James Audubon "Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man." So began the (now not so) famous Ballad of Daniel Boone by legendary Southern actor Fess Parker. Parker portrayed Boone from 1964-1970 on the television series of the same name. It would be impossible to produce that show today. Boone is the antithesis of the…
Brion McClanahanApril 11, 2014
February 2014 saw the passing of Maurice Bessinger and Tim Wilson, two Southerners who represented different elements of Southern culture: barbeque and comedy respectively. No one cooks like Southerners. This dates to the colonial period. It used to be said that Southerners dined, Yankees just ate. David Hackett Fischer noted in his significant work Albion's Seed that colonial Virginians enjoyed…
Brion McClanahanApril 10, 2014
April 3 was Washington Irving's birthday. While not a Southerner, Irving would have supported the South in its fight for independence in 1861 had he been alive to see it. He at least would have been opposed to coercion. Many notable New Yorkers, and for that matter Canadians, too, believed the same. Two fine treatments on this issue are Clint…
Brion McClanahanApril 9, 2014
Every Southern town has a local historian, a life-long resident who loves the tales and culture of the region and its people. They are not professionals who have been indoctrinated by the graduate programs at the university. They aren't concerned with the fashionable theories about the South and many times know more about Southern history than the leading experts. They…
Brion McClanahanApril 8, 2014
Forty years ago today, Lynyrd Skynyrd released their second album titled Second Helping. The effort contained what has become the quintessential Southern rock anthem, Sweet Home Alabama. Skynyrd, along with Georgia's The Allman Brothers Band, Tennessee's Charlie Daniels Band, and South Carolina's Marshall Tucker Band, were part of a Southern music revival in the 1970s. Being Southern was chic. Everyone…
Brion McClanahanApril 7, 2014
Russell Kirk called the early post-bellum period in American history the age of “Conservatism Frustrated.” He lamented that the leading members of the conservative mind from 1865-1918 flirted with the radicalism of their compeers both before and during the Civil War and now were left with the daunting task of closing Pandora’s Box, a Box they helped open: The New…
Brion McClanahanApril 3, 2014
Many black Southerners headed North in the early twentieth century in search of a better life. Most didn't find it. Now, many are coming home. The Christian Science Monitor recently made this trend a cover story. In the early twentieth century, black Americans constituted less than five percent of the total population of every Northern State. This was not by…
Brion McClanahanApril 3, 2014
SHOOTING-MATCHES are probably nearly coeval with the colonization of Georgia. They are still common throughout the Southern States, though they are not as common as they were twenty-five or thirty years ago. Chance led me to one about a year ago. I was travelling in one of the northeastern counties, when I overtook a swarthy, bright-eyed, smerky little fellow, riding…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 1, 1970
http://abbevilleinstitute.org/media/lectures/2013SS_03_abb13_DL_natmcos.mp3 Download mp3 You can have some summary text about this lecture here. The .mp3 url can just be added directly to the WP content field just like this text and it will automatically convert it to the audio player. If you want to add a direct link to the mp3 you can do that as well. Also, I assume…
Brion McClanahanJanuary 1, 1970
https://s3.amazonaws.com/AILectures/2004+summer+school/2004+Summer+School+Carey+Robers+The+Religious+Foundation+of+a+Redeemer.mp3 Download MP3 Test
Brion McClanahanJanuary 1, 1970
Recent Comments