The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Jan 23-27, 2023 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Confederate Monuments, Cancel Culture, Southern History, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-341
Brion McClanahanJanuary 28, 2023
Oh to be here. Alabama College in the middle of January with the Christmas dances rested up from and the Valentine’s dance at Mississippi State yet to come. A joy. The girls down the hall bragging about their dates but a better one to shut them down. Charles. Tall, dark, and handsome even if he is not six foot three.…
Sarah B. Guest PerryJanuary 27, 2023
A review of Robert E. Lee's Orderly, A Modern Black Man's Confederate Journey by Al Arnold (Newson Publishing, 2015) I think it is safe to say that there isn’t a man alive who loves the South, particularly Mississippi, more than Al Arnold. Over the Christmas season, I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance through a live Facebook interview conducted…
Julie PaineJanuary 26, 2023
In Richmond, there’s a movement afoot to rename the Robert E. Lee Memorial Bridge. At Charlottesville, a statue to the Confederate general was removed last year. In Abilene, Texas, Lee Park, named after the general, has been changed to that of a local football coach. The list could go on and on, as we’ve all seen. But let’s step back…
Stephen DavisJanuary 25, 2023
The echoes are still there, for those who will listen. I’ve often spoke of my home and how I was blessed to be raised in a closed society of family and friends. The world was the Big Creek Valley, and Vendor, Arkansas was home. The people I learned from were all well known to me, even if they passed long…
Travis HoltJanuary 24, 2023
The Confederacy makes up a sizable and interesting chunk of American history. Not only interesting but often regarded as admirable. Admiration for the Confederacy’s brave struggle against great odds and its noble leaders has lasted for generations and is worldwide. Its admirers have even included some of the best of the men who fought against it. Wiping the Confederacy from…
Clyde WilsonJanuary 23, 2023
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Jan 16-20, 2023 Topics: Robert E. Lee, Martin Luther King, Southern Conservatism, Stonewall Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Southern Politics, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-340?si=0812eef19c48426abf09878d6c2c170d&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanJanuary 21, 2023
Henry Wemyss Feilden, born in England in 1838, was the younger son of Sir William Feilden, a baronet. Young Henry entered the British Army, and after serving in India and China for a number of years, he decided to resign his commission and volunteer for service in the army of the Confederate States of America. On a winter night in…
Karen StokesJanuary 20, 2023
It is difficult to monitor the level of awareness of the effort to destroy the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Moses Ezekiel, a Jewish Confederate Veteran, who created this work of art, is buried below the monument along with three other veterans. This hate-filled and apparently anti-Semitic agenda, pushed by Ty Seidule, is not unique in American history. The…
John M. TaylorJanuary 19, 2023
History begins with, "In the beginning…." for many of us. Modern analysis of history begins, today it seems, with T.V. historians (most of them aren't really) who seem to perceive only that the American South which they consider an evil section not just of the United States but of the world globe has attempted to destroy any measure of the…
Paul H. YarbroughJanuary 18, 2023
The children of Elizabeth “Betty” Hemings—a slave owned by Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles, a white English sea captain—occupied a special place at Jefferson’s Monticello. That might be because six of Betty’s 10 children—Robert, James, Thenia, Critta, Peter, and Sally—were said to be fathered by John Wayles. Yet we do not know about paternity in either case. Much depends on…
M. Andrew HolowchakJanuary 17, 2023
For the past forty years (officially since 1986) the third Monday in January has been celebrated as a federal holiday, Martin Luther King Day. Federal and state offices and many businesses either close or go on limited schedules. We are awash with public observances, parades, prayer breakfasts, stepped-up school projects for our unwary and intellectually-abused children, and gobs and gobs…
Boyd CatheyJanuary 16, 2023
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 9-13, 2023 Topics: The War, Southern Culture, Southern Music, Southern Tradition, Southern Art https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-339
Brion McClanahanJanuary 14, 2023
Tom Daniel discusses the origins of both Southern and American music at the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School, July 5-8, 2022 at Seabrook Island, SC https://youtu.be/38_ehsO1bC4
Tom DanielJanuary 13, 2023
Once, a mother watching her child searching diligently for something and seeing that she was having no success in her search, asked the tot where she had lost the missing item. The child replied, “I lost it over there,” pointing to the other side of the room. Somewhat confused, the mother said, “But if you lost it over there, why…
Valerie ProtopapasJanuary 12, 2023
Recently, David Bernstein, the author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, remarked: “When you have an ideology that pretends to know exactly who the oppressors are and who are the oppressed, and you have an ideology that conflates success with oppression . . . then Jews who do, on average, better than the mean, are going to…
Forrest L. MarionJanuary 11, 2023
My wife is from Atlanta, so we visit Georgia frequently. In addition to downtown Hotlanta with its nauseating CNN Studio Tours and “World of Coca-Cola,” I’ve become acquainted with beautiful old towns in Marietta, Alpharetta, Roswell, and Dahlonega. I’ve explored the Chattahoochee, Stone Mountain, and various historic houses, plantations, and churches across North Georgia. I’ve seen the Braves, the Yellowjackets,…
Casey ChalkJanuary 10, 2023
Southern essayist and former Lynchburger Dr. George W. Bagby (1828–1883) described departure of one of the bateaux on a trip from Richmond to Lynchburg on the Kanawha Canal, while he was then a lad, in a short piece titled “Canal Reminiscences”: At last we were off, slowly pushed along under the bridge on Seventh Street; then the horses were hitched…
M. Andrew HolowchakJanuary 9, 2023
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Jan 2-6, 2023 Topics: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln Myth, Southern Tradition, Southern Literature, Southern Music https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-338
Brion McClanahanJanuary 7, 2023
From the 2005 Abbeville Institute Summer School. My topic for this morning is the “Lincoln Myth and Civil Religion,” and my intention is to try to understand this very loose term “civil religion” in order to see how it is that a man such as Abraham Lincoln could become not only the primary voice beckoning America to accept and remain…
William WilsonJanuary 6, 2023
Oh, I can't tell the boys from the girls And friends it's really messing up my world They all wear long hair and bouncy curls And I can't tell the boys from the girls You might be inclined to think the above might originate from some clever conservative podcaster such as Matt Walsh or Michael Knowles, reflecting on the confusing…
Casey ChalkJanuary 5, 2023
I grew up in a family that couldn’t seem to sire any offspring that wasn’t a manchild. So apart from the matrons of the clan, we boys had little exposure to the strange ways of womenfolk. As it stood, I knew next to nothing about reading moods. Or even that moods were the sort of thing that needed interpretation. This…
Brandon MeeksJanuary 4, 2023
Dr. Daniel H. Trezevant, The Burning of Columbia, S.C., edited by Karen Stokes. Shotwell Publishing, 2022. Dr. Trezevant was a respected Columbia physician who experienced fully the Yankee robbing and burning of South Carolina’s capital by Sherman’s army in February 1865. He wrote a series of newspaper articles just after, which became a pamphlet. Although there was a facsimile edition…
Clyde WilsonJanuary 3, 2023
After giving a talk on Jefferson's conceptions of reason and the moral sense at UVa (11 Apr. 2015), a gentleman brought up the issue of slavery and mentioned how he found unpalatable Jefferson’s repeated claim, especially later in life, that he refused to do more to eliminate the heinous institution because the time was not yet right. The gentleman, of…
M. Andrew HolowchakJanuary 2, 2023
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Dec 12-16, 2022 Topics: Southern Culture, Christmas, Thomas Jefferson, Southern History, the War, Cancel Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-337
Brion McClanahanDecember 17, 2022
The ever-widening chasm that separates the North and the South today has a long history with many fissures, but one would hardly consider the celebration of Christmas to be one of them. However, in the years prior to the founding of America’s first English colonies in Virginia and Massachusetts, Christmas was a highly controversial subject in Great Britain, and that…
John MarquardtDecember 16, 2022
If you're like my family, you probably start playing Christmas music as soon as the calendar hits November 1, and you keep it on rotation through the 12 Days of Christmas in January. The classics from the Big Band and post World War II era are staples, but most are written for a distinctively Northern audience. Traditional Christian hymns also…
Brion McClanahanDecember 15, 2022
In response to an article about the Southern holocaust that occurred during the so-called “Civil War,” I wish to bring forth testimony from a Southern hero who was shunned by the South—or most of it—after he went with Grant in 1872 and Hayes in 1876, finally becoming a member of the Republican Party in that year. Previously, Col. John Singleton…
Valerie ProtopapasDecember 14, 2022
Both parties, says Jefferson to Abigail Adams (11 Sept. 1804), agree that the proper object of governing is the public good, yet they disagree concerning how it is best to promote that good. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove. We think…
M. Andrew HolowchakDecember 13, 2022
My obsession with the South often has me wishing that I had been born there or that I could find at least one ancestor that served the Confederacy, but I have had to content myself with loving it from afar and luxuriating in its wealth through the usual channels available to outsiders. My family is very accommodating of my passion…
Julie PaineDecember 12, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Dec 5-9, 2022 Topics: Southern tradition, the War, Yankees, Northern Studies, Southern Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-336?si=2ea5e698490948b6a592c9852c49a0d3&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanDecember 10, 2022
William S. Plumer, born in 1802 in Pennsylvania, was a renowned Presbyterian pastor and theologian. Though he was raised and spent many years in the North, he held the pulpit of several Southern churches before the war between the states broke out. It was during his time in the South that many people, including some within his own church, accused…
David CrumDecember 9, 2022
In North Carolina and South Carolina native observers have noticed a phenomenon frequent enough to have a label--Halfbacks. This does not refer to football. It refers to well-to-do Northerners who have moved to Florida, become discontented, and moved halfway back. The coastal areas of the two States are full of gated communities of mini-mansions already occupied by Northerners who the…
Clyde WilsonDecember 8, 2022
I’ll Take My Stand contains a vivid description of rural Southern life by Andrew Lytle: “The Hind Tit,” which I always associate with my Thanksgiving memories, despite its not being specifically about Thanksgiving. (The title refers to the poor nourishment left to the “runt” Southern States by the American empire after the War Between the States.) The farm life that…
Terry HulseyDecember 7, 2022
While attending a talk at Poplar Forest on Thomas Jefferson and the Missouri Crisis in the summer of 2019, the speaker, a historian at one of the local universities in Lynchburg, broached Jefferson’s letter to Congressman John Holmes (22 Apr. 1820) about eradication of the institution of slavery by diffusion. This historian called the argument, without further commentary, pure poppycock.…
M. Andrew HolowchakDecember 6, 2022
Inglis Clarke (20 October 1879 – 30 May 1969) grew up in Edwardsville, Illinois, a small town populated by many displaced Southerners. She had deep ancestral roots in northeastern North Carolina and, particularly, the Albemarle region. Young Inglis’ grandfather, who described the Tar Heel State as “that valley of Humiliation, between two mountains of Conceit,” sparked her interest in North…
Jeff WolvertonDecember 5, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, November 28 - December 2, 2022 Topics: Southern women, Slavery, Southern History, Louisa McCord, Southern politics, Southern tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-335?si=f0100d99aecc4ea8add54e59a78bb624&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanDecember 3, 2022
XIII. The Dilemma of the Southern Liberals Originally published in The American Mercury, 1934 “The Dilemma of the Southern Liberals” Back when wild-eyed suffragettes were on the losing end of Oklahoma Drills with King George V’s horse, Vanderbilt and Sewanee were Southern football giants, and the Bull Moose Party was hawking the square new deal, Southern liberals—all hopped up on…
Chase SteelyDecember 2, 2022
It was a perfect day to spend outside. Tree leaves were riding the gentle currents of a fall breeze like giant snowflakes, reflecting the orange, red and gold of a warm autumn sun. Being of African, Native American and European descent, I was attending a Civil War Re-enactment, the only place where I can enthusiastically share the history of my…
Barbara MarthalDecember 1, 2022
From the 2011 Abbeville Institute Summer School. The name of the lady I'm introducing today, the Southern intellectual Louisa Susanna Cheves McCord, or as she's usually called, Louisa S. McCord, is generally not well known today. In the antebellum era she was the author of numerous essays on political economy and social issues. Her other writings included poetry, reviews, and…
Karen StokesNovember 30, 2022
The halls of Congress today are seldom filled with the sound of laughter. The humor that pervaded congressional proceedings over a century ago has now given way to only angry shouts and hateful partisan rhetoric engendered by a variety of ever-growing regional, political, racial and social differences. Not that such divisions did not exist during the latter half of the…
John MarquardtNovember 29, 2022
Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah is frustrated by how poorly the Democrats performed in her native Texas. Attiah, who has a penchant for racially provocative punditry, notes in an 11 November column that besides white men, “there is another group that consistently supports the GOP’s anti-woman, do-nothing-about-dead-kids stance, and that is White women. Seriously, what gives?” White women, observes Attiah,…
Casey ChalkNovember 28, 2022
Our modern Thanksgiving holiday was born in New England. This may not be news, but the way it became a "national" holiday might surprise you, particularly when you know that the South resisted Thanksgiving precisely because it was a New England holiday created to oppose Christmas. https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/yankee-thanksgiving?si=b42f6782f85a4b29afea1fc3cfe8c7d8&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanNovember 23, 2022
From the book, Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History (Facts on File, 1984). The long-standing practice of delivering political sermons on Thanksgiving Day, which made Thanksgiving both a revolutionary holiday and the occasion of Federalist era political contention, now made Thanksgiving the tool of free-soilers and abolitionists. Thanksgiving was, above all, a New England holiday, and New England was…
Diana Karter AppelbaumNovember 22, 2022
From the book, Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History (Facts on File, 1984). New England’s unique culture—featuring free schools for every child, a religious tradition in which ordinary folk wrestled with complex theological questions and two centuries of self-government—produced in the early nineteenth century a generation of young people uniquely well fitted to fill the demand for educated professionals…
Diana Karter AppelbaumNovember 21, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, November 14-18, 2022 Topics: Confederate Symbols, Southern History, Southern Tradition, Abraham Lincoln, United States Constitution https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-334?si=459be718dbfb4bf9a05a499623b10d01&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanNovember 19, 2022
And so, the final blows fall around us, in our institutions and on our streets, and we can say as God Himself once said, “It is finished.” He said it of His great work of redemption, but we can now say it of the noblest experiment of government ever attempted by man—the “united” States of America. As in all things,…
Valerie ProtopapasNovember 18, 2022
When I talk about where and how I grew up, folks, even a bit older than me, assume that not only am I from another state, they imagine I must be from another century. Case in point. My home county is dry. I don’t mean that we get little rain, I mean that we have no legal alcohol. This is…
Brandon MeeksNovember 17, 2022
Interest in the Ninth Amendment has been renewed with the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), in which the Court held that the Constitution contains no fundamental right to abortion. Many abortion proponents have turned to the Ninth Amendment in criticizing the decision. For example, Damon Root at Reason described the decision as “an …
William J. WatkinsNovember 16, 2022
The Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery has recommended the removal of the 32-foot-tall memorial to Confederate veterans buried there on the grounds that it is “riddled with racist iconography” and perpetuates the Lost Cause narrative. The following letter was sent today to the Committee. — JAB On March 19, 1841, at the consecration of its new synagogue in Charleston,…
Jack SchewelNovember 15, 2022
On November 3, 2022, in response to an invitation of group of Thomas Jefferson mavens, I went to Jefferson’s get-away residence at Poplar Forest. I was asked to join their tour, to begin at 12:30 p.m., and to field questions after the tour. I was asked also to bring any books on Jefferson that I wished to sign and to…
M. Andrew HolowchakNovember 14, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute November 7-11, 2022 Topics: Confederate Symbols, Confederate Monuments, Southern Tradition, Southern Politics, Southern Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-333?si=d3db5916185f42ef8311082d39c31686&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanNovember 12, 2022
Where can we hear the worst southern accent of all time? Is it Tom Hanks as the lovable but stupid Forrest Gump? Is it SNL alum Dan Akyroyd in Driving Miss Daisy? How about the mess present in Django? Often, British, Irish or Scottish actors will nail a southern accent before Hollywood even thinks of hiring a southerner (see Vivien…
Sara SassNovember 11, 2022
He was old and black...negro...colored he'd say and he had been for a good while. "I know you." He said. "You watch me thru de windah." I nodded as our first conversation concluded. He drove his old mule down the newly-paved asphalt roads, begrudgingly regal on an old scrap tire his plow rested...the point hidden inside the body of the…
William PlattNovember 10, 2022
The Naming Commission has recommended the removal of the Arlington Confederate Monument. This would not only be a historical travesty and a barbaric leveling of art, it would lay waste to the very message the monument was intended to convey: fraternity, healing, and reconciliation. Tell your Representative you want to stop this heinous act of cultural destruction. https://youtu.be/IwST0QslHLs
Abbeville InstituteNovember 9, 2022
John Devanny discusses the Southern tradition at the Abbeville Institute Summer School, July 5-8, 2022 at Seabrook Island, SC https://youtu.be/0JphvzkJxT0
John DevannyNovember 9, 2022
The problem now is the same as it was in 1994, the same as it was in 1980 (Reagan) and 2016 (Trump). The greatest Republican measure of conservatism that creates “waves” as opposed to pond-stills, e.g. Ford, Romney, McCain, Bush (any one of the New England preppies, carpetbagging Bush clan), is in the South. The real South. Not the South…
Paul H. YarbroughNovember 8, 2022
America’s talking heads on the right and left are predicting a conservative “red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections. They predict that “conservatives” will take control of both Houses of Congress. If, and that is a big if, it happens, what opportunities will it present to those of us who want to put an end to modern Reconstruction’s anti-South cancel…
James Ronald KennedyNovember 7, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute October 31 - November 4, 2022 Topics: Southern Tradition, Southern Religion, Southern Literature, Southern Cooking, Southern Culture, Confederate Symbols, War for Southern Independence https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-332?si=1e9c6640c7d44d6dbd7542628340b404&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanNovember 6, 2022
Introduction The Civil War served as the deadliest conflict in U.S. history. Most scholars agree there were around fifty to one hundred major battles. Outside of these major engagements were skirmishes ranging from the coast of Maine, to the desert of New Mexico, to the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas. While the historical battles ultimately led to the Union winning…
David CrumNovember 4, 2022
My grandfather keeled over dead from a heart attack at the age of 54 after a long battle with arteriosclerosis. If you are not up on your medical jargon, that means the hardening of the arteries. I remember my parents’ telephone-the old black rotary dial type that weighed ten pounds and had a real metal bell-ringing obscenely early one Saturday…
R. Ashley HallNovember 3, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School It's a privilege for me to be here. I've enjoyed the sessions very much so far. In fact, after the sessions yesterday I had to go and rewrite my conclusion just from things that I learned, especially about locality, localism, and patrimony. Just fascinating. Today I want to talk about James Henley Thornwell,…
Samuel C. SmithNovember 2, 2022
In the 20th century, there was no doubt that that section of the country most patriotic, most “American” and most “Christian” in its moral values was the South. Also called “The Bible Belt,” the states of the South had more flags, more patriotic displays and more pride in America and its institutions than any other region in the nation. Percentage-wise,…
Valerie ProtopapasNovember 1, 2022
Originally published in The Sewanee Review, Spring, 1968, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Spring, 1968), pp. 214-225 In 1948 T. S. Eliot, in a lecture “From Poe to Valery”, said in substance that Poe’s work, if it is to be judged fairly, must be seen as a whole, lest as the mere sum of its parts it seem inferior. There is…
Allen TateOctober 31, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Oct 24-28, 2022 Topics: Southern tradition, Southern culture, Southern politics, Northern studies https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-331?si=7447380358be43f2a2a0a913b5467374&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanOctober 29, 2022
“Now at the height of modern progress, we behold unprecedented outbreaks of hatred and violence; we have seen whole nations desolated by war and turned into penal camps by their conquerors; we find half of mankind looking upon the other half as criminal. Everywhere occur symptoms of mass psychosis. Most portentous of all, there appear diverging bases of value, so…
Lafayette LeeOctober 28, 2022
I recently found myself sitting next to an old classmate from my Virginia high-school on an airplane flight (for whatever serendipitous reason, these bizarre things happen to me with some regularity). It was particularly timely: this year marks the twentieth anniversary of my high-school graduation. I recognized the woman immediately — we probably shared ten classes together between seventh and…
Casey ChalkOctober 27, 2022
Don Livingston discusses Northern profit and interest in slavery at the Abbeville Institute Summer School, July 5-8, 2022, at Seabrook Island, SC. https://youtu.be/ZUsclaam8Dc
Donald LivingstonOctober 26, 2022
I, thankfully, studied history and political theory at a Southern university at a time not that long ago when those predisposed to a more classical Southern worldview could hold those positions in class. We would be challenged, yes. We had professors who were more liberal than we were, naturally, but as long as we could well defend our positions, we…
R. Ashley HallOctober 25, 2022
A friend of mine translated a book on Lincoln written by Karl Marx in which her first installment was a refutation by Marx of the European press’s contention that the assault by the North on the South was not about slavery but economic and political power. Of course, one cannot divorce the issue of slavery from either consideration, but Marx…
Valerie ProtopapasOctober 24, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Oct 17-21, 2022 Topics: Southern history, Southern symbols, Cancel Culture, Northern Studies https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-330?si=7a20def61ce844e7b6223c88045b1399&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanOctober 22, 2022
Editor's Note: This poem was delivered by Miss Lucy Powell Harris at a concert give by the pupils at the Houston Street Female High School in Atlanta, Georgia, May, 1st, 1866. It was originally written by L. Virginia French, the daughter of a prosperous Virginia family. She relocated to Tennessee and became a teacher after her mother died and her…
Abbeville InstituteOctober 21, 2022
Don Livingston discusses Northern profit and interest in slavery at the Abbeville Institute Summer School, July 5-8, 2022, at Seabrook Island, SC. https://youtu.be/xeLF8Qxef_c
Donald LivingstonOctober 20, 2022
From the 2011 Abbeville Institute Summer School. The topic I chose was “Douglas Southall Freeman, a Southern Historian's Historian.” But I could have all kinds of meanings. It could be he's a Southern historian’s historian, or he's a Southern historian’s historian. He's also a Southern historian's military historian, because most of the topics that he wrote about were military oriented.…
Jonathan WhiteOctober 19, 2022
When you read Raleigh, what comes to mind? How about Charleston? Nashville? Birmingham? One can almost hear the ring of iron in the name “Birmingham”. Waves splash at the sound of Charleston. The raucous theatres of Nashville ring back when country music was “country western”. Raleigh conjures images of tar, pork and tobacco. So what happened to these industries that…
Sara SassOctober 18, 2022
In today’s America, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, North is North, and South is South, and never the twain shall meet. This dichotomy, of course, was not always the case, for after the many years of bitter sectional rancor and four years of bloody internecine warfare that took place over half a century before, the North and the South finally managed…
John MarquardtOctober 17, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 10-14, 2022 Topics: Southern Political Tradition, Southern History, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-329?si=351d6dcd5a9f4e0abdbf80d637aea947&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanOctober 15, 2022
Part 1 and Part 2 It’s easy to be transported back in time in Charles County. Rural roads meander through woods, across streams and between fields, some adorned with tobacco barns. Sprinkled throughout this typical Southern Maryland countryside are historic sites, villages, and quiet churches. The final resting places of settlers and patriots, churchyards tell their own story of regional…
Brett MoffattOctober 14, 2022
History is an art in a sense. That is, it is not mathematically provable. The mathematician (I am one, at least through some bit of graduate studies) must prove something logically (there are certain basic rules of logic—contrary to reflections from “the squad,” et al). If he can’t prove it, it simply means it is not provable true, nor is…
Paul H. YarbroughOctober 13, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Oct 3-7, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Southern Tradition, the War, Sovereignty, Cancel Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-328?si=2c8df96e9b214ac98eca508febafc6b0&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanOctober 12, 2022
Sam Smith discusses Southern religion at the Abbeville Institute Summer School, July 5-8 2022 at Seabrook Island, SC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERgF6Yqmszk
Samuel C. SmithOctober 12, 2022
The fella that runs the local feed store is a Cajun from Ville Platte, Louisiana. He moved up here to Arkansas because the woman he met in the personal ads said she could abide thickets and pine trees but would not tolerate bayous or raising a coonass baby. I stopped by the store yesterday because I needed some laying pellets…
Brandon MeeksOctober 11, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School My first lecture is going to be a bit of a story, but this story is not going to be one where there's a hero at the center of it. Instead this is gonna be a story about nationalism, what nationalism is and the categories of nationalism that were present during the early…
Carey RobertsOctober 10, 2022
X. American Heroes Originally published as “A Note on American Heroes” in the Southern Review (1935). Whatever else we lack, we do not lack great memories. We have heroes, and we want to possess them affectionately as a mature nation ought. The American mind is divided against itself. Our approach to “what terms we may possess our heroes” is as…
Chase SteelyOctober 7, 2022
Much of what we’ve gotten from our “history” books has been wishful myth. Those who are the victors in wars and other world situations get to write the “history” books, in which they make themselves look good and their enemies look bad. The bad things they’ve done are either ignored or swept under the rug while their enemy’s faults are…
Al BensonOctober 6, 2022
Tom DiLorenzo discusses Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln Memorial, from the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School at Seabrook Island, SC, July 5-8, 2022 https://youtu.be/m0IMmRegyc4
Thomas DiLorenzoOctober 5, 2022
Uncle Dude and Aunt Lura lived across the field beside us when I was growing up. They were both born between the two World Wars and lived through the Depression. Dude was born at the foot of Mount Saint Helens, Lura was born in the same room where she died in the Arkansas Delta. They had lots of odd superstitions…
Brandon MeeksOctober 4, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School. So, our friend Don Livingston asked me to bring a European perspective on the problems of the Southern decentralist tradition. Today, I want to address what I would call, “What They Were Up Against: The Modern State and Federalism.” One of the greatest errors of mainstream Anglo-American political studies, from the history of…
Marco BassaniOctober 3, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Sept 26-30, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Southern Culture, Cancel Culture, The War, Northern Studies https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-327?si=4e2ebd96dfdb4b6795fa6e7aaadc9072&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanOctober 1, 2022
I write a lot about the South. But then it seems necessary if you think “conservative.” That is conservative, not necessarily Republican. Conservatives aligning themselves with Republicans do so because politics is a realm of life much like the environment where dogs live; that is wherever they (dogs) can accredit their lives best. Conservatives are much like working dogs: Bird…
Paul H. YarbroughSeptember 30, 2022
Tom Daniel discusses blues music, from the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School at Seabrook Island, SC, July 5-8, 2022 https://youtu.be/NZ9_hcxfpLw Note: The views expressed on abbevilleinstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
Tom DanielSeptember 29, 2022
In 1860 your average Southerner did not have, by far, the same worldview as his Northern counterpart. He was, thanks to solid preaching in Southern pulpits, extremely doubtful about the “goodness” of human nature. He believed in the sovereignty of God and the sinfulness and depravity of man. He knew enough of man’s fallen nature to realize that secular political…
Al BensonSeptember 28, 2022
Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina was arguably one of the most important political figures of the twentieth century. His commitment to the Constitution and willingness to stare down executive power during the 1973 Watergate hearings place him among the great conservative voices in Senate history. Ervin was first and foremost a Tar Heel. He considered his election to the…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 27, 2022
Outside of Portland, Maine, sits the small town of Gray. During the Civil War, the population was around 1,700 residents. While Gray has experienced growth, the area gives the vibe of a typical small American town. Though Maine is one of the least-populated states in the nation today, surprisingly, Mainers played a pivotal role in the U.S. Civil War, seeing…
David CrumSeptember 26, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Sept 19-23, 2022 Topics: Cancel Culture, Northern Studies, the Constitution, Southern Tradition, Confederate Monuments https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/podcast-episode-326-mp3
Brion McClanahanSeptember 24, 2022
Texas Senator John Regan was right when he argued in the chamber three months before the opening Civil War shots at Fort Sumter: “Suppose the people of the South would today voluntarily surrender $3 billion in slave property and send their slaves at their expense to the free states, would you accept them as freemen and citizens of your States?…
Philip LeighSeptember 23, 2022
Because the ethnic diversity of the Confederate Army is not appreciated by many historians, Jason Boshers, the commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and J. Brian McClure, the commander of the Louisiana Division of the SCV, declared September “Confederate Hispanic Heritage Month.” The ethnically diverse Confederate Army included Irish dock workers in the Louisiana Tigers, the German Fusiliers who…
Samuel W. MitchamSeptember 22, 2022
Amid the steady stream of horrible economic news this week you might have missed a rather bland headline from the Associated Press: “Panel advises removal of Confederate statue at Arlington.” The news itself, that an independent commission charged with renaming U.S. military bases with Confederate names has recommended the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery be dismantled and removed, might seem painstakingly…
John Daniel DavidsonSeptember 21, 2022
Brion McClanahan discusses the Southern constitutional tradition, from the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School at Seabrook Island, SC, July 5-8, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TCufOUlq_4 Note: The views expressed on abbevilleinstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
Abbeville InstituteSeptember 20, 2022
A while back, some of the folks at Abbeville Institute turned out a fine anthology of the greatest Southern rock melodies of the present day. Music, of course, like most everything else, changes with the times and there were other golden eras for country music that gave the listeners of their day a far different sound and put them in…
John MarquardtSeptember 19, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute Sept 12-19, 2022 Topics: Southern Tradition, Southern Culture, Cancel Culture, Southern Politics https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-325
Brion McClanahanSeptember 17, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson have dinner. It looks like funding an assumption of State debts by the general government is not going to go through, and Hamilton’s very worried because U.S. stock is plummeting in the international finance markets. So, a deal is struck. Jefferson will put pressure on his people to…
John DevannySeptember 16, 2022
On June 17th, 2015, a deranged white man, Dylan Roof, attacked an all-black prayer meeting in a South Carolina church killing nine of the participants. Of course, most rational, intelligent (that is, ordinary) Americans saw the mass shooting as another opportunity for the “gun violence” crowd to demand an end to the rights of law-abiding Americans to own guns; and…
Valerie ProtopapasSeptember 15, 2022
Joe Biden’s “address to the nation,” delivered September 1, 2022, was one of the most illuminating—as in revealing—speeches ever given by a president since Lincoln’s speech in which he falsely declared that the Union preceded and created the states. Biden’s speech, as in Lincoln’s speech, was full of emotion and ideological passion, supported by a fawning press but totally absent…
James Ronald KennedySeptember 14, 2022
I presume the decision by the U.S. Postal Service leadership didn’t sound like a difficult one, especially in 2022. In Montpelier Station, Virginia, a post office was operating in a building where signs reading “White” and “Colored” hung over two separate doors. The signs were a historical artifact, and were intended to direct visitors to an exhibit about historical racial…
Casey ChalkSeptember 13, 2022
Owen Wister’s novel Lady Baltimore is the story of a Northern man spending time in South Carolina around 1905. He is not your typical arrogant Yankee, but openly acknowledges the modern decay he sees in the North and is sympathetic to the South. He is staying in a boarding house with a variety of guests; they include Juno, an elderly…
Julie PaineSeptember 12, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Sept 5-9, 2022 Topics: Federalism, United States Constitution, Southern Tradition, Southern Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-324?si=437e52939fb0486e8aa31e53914712a4&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanSeptember 11, 2022
Loving Home by Carey Roberts from the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School, July 5-8, 2022 at Seabrook Island, SC https://youtu.be/48dJnuFhfHc Note: The views expressed on abbevilleinstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
Carey RobertsSeptember 9, 2022
In 1957, Senator John F. Kennedy issued a report on the five most important Senators in United States history. He included John C. Calhoun, and while he understood the historical controversy it might create, Kennedy insisted that Calhoun's "masterful" defense "of the rights of a political minority against the dangers of an unchecked majority" and "his profoundly penetrating and original…
Brion McClanahanSeptember 8, 2022
Originally published at barelyablog.com In the mid-1950s my family arrived in Athens, Alabama, I being eleven, my father a mathematician working at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in nearby Huntsville. Athens was small, the county seat of Limestone County. The town square had the courthouse in the middle with the statue of a Confederate soldier and a Baptist church. The…
Fred ReedSeptember 7, 2022
From Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics by Charles Henry Ambler Ritchie was not a genius. Either of the others of the great "Democratic Triumvirate" of political editors, Francis P. Blair of the Washington Globe, or Edwin Croswell of the Albany Argus, was his equal in natural ability. Possibly John Hampden Pleasants, Duff Green, and even others surpassed him…
Abbeville InstituteSeptember 6, 2022
This piece was originally published at SavannahNow.com By H. Lee Cheek and Sean Busick America’s Founders did not agree on much. They were not a monolithic group of men. Further, some of the things they did agree on make us uncomfortable today. Those who are in the habit of citing what “The Founders” thought as gospel would do well to…
H. Lee Cheek, Jr.September 5, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 29 - Sept 2, 2022 Topics: Southern history, Southern tradition, Southern religion https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-323
Brion McClanahanSeptember 4, 2022
This article was first published by Crossfire: The Magazine of the American Civil War Round Table and is republished by permission. Introduction The United States Civil War produced some very dark days in American history. Ideas and values separated the North and the South. The whole world watched as America was at war with itself. Having been established as a…
David CrumSeptember 2, 2022
Tom DiLorenzo discusses Abraham Lincoln and the War, from the 2022 Abbeville Institute Summer School at Seabrook Island, SC, July 5-8, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr5Tj4CcMT8
Abbeville InstituteSeptember 1, 2022
In 1978, Georgia native Richard Harwell--older brother of the famous baseball broadcaster Ernie Harwell--published In Tall Cotton, a list of the 200 most important Confederate books. He asked fellow Georgian E. Merton Coulter to write the introduction knowing that this list would provide a valuable resource to those seeking to understand both Southern history and the Confederacy. Modern establishment historians…
Brion McClanahanAugust 31, 2022
Remarks of President Davis at the Meeting of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors held at the First Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia, November 3, 1870, for the purpose of organizing the Lee Monument Association, as reported in the Richmond Dispatch for Nov. 4, 1870. Robert E. Lee was my associate and friend in the military academy, and we were friends until…
Abbeville InstituteAugust 30, 2022
Editor's Note: This essay was written by Spencer Roane under the pseudonym Amphictyon in 1819. I. To the Editor of the Enquirer : SIR: I have read with considerable attention the opinion pronounced by the Chief Justice of the U. S. in the case of McCulloch against the State of Maryland. In that opinion we are informed, First, That it…
Abbeville InstituteAugust 29, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Aug 22-26, 2022 Topics: Southern history, Reconstruction, Confederate monuments, Southern politics, John C. Calhoun https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-322
Brion McClanahanAugust 27, 2022
From Gustavus Pinckney, Life of John C. Calhoun. The attentive reader will not have forgotten that in the letter of Mr. Calhoun in reference to his acceptance of the Secretaryship of State he made mention of a project which he had in mind for leisure hours in the home routine to which at that time he looked forward. The home…
Abbeville InstituteAugust 26, 2022
Why the red wave will NOT be. The typical contemporary Republicans lie for support, then reveal their lies. The Democrats just lie. The resignation of Dr. Ann Hunter McLean from her Youngkin appointment to the Virginia Historic Resources Board is a product of the same mentality wherein Ronald Reagan was deceived in 1981 insofar as Bob Bennett’s replacing M.E. Bradford.…
Paul H. YarbroughAugust 25, 2022
Editor's note: Delivered by Congressman John Warwick Daniel at the dedication to the Confederate monument at the Fairfax County, Virginia courthouse October 1, 1890. The monument stood on the courthouse square "upon Fairfax soil" on a lot purchased so the "grassy mound at the base of this monument now covers the remains of two hundred heroes." Funds were collected in…
Abbeville InstituteAugust 24, 2022
No doubt the media and the activists tearing them down justify the destruction of Confederate monuments on the premise that the South fought to perpetuate slavery and the North entered and fought the Civil War to end it. Today’s academics are comfortable acquiescing to that false public impression because it serves their anti-Southern agenda. Only if directly asked, “Did the…
Philip LeighAugust 23, 2022
John William Corrington (1932—1988) of Louisiana was a prolific author of poetry, stories, and novels. And, as with Faulkner, making a living in commercialised American “culture” required him to expend talent in Hollywood on movie and television scripts. Corrington has received some recognition, but no less an authority on Southern literature than M.E. Bradford has said that his reputation falls…
Clyde WilsonAugust 22, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Aug 15-19, 2022 Topics: Southern literature, Southern tradition, Southern culture, Southern politics https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-321?si=6946f8f8370b4e718851ad8f571ec26f&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanAugust 20, 2022
Professor Bill Wilson explains why William Faulkner should be universally regarded as America's greatest writer. Hint: It wouldn't have been possible without Mississippi. https://youtu.be/1CxUkCAxNAY
William WilsonAugust 19, 2022
A review of Confessions of a Copperhead: Culture and Politics in the Modern South (Shotwell Press, 2022) by Mark Royden Winchell The concept of the South as a peculiar and singular region of America, indeed not quite American except in its vices of racism and violence, is something of an industry in the halls of academia. Numerous university centers and…
John DevannyAugust 18, 2022
We have before us The Federalist Number 10. I'd like to say a word about The Federalist. As you know, it was here (in Philadelphia) that the Constitution, that infamous document, was signed. It was a document that was already well on its road to destruction in my mind. When people ask me, “Well, when did the Constitution die?” I…
Ross LenceAugust 17, 2022
The resignation of Dr. Ann Hunter McLean from her Youngkin appointment to the Virginia Historic Resources Board is of seismic consequence for the Governor and his administration and for the Commonwealth. The Governor and his team were on the ropes in a very tight race in which the electoral outcome was in the balance. His low-key campaign worked to draw…
Cliff PageAugust 16, 2022
Very few things in my native Fairfax County are especially old. That’s unfortunate, given the county’s founding (1742) predates the United States of America, and boasts the homes of Founding Fathers George Washington and George Mason. Yet post-World War II development rapidly changed the character of the county, and many of the old properties were sold and their ancestral homes…
Casey ChalkAugust 15, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Aug 8-12, 2022 Topics: Southern history, Reconstruction, Southern Culture, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-320?si=fb340de708a248db816dfc49c3f78545&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanAugust 13, 2022
There is an interesting little noted fact of African American history that would alter current standard views if it were ever to be properly recognised. The U.S. African American population was in many measurable respects worse off fifty years after emancipation than it had been before the War Between the States. The census of 1900 showed that the average life…
Clyde WilsonAugust 12, 2022
“When things go south” is a phrase that typically means matters have taken a turn for the worse. Well, things have gone south in my family for a while now, and I couldn’t be happier. That is because I literally mean, gone South, and I feel more at home than I ever imagined possible. For things to go South, they…
Julie PaineAugust 11, 2022
It might truly be said that the death, funeral and burial of Thomas Jefferson’s American republic came about at the hands of the nation’s three most prominent wartime presidents . . . with Abraham Lincoln digging the grave, Woodrow Wilson constructing the coffin and Franklin Roosevelt performing the final interment of America’s body politic. As to the wars themselves, while…
John MarquardtAugust 10, 2022
By early January 1861, South Carolina had seceded from the Union and stood alone as an independent republic. In the ensuing weeks, six additional Southern States would follow suit. Lame-duck President James Buchanan did nothing to stop the dissolution of the Union, mainly because he did not believe he had any authority to coerce a state, but also preferring to…
Ryan WaltersAugust 9, 2022
Raised on a tobacco farm at the edge of the Chinquapin Forest in Southern Maryland, my Aunt Elizabeth for much of her life attempted to divest herself of her rustic upbringing. When she graduated from nursing school, she married and subsequently lived for long spells in South America and Europe. In spite of all this, fortunately, she never succeeded in…
J.L. BennettAugust 8, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, Aug 1-5, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Southern Tradition, Southern Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-319
Brion McClanahanAugust 7, 2022
In the long range of history the war correspondent, a journalist embedded with a fighting army, is a fairly recent development. George Kendall was the pioneer. He was with Winfield Scott’s army during the U.S/Mexico War 1846—1848, from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. Like the soldiers he faced sickness and was wounded. His 215 dispatches from Mexico were the primary …
Clyde WilsonAugust 5, 2022
VI. Still Rebels, Still Yankees Originally published as two essays in the American Review and can be found in the anthology Modern Minds. Many will recognize this chapter’s title from another book of Davidson’s collected essays with the same title published in 1957. Davidson begins recollecting a meeting of Southern writers in Charleston, SC. In 1932, Davidson penned a brief…
Chase SteelyAugust 4, 2022
“As with so many other episodes in early American history, the true story of the so-called Whiskey Rebellion has been purposefully scrubbed from the collective American memory and replaced with a cleaner, more pro-statist version reaffirming one of the core tenets of that doctrine: federal law always trumps conflicting state statutes.” Joe Wolverton, The Abbeville Institute, “A Little Whiskey Rebellion.”…
Paul H. YarbroughAugust 3, 2022
In 1859 the Union of American States entered the final stages of its greatest crisis, one that would eventually split the country in two. America was then a young republic but growing larger and stronger with each passing year. Yet North and South were growing apart, seeing the world through a different lens. The North was more industrial, while the…
Ryan WaltersAugust 2, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School. After the decision was made to build a new capital on land granted by Virginia and Maryland, George Washington gave the task of sorting through proposals for the Federal buildings to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was very, very conscious of the enormity of what was about to happen. He wanted to…
Carey RobertsAugust 1, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 25-29, 2022 Topics: Southern history, Southern literature, Southern Tradition, Southern Culture, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-318
Brion McClanahanJuly 30, 2022
As we progress into old age, our perspectives tend to change. Things that occupied most of our active life--accomplishments and “the bubble reputation” are seen to be less important than family and friends. I suspect that even accumulating money loses some of its flavor as the years move on, although I don’t really know about that. This reflection is provoked…
Clyde WilsonJuly 29, 2022
Memory is the thing with which we forget. I tend to believe that Memory lives in those deep crevices in the soft pink tissue of the brain; in the darkness of the crooked rows that look to have been dug by a plow mule with the blind staggers. A man can be going along, thinking a thought, and Memory will…
Brandon MeeksJuly 28, 2022
Palatial Porches and Dying Civilizations I take great pains to ensure that the devilish tempo of modern life never breaches my portico. Life should always be in adante, and I like to imagine that the haint blue of the porch repels the unclean spirits of prestissimo. A fine porch can make you feel like King Solomon, and a fine man…
Lafayette LeeJuly 27, 2022
Several years ago, my wife and I visited a distillery in rural Virginia that made the only whiskey in the Old Dominion that possesses legislative approval to make something called “Virginia Whiskey.” It’s a good product, though it requires the taster to accept the fact that it doesn’t taste much like Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (I’d offer there are hints…
Casey ChalkJuly 26, 2022
I am a descendant of a family of Confederate soldiers, and I have been told I should be embarrassed. A liberal activist told me recently that all Confederates were racist degenerates who deserve nothing except desecration of their statues and memorials. I usually avoid deep discussions of this topic on social media, because the predicted result is that people don’t…
Tom DanielJuly 25, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 11-22, 2022 Topics: Southern Founders, Southern History, Southern Politics, the War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-317?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanJuly 23, 2022
I sit here, watching the fading sun over the Ozarks hills, not too far from where I was raised. Last night, we had an annual birthday bash for an old family friend, and I got the opportunity to sit and visit with many of the older generation that I grew up around. The most notable, a long visit with a…
Travis HoltJuly 22, 2022
A review of The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals (Regnery History, 2022) by Samuel Mitcham The valor of the Confederate Army is one of the greatest stories in American history. Southerners needed brilliant leaders because they faced such overwhelming odds. They were outnumbered four to one and outgunned a hundred to one. The author’s purpose of the book is to make…
Jeff WolvertonJuly 21, 2022
In yet another attack on American history and heritage, the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. is changing the name of their sports team, which is known as the Colonials. GW Today, the University’s official online news source, reported, “The George Washington University Board of Trustees has decided to discontinue the use of the Colonials moniker based on the recommendation…
Timothy A. DuskinJuly 20, 2022
Aberrant as it has become, when the young Thomas Jefferson spoke or wrote of what he termed, “my country,” he was not referring to the empire of England or what became the United States of America. He was referencing his native State of Virginia. Sixteen years ago, at the suggestion of Clyde Wilson in his book From Union to Empire:…
Joshua DoggrellJuly 19, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School. St. George Tucker is a significant member of the Revolutionary generation, the Founding Generation, and he was looked to by Jefferson and Madison as the judge of Jeffersonian democracy, the man who saved the judiciary from false doctrines in his View of the Constitution and his other writings. Tucker’s View was published in…
Clyde WilsonJuly 18, 2022
I. The Diversity of America Parts of this chapter (along with several others) are from “Sectionalism in the United States,” Hound and Horn, VI (July-September, 1933). The link to Davidson’s “Sectionalism” essay provides some context of its genesis—some of which is a smidge uncomfortable. In The Idea of the American South (1979), Michael O’Brien portrays Davidson as a misfit compared…
Chase SteelyJuly 15, 2022
Uncle Jim didn’t care much for Lyin’ Ed and nobody really knew why. Some speculated that it had to do with the fact that both had been sweet on Aunt Ginny decades earlier. Others reckoned that it stemmed from a schoolyard rivalry that had followed them into adulthood and now into old age. Aunt Ginny once gave voice to the…
Brandon MeeksJuly 14, 2022
The history of political parties in America is as old as the United States itself and while the seeds of England’s Whig and Tory Parties goes back to 1679, those in America even predated the rise of most such factions in Europe by several decades. However, for half a century many of America’s founding fathers, particularly those in the South,…
John MarquardtJuly 13, 2022
A review of Roster of North Carolinians in Confederate Naval Service: Confederate States Navy & Marne Corps (Scuppernong Press, 2021) Compiled and edited by Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Sion H. Harrington III. The monumental series, North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, began during the “Civil War” Centennial in 1961, under the direction of Dr. Louis Manarin, and has continued until recently,…
Boyd CatheyJuly 12, 2022
No one acquainted with the poetical literature of the late war can have forgotten the noble contributions to it of Dr. Francis Orray Ticknor, of Columbus, Ga. "The Virginians of the Valley" and "Little Giffin" are alone sufficient to prove that Dr. Ticknor was a genuine poet, and he has left behind him ( for alas! he died two years…
Paul Hamilton HayneJuly 11, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 4-8, 2022 Topics: Lincoln, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, Southern History https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-316?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanJuly 9, 2022
“In 1938 appeared the clearest and most courageous of the Agrarian documents, Donald Davidson’s Attack on Leviathan.” – Richard M. Weaver Russell Kirk tells the story of discovering Davidson’s book in 1938 as a sophomore at Michigan State in the introduction for its reprint in 1991. Kirk writes, “The book was so good that I assumed all intelligent Americans, or…
Chase SteelyJuly 8, 2022
From the 2004 Abbeville Institute Summer School On April 10th, 1606, King James I of England (and VI of Scotland) granted letters of patent to Sir Thomas Gates and others, thereby establishing two companies for the settlement of colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America, which was then called Virginia in honour of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. The…
John GrahamJuly 7, 2022
To anyone devoted to the political revitalization of Western Civilization, and a re-founding of the Anglo-American tradition within this context, Michael Anton has no doubt been a breath of fresh air of late. He is an articulate thinker, a brilliant polemicist, and, by all accounts, a decent man—crucial assets for anyone devoted to the uphill climb of the “paleoconservative” cause.…
Robert E. SalyerJuly 6, 2022
Perhaps the biggest falsehood ever pedaled about Abraham Lincoln is that he was devoted to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Exactly the opposite is true; he repudiated every one of the main principles of the Declaration with his words and, more importantly, his actions. In our time the odd and ahistorical writings of Harry Jaffa and his “Straussian”…
Thomas DiLorenzoJuly 5, 2022
Did Thomas Jefferson father any children with Sally Hemings? The historical profession argues, yes. But the evidence does not support this conclusion as Professor M. Andrew Holowchak explains in this video. https://youtu.be/GweMqp4zdjw
abbeinstituteJuly 4, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 27-July 1, 2022 Topics: Reconstruction, Southern History, Confederate Symbols https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-315?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanJuly 2, 2022
'Yates Standridge, who recently escaped from the state convict farm, where he was serving what practically amounts to a life sentence for murder, declared that he never will return to the penitentiary, according to residents of the sparsley settled hills of Newton County, where Standridge makes his home. These hill people say Standridge recently spent two weeks in that section…
Travis HoltJuly 1, 2022
When the assault on Southern heritage with the destruction of monuments, symbols and heroes began, I wrote a letter to the President of the Civil War Trust as a member of that group attempting to determine the course the Trust would take in this matter. Sadly, the gentleman did not even have the courtesy to respond even in a form…
Valerie ProtopapasJune 30, 2022
The Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie is as good as it is frustrating. The movie might serve as a good introduction for those who don't know much about Elvis (which, sadly, is becoming most people). I say it might because it is more than likely that viewers will come away knowing more about Col. Tom Parker, Elvis' manager, than Elvis himself.…
Aaron N. ColemanJune 29, 2022
Pete Hegseth has a book out, Battle for the American Mind, which among other promotions and revelations has taken on the chore (however “Johnny-come-lately”) of denigrating the general process of education in this country. First, and foremost I would say, hooray for Mr, Hegseth. And to his efforts, I say, good hunting, Sir. And when you finally tree this coon,…
Paul H. YarbroughJune 28, 2022
On June 24, 2022, Mr. William J. Martin, Director of the Valentine Museum in Richmond, gave notice that the damaged, desecrated, and vandalized statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis – on loan from the Black History & Cultural Center of Virginia - would be displayed by the museum within its core exhibit. The purpose stated by the Valentine is for…
H.V. Traywick, Jr.June 27, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 20-24, 2022 Topics: Nullification, Supreme Court, Southern Politics, Reconstruction, 14th Amendment https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-314
Brion McClanahanJune 25, 2022
It did not dawn on me until I walked out to my mailbox Monday, June 20…and there was no mail. “What’s up?” I thought. “It’s Monday, and I always get mail on Monday, since it piles up on Sunday when there is no delivery.” What had happened, I wondered. Then, I witnessed one of those special delivery postal agents who…
Boyd CatheyJune 24, 2022
Some people won’t believe in something they haven’t seen, others refuse to believe in something precisely because they have. When it came to the question of religious egalitarianism, I reckon my people were firmly in the latter category. Even as a boy I knew that there were as many kinds of religions in our small Southern town as there were…
Brandon MeeksJune 23, 2022
From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School This morning we’re talking about the two greatest losers in American history. “Loser’s History” is the only history that needs to be told. With the winners, you know everything about it, even if you don’t care to know it; just turn on the History Channel. My suggestion is to never watch the History…
Marco BassaniJune 22, 2022
The reason your bank was closed yesterday: cultural appropriation and virtue signaling On February 25, 2021, Senator Edward J. Markey (D – Mass) introduced a bill which would become public law on June 17, 2021 under President Joe Biden. It was entitled the “Juneteenth National Independence Day Act”. The Democrat-led initiative was co-sponsored by 60 senators, 40 of whom were…
Lola SanchezJune 21, 2022
Below is a footnote-free version of the Preface from my U. S. Grant's Failed Presidency (2019). Ulysses Grant's presidency deserves a fresh analysis because modern historians and biographers have praised him too much. Initially, their "rehabilitation" of his previously mixed reputation concentrated on his military performance during the Civil War, but more lately it has included his presidency. In 1948,…
Philip LeighJune 20, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, June 13-17-2022 Topics: Slavery, Moonshine, the War, Reconstruction, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-313?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanJune 18, 2022
We live in a regime with an industrial output of lies about Southern history, so we should let our forebears speak for themselves whenever we can. I have been reporting on little known Southern books and here is another. Randolph Shotwell in the 1880s put together some materials for his an account of his extraordinary life, using his diaries, letters…
Clyde WilsonJune 17, 2022
As I grow older my appreciation for the wisdom of my parents increases. As the United States descend daily further into madness, I find myself torn between being glad they aren’t here to be angered and tormented by the tragedy, wickedness, and vicious idiocy of the times, and a strong desire to profit from their counsel and advice. They were…
Earl StarbuckJune 16, 2022
Moonshine, though often associated with Appalachia, is also an integral part of the Ozarks culture. Growing up in the hills of Newton County, Arkansas, I lived a privileged life. I got to know a good amount of my ancestors, and hear their stories and experiences. Though most of them were straight laced, hard-working and proud folks, I would occasionally hear…
Travis HoltJune 15, 2022
Black slaves toiling in the fields of large plantations, gentlemen in frock coats and ladies in hoop skirts relaxing on the verandas of large mansions . . . all set in places named Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland and Mississippi. Most would imagine this to be a picture of the antebellum American South, but they would be mistaken, as it would…
John MarquardtJune 14, 2022
Tommie D. Boudreau, chairwoman of the African American Heritage Committee of the Galveston Historical Foundation in Galveston, Texas, recently stated that the Juneteenth national commemoration “gives an accurate picture of United States history because so much has not been shared. African Americans are the only immigrants that were forced to come to America – or the colonies. This gives people…
Timothy A. DuskinJune 13, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute June 6-10, 2022 Topics: The War, Abraham Lincoln, Confederate Constitution, Southern Film, Slavery, Southern Humor https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-312
Brion McClanahanJune 11, 2022
On March 7, 1862, Lincoln sent to congress and congress passed a joint resolution offering pecuniary aid to any State that would initiate gradual emancipation. However, no funding had been passed, only a declaration of intent. The offer fell on deaf ears in all the slave States, including those still in the Union. This prompted Lincoln to call a meeting…
Rod O'BarrJune 10, 2022
Lest we forget, it has been nineteen years since the film “Gods and Generals” was released to screens across the United States—to be exact, on February 21, 2003—almost ten years after the release of the blockbuster film, “Gettysburg.” “Gods and Generals” was based on the historical novel by Jeff Shaara, while “Gettysburg” was based on a work by his father,…
Boyd CatheyJune 9, 2022
I suppose that most men would like to think that they could shoot someone to defend life and limb. But I expect that many wonder if they actually could pull the trigger if it came down to it. This was certainly true of me. It is almost a truism that every house in the South contains more guns than people.…
Brandon MeeksJune 8, 2022
“If there is to be a separation , then God bless them both, & keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John C. Breckenridge, Aug. 12, 1803, regarding the New England secession movement “No state . . can lawfully get out of the union .…
Thomas DiLorenzoJune 7, 2022
From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School I come from a somewhat different mold and my thought processes on these issues have changed a bit over the last couple of years. I have written on American jurisprudence and I have detected what I would deem to be ominous trends in American case law, and also in international law. I also…
Marshall DeRosaJune 6, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 30-June 3, 2022 Topics: Southern History, Jefferson Davis, War for Southern Independence, Cancel Culture, John C. Calhoun https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-311?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanJune 4, 2022
Most people don't know anything about Jefferson Davis other than he was the President of the Confederate States of America. His great-great grandson, Bertram Hayes-Davis, explains why Davis should be highly regarded among all Americans today. https://youtu.be/RAKw8U_PBAc
Abbeville InstituteJune 3, 2022
In March of 1928, W.E.B. DuBois published a short essay attacking the character of Robert E. Lee in a publication created by DuBois called The Crisis. This magazine was also the official publication of the NAACP, which was also co-founded by DuBois, and (according to their November 1910 premier issue) had the expressed goal of setting forth “those facts and…
Michael MartinJune 2, 2022
Going back to Jefferson, you can say that Jefferson’s vision of radical Federalism was of a libertarian Federalism, based on the rights of local self-government circumscribing and limiting their agent, the Federal government, whose referent is not a single people, but the peoples of the various States. It’s strange that in the writings from the Founding period, the plural of…
Marco BassaniJune 1, 2022
A friend recently asked me for a list of good books about the South and “the Late Unpleasantness” which he could share with his two sons, one of whom will be entering college this fall, and the other who will be a high school senior. I began naming some volumes, at random. But my friend stopped me in mid-sentence and…
Boyd CatheyMay 31, 2022
Mako Honda recently told the Washington Post that she and her husband Ryan Finley live on “the worst street corner… across the U.S.” You might speculate that the couple live somewhere in Los Angeles, which retains the notoriety of having the three most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. Or perhaps they live somewhere in inner-city Chicago like West Garfield…
Casey ChalkMay 30, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 23-27, 2022 Topics: United States Constitution, Federalism, Southern Tradition, Reconstruction https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-310?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanMay 28, 2022
Katy Pavlich commented on the Five recently that President Biden needed to do something about the southern border problem as it was his responsibility as Commander-in-chief. Now, Ms. Pavlich, in my opinion, is one of the more clued-up and sager among the groups or individuals who are trotted out as either regulars or contributors on Fox. As a rule, she…
Paul H. YarbroughMay 27, 2022
Although most modern biographies attribute the corruption in Grant’s Administration to venal advisors who took advantage of the President’s innocent naivety, those biographers tend to ignore early examples of Grant’s own dubious conduct through which he set low ethical standards for others in his Administration to follow. One incident was the sale of his “I Street” residence in Washington…
Philip LeighMay 26, 2022
Robert Frost tells us that “good fences make good neighbors.” I suppose there is some truth to that. But I met the best neighbor I ever had the night his fence row burned to the ground. At the time, I was living in Forrest County, Mississippi. Pastoring a country country church that was the product of three earlier splits. Of…
Brandon MeeksMay 25, 2022
It’s hell, sittin’ here. I grew up in the hills of Newton County, Arkansas, the place that my direct line had hacked out and settled in the 1850s, when the first white settlers moved in. Being a native Ozarker has its advantages and disadvantages. When I married and moved one county north, it almost seemed like sacrilege. The next phase…
Travis HoltMay 24, 2022
From the 2003 Abbeville Institute Summer School. I’m going to be talking about the Anti-Federalists. The first question we might ask is: “Who were the Anti-Federalists and why did they take the position they took?” Today, historians are never happy just to study the writings, speeches, correspondence, and other documents produced by the protagonists of an era or a battle.…
Marco BassaniMay 23, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 16-20, 2022 Topics: Southern Culture, Southern Tradition, the War, Nationalism, Southern Politics https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-309?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanMay 21, 2022
On a recent visit to Abbeville, South Carolina I visited the Burt-Stark House, one of the main historic attractions of the town and the prime reason for my visit there. Followers of the Abbeville Institute website who also have an interest in Jefferson Davis may know that Abbeville claims it as the site of Davis’ last war council on May…
Thomas HubertMay 20, 2022
Alfred Emanuel Smith (1873 – 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democrat Party’s candidate for president in 1928. Smith grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan and resided in that neighborhood for his entire life and though he remained personally incorrupt, as with many other New York City…
Valerie ProtopapasMay 19, 2022
A Review of Blacks in Gray Uniforms (Arcadia, 2018) by Phillip Thomas Tucker South Carolina Confederate history is my area of research, so I was interested to come across the book Blacks in Gray Uniforms, which gives information on some black Confederate soldiers from the Palmetto State, and I wanted to bring it to the attention of the readers of…
Karen StokesMay 18, 2022
Now, after what may have been a racially-motivated mass shooting in Buffalo (May 14) by a deranged young man, new insistent calls go out for the government to fight “white nationalism” and “right wing domestic terrorism.” Attorney General Merrick Garland has already signaled more than once that this is the nation’s major challenge—not the illegal drugs epidemic, not the rampant…
Boyd CatheyMay 17, 2022
While teaching at the University of Virginia, William Faulkner once remarked: “'I like Virginia and I like Virginians because Virginians are all snobs, and I like snobs. A snob has to spend so much time being a snob he has little left to meddle with you, and so it's very pleasant here." Perhaps Faulkner should have spent more time in…
Casey ChalkMay 16, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, May 9-13 2022 Topics: Abraham Lincoln, Northern Studies, Slavery, Secession, Civil War https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-308/s-O6QI3ZTYJt5?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanMay 14, 2022
The best of the many Confederate memoirs, in my opinion, are those of General Richard Taylor (Destruction and Reconstruction) and Admiral Raphael Semmes (Memoirs of Service Afloat and Ashore). There are also many excellent women’s diaries and memoirs, perhaps a subject for another occasion. Taylor and Semmes were men in high places, intelligent and experienced, keen judges of character, and…
Clyde WilsonMay 13, 2022
Delivered at the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Park for the Confederate Memorial Day remembrance held April 30, 2022. Thank you for taking time today to consider the deeds and lessons of our long-dead ancestors. When Confederate commemoration began, it was a memorial to people who were known to those living. Today, it is unlikely that there is a person here…
Martin O'TooleMay 12, 2022
I’ve heard tell that fox hunting is the sport of kings. Be that as it may, in the hills of Arkansas it is largely the purview of fools and knaves. There are no aristocrats. No gaudy outfits. No prized horses. In fact, there are usually no horses at all. Perhaps stranger still, no guns. Unless someone totes a side arm…
Brandon MeeksMay 11, 2022
In a penitent act of fiscal flagellation, Harvard University recently reported that it was establishing a hundred million dollar “Legacy of Slavery Fund” in an effort to atone for its century and half history of using enslaved people. In the report, it was cited that from its founding in 1636 until 1783, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared slavery to…
John MarquardtMay 10, 2022
It has been over a century and a half since Lincoln’s assassination did much to deify his image and place him as the centerpiece of the American Pantheon. Such behavior is hardly unexpected; as the leader of his country during America’s deadliest war, a war directed towards enacting unprecedented changes in the structure of government and American society, Lincoln’s partisans…
Shaan ShandhuMay 9, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute May 2-6, 2022 Topics: Southern Politics, Southern Conservatism, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-307/s-RQm1hRyONDA?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanMay 7, 2022
A review of Arm in Arm (Mercer, 2022) by Catharine Savage Brosman Our conscious civilisation begins with Homer and is firmly anchored in Virgil, Dante, the French troubadours, and the Viking bards. Its deepest expressions are in verse. William Faulkner may have had something like this in mind when he lamented that he was “only a failed poet.” That is…
Clyde WilsonMay 6, 2022
Delivered by Oscar Underwood of Alabama in the House of Representatives May, 1902. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday last, when this bill came from the Senate, it was proposed that it should be taken up at once and considered by the House without, going through the usual channels of consideration. I insisted that lie-fore action was taken by the…
Oscar UnderwoodMay 5, 2022
Speech delivered by Senator A.O. Bacon of Georgia, December, 1902. Mr. President: Of course, I think the amendment offered by the Senator from Ohio , which has now been accepted, makes this section less objectionable. I might agree, however, with what the Senator from Wisconsin stated yesterday, that with this amendment the section is of not very much practical operation.…
A.O. BaconMay 4, 2022
A recent article in the politically conservative National Review about Ulysses Grant’s presidency by historian Allen Guelzo is merely another example of unjustified claims that he was a virtuous champion of black civil rights. To be sure, Grant promoted Southern black suffrage but that was because he knew they were nearly certain to vote for him and his Republican Party.…
Philip LeighMay 3, 2022
This piece was originally published at Chronicles Magazine and is reprinted here by permission. The following speech critical of the conservative establishment is one that I did not give at The Charleston Meeting, in Charleston, S.C., whither I was invited by its organizer Gene d’Agostino, as a speaker for the evening of April 14. After espying copies of my book…
Paul GottfriedMay 2, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 25-29, 2022 Topics: Southern Tradition, Confederate History, Articles of Confederation, Southern Family https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-306?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanApril 30, 2022
I'm going to talk about the way the Articles of Confederation functioned, how people acted under the Articles, and the three reasons why I think the Articles were dissolved. The signers of the Articles of Confederation were not happy with what was finally implemented. Indeed, once the Articles were sent to the States, it took nearly four years before they…
Carey RobertsApril 29, 2022
Neither side in the War for Southern Independence produced a finer or more morally upright man than Richard Montgomery Gano. He was the descendent of a distinguished military/evangelical family. His great-grandfather, John Allen Gano, was born in New Jersey and became a Baptist preacher. He joined the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, where he was known as “the fighting…
Samuel W. MitchamApril 28, 2022
My grandmother is the closest thing to a saint I have ever known. She is good and kind. She gives herself away until she is all but spent. She has always worked hard and loved harder. She prays and goes to church. And I’ve only known her to cuss when it thunders. But like many of the medieval saints, her…
Brandon MeeksApril 27, 2022
The Washington Post’s Ian Shapira and his social justice allies in Richmond and Lexington, Virginia, must be worried, big-time. For nearly two years running, their Axis-Against-VMI has enjoyed remarkable success: forcing an honorable VMI superintendent to resign; removing Lt. Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson’s statue, and his name from Jackson Arch; renaming buildings and recontextualizing the past; inserting divisive ideology into courses;…
Forrest L. MarionApril 26, 2022
Today is Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama. Most Americans believe the War and Southern history are synonymous, so much so that to many, the War has come to define the South. If you are reading this post and have followed the Abbeville Institute for any length of time, you know that our mission to "explore what is true and valuable…
Brion McClanahanApril 25, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute April 18-22, 2022 Topics: Southern Politics, Southern Tradition, Secession, Southern Culture https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-305?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanApril 23, 2022
William Gilmore Simms, Part 2 The Green Corn Dance Come hither, hither, old and young--the gentle and the strong, And gather in the green corn dance, and mingle with the song-- The summer comes, the summer cheers, and with a spirit gay, We bless the smiling boon she bears, and thus her gifts repay. Eagle from the mountain, Proudly descend!…
Clyde WilsonApril 22, 2022
In 1935 Lyon Gardiner Tyler – descendant of 10th President John Tyler – wrote: “The old Union was a union of consent; the present Union is one of force. For many years after the war, the South was held as a subject province, and any privileges it now enjoys are mere concessions from its conquerors, not rights inherited from the…
Valerie ProtopapasApril 21, 2022
Mr. President--I fully concur with the gentleman from Montgomery, in the propriety of immediately passing the resolution now under consideration. All the powers of the State of Alabama should be pledged to aid in resisting any attempt to coerce a seceding State back into the Union. Sir, the Southern States recognize the right of secession. It constitutes the very essence…
Lewis M. StoneApril 20, 2022
From the 2016 Abbeville Institute Summer School. So, what I have to say is gonna be, I think, somewhat maybe tedious. I've tried to boil down stuff I've been working on for years, many chapters of a book project, and sometimes when you boil things down, it's not like distilling rose petals. You don't get the fine essence, what you…
Thomas FlemingApril 19, 2022
There is a vast political swell among some ill-informed conservatives that the great mid-term elections will come and a tide of goodness (spelled R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N) will sweep over the grand land, often puerilely referred to as “American exceptionalism,” for everyone. Everyone but conservatives, however. Yes, that’s what I meant. Conservatives are republicans. Republicans are Republicans. They aren’t goodness or even good. They…
Paul H. YarbroughApril 18, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 11-15, 2022 Topics: the War, Secession, Slavery, Southern Culture, Southern Tradition https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-304?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanApril 17, 2022
There are disagreements on the subject, but I wholeheartedly believe that Bardstown, Kentucky is “where bourbon was born.” Many of the first bourbons, however, were variations on old rye whiskey recipes brought to the Bardstown area by settlers from Maryland. Among them were people named Dant, Mattingly, Medley, Wathen, Pottinger, Miles, Willett and Beam, all families associated with the earliest…
J.L. BennettApril 15, 2022
When I was a boy I was convinced that when God decided to make the world He started with Arkansas. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers were merely nicknames for the Ouachita and the Mighty Mississippi that hemmed in our corner of the Delta. And the first man, Adam, likely lived somewhere between West Memphis and the Louisiana line. After all,…
Brandon MeeksApril 14, 2022
In the mid-1760s, violent criminal activity began to spread throughout the sparsely populated interior of the colony of South Carolina. Residents in these areas, alarmed at what was occurring, pled with the government for assistance. None would be forthcoming. Instead, individuals residing in the area turned toward the idea of communal, ritual punishment to stem the tide of criminal activity.…
Nicole WilliamsApril 13, 2022
A line from Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” In the case of the great American conflict of 1861, the name by which it has become generally known is, of course, the "Civil War." This term was, however, only occasionally used during the war, such as Lincoln’s reference in his 1863 Gettysburg Address that the country was “engaged in a…
John MarquardtApril 12, 2022
Part 6 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell “Live asses will kick at dead lions.” Admiral Raphael Semmes In the long run of history, the story of…
Clyde WilsonApril 11, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, April 4-8, 2022 Topics: Secession, Union, Woke History, Slavery, Southern Literature https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-303/s-qYnlgLQYJE8?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanApril 9, 2022
French politician and author Jean-Nicholas Démeunier, in 1786, published his Essai sur les États-Unis. Prior to its publication, the essay, intended for Encyclopédie Méthodique, was in the words of Jefferson’s secretary William Short in a letter to William Nelson (25 Oct. 1786), “as false as might be expected from a man who had made the Abbe Raynal his model, and…
M. Andrew HolowchakApril 8, 2022
To begin with, it is hornbook law* that the signatories to any contract or compact, are all accorded the same rights; that is, no signatory of such an agreement has more—or fewer—rights than any other signatory. Neither does this fact have to be stated in the document; it is understood. If the Party of the First Part is permitted to…
Valerie ProtopapasApril 7, 2022
I've learned a good deal about Poe's paternal and maternal backgrounds; I had never really pursued that; the biographies don't. But I found that Poe's grandfather had immigrated to America in about 1750 from Drung, County Cavan, Ireland. To put that on the board for you, that's about 75 miles Northwest of Dublin, so it’s sort of in the center…
James Everett KiblerApril 6, 2022
Part 5 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Early in Reconstruction the staunch Unionist William Sharkey was appointed governor of Mississippi by Andrew Johnson. Sharkey said that he believed that half the African American population of the state had perished in the war. This may not be…
Clyde WilsonApril 5, 2022
‘Union’ neither denotes nor explicates a form of government. It is a word estranged in both the commonplace and the legal arts. There is no constraint to the daily rumble of social or personal definition. Any two or more people can form a 'union', even without using the word. At law ‘union’ is not a term of art. Rather it…
Vito MussomeliApril 4, 2022
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, March 21 - April 1, 2022 Topics: American History, Neo-Abolitionism, the War, Woke Culture, Slavery, New South, Reconstruction https://soundcloud.com/the-abbeville-institute/ep-302/s-gLn42tchtze?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Brion McClanahanApril 2, 2022
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