Southerners are not like other Americans. Significant cultural differences have always separated them from the North. Even today cultural variations between Southern black and white people are fewer than those between white Southerners and white Northerners. In other words, the population of the United States is more divided culturally along regional lines than along racial...
Oh, I’m a good old Rebel, That’s just what I am. And for this damned Republic, I do . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in here
"Slavery is as ancient as war, and war as human nature." —Voltaire Americans, with their strong tendency to externalize the evil within them and to project it onto others, have been waging crusades to extirpate or crush one kind of evil or another for almost . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
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 on antifascism for sale on a table in the...
Every form of original American music in the 20th century began in the South: bluegrass, country, western, jazz, blues, rockabilly, and rock ’n’ roll. Even rap, pop, and heavy metal have been successful because they, in some way, use or imitate a Southern musical element. These styles, if they . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
In an earlier letter I cheered my buddy Chris's suggestion that announcements at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics be given in both Southern and Yankee English but pointed out that on preliminary form Atlanta's civic leaders are unlikely to cotton to the idea. I didn't mention another . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Perhaps you heard something of the furor evoked down here a couple of years ago when it was reported that a speech pathologist in Chattanooga, one Beverly Inman-Ebel, was conducting a class for those who wished to shed their Southern accents. (That's how the news stories put . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
If Franklin Pierce is remembered at all today it is as an inept, do-nothing President whose only accomplishment was to sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Historians generally cite this bill, along with the 1857 Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, as evidence of the aggressive designs of the South to extend slavery...
For evidence that academics miss the obvious, look no further than the 1996 study by two Midwestern psychologists on the proclivity of white Southern males to resort to violence when their honor is challenged. What a surprise! Psychologists Richard Nisbett (University of Michigan) and Dov Cohen (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) conducted a series of...
In the Introduction to the first of these two volumes, Clyde Wilson allows, after a few paragraphs of justified complaint against the wholesale academic and political assault on Southern identity as well as Southern culture, that it was not always thus. “Southerners were seen as different and perhaps a . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Correspondence on Paul Gottfried's speech about Southern conservatives and Taki's article, "End of Empire, End of Manners."
Posthumously, William Faulkner has achieved a celebrity that, if we take him at his word, he despised and eschewed, but which seems inseparable from modem commercial culture. Every second man in the street, who can't remember who is currently Vice-President, recognizes Faulkner's name as that of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
A French woman who met the American poet Allen Tate (1899-1979) in the 1930s remarked, “Monsieur Tate is so conservative that he’s almost radical.” Etymologically, “radical” fits Tate well; his conservatism entailed returning, in the face of destructive social practices, to fundamental truths and the . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!” —Robert Burns A few years ago, a well-known conservative historian lamented that the American public was not morally . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber?...
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!” —Robert Burns A few years ago, a well-known conservative historian lamented that the American public was not morally engaged to undergo sacrifice after the September 11 attacks, unlike it was in its heroic response to Fort ...
Boyd Cathey is an 11th generation Carolina Tar Heel who was mentored by and worked with Russell Kirk. The Land We Love: The South and Its Heritage is written reverentially, just as one might reflect on the memory of one’s mother. For the South is not . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
"The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo His mental processes are plain—one knows what he will do,
more liquor and tobacco, and were less concerned with thenuseful and the material.nCritics damned the British Celts, calling them "drinkersnand gamblers," "remarkably lazy," "adverse to industry,nnever working but from necessity," and "holding that bodilynlabour of all sorts was mean and disgraceful." One observerncharged that the Irish would "sit . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Author of several novels and a memorable autobiographical work entitled Our Father’s Fields (1998), as well as a leading light of the Abbeville Institute, James Kibler has produced in the present work an indispensable study of the classical influence on Southern literature. Other literary historians and . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
The opening scene of the folk opera Singin’ Billy, for which Donald Davidson wrote the book and lyrics, takes place in the yard of Callie Wilkins, “Miss Callie,” the matriarch of Oconee Town in Pickens County, South Carolina. Two young people have married, John and Jennie Alsop, and are in danger of a shivaree. They...
With the deaths of Robert Penn Warren and Walker Percy the specter of the star system is loose again in the land. “Who will be their successors? Who will pick up their mantle?” It’s a plaintive cry, predictable but genuine, largely journalistic and academic—a spume from the wave of canon-making—thinned by its basis in literary...
Last winter, I traveled to Abbeville, South Carolina, for its Fifth Annual Olde South Christmas. To the casual observer, this event might appear to be merely an instance of savvy small-town marketing—an attempt to capitalize on the trade in nostalgic simulacra of a simpler time. It had . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
During the early 1920’s, 30 years after he had written his famous essay on the significance of the frontier in the nation’s history, the great American historian Frederick Jackson Turner published two other works on the democratizing role of what he termed the “section.” Sections, Turner wrote, “serve as restraints upon a deadly uniformity. They...
Several recent letters from readers outside the South have contained clippings and firsthand reports about the progress of Our Nation's cause. I hope my correspondents don't mind, but I've come to think of them as a sort of intelligence service, even sometimes as a Fifth Column . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
In examining the Celtic heritage of the Old South, it isnimportant to recognize that only those cultural traits associatednwith British Celts up to the 18th century are relevant.nThere are two reasons for this: first, all significant migrationnfrom Scotland, Ireland, and Wales to the American Southnended before 1800; and second . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
tim so luridly described in the closingrnscene is in fact too commonplace to bernvery shocking.rnTo Hollywood the South is no longerrnthe irredeemable backwater of MississippirnBurning, but a place like South Africa,rnwhich is successfully overturning its oldrnorder and shedding its evil heritage. Butrnthe New South is admirable only insofarrnas . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
The smog of political correctness hangs heavily over most American colleges and universities. Since the politically correct are intolerant, support only their own style of research, and hire and tenure only their own kind, this condition may well he with us for two generations. This has led some to despair over the fate of higher...
Michael Westerman's memorial service was held on March 4, appropriately enough on Confederate Flag Day. My friend and fellow Southern Leaguer, Jack Kershaw, and I arrived shortly before noon at the designated meeting-place in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, just north of Nashville on I-65. The sky was late . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has over 15 million members. With over 46,000 churches, they are present in all 50 states (as well as several foreign countries). It is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Nonetheless, for nine straight years, the SBC has reported a net . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
In 1920 a group of writers gathered at the home of playwright Sidney Hirsch in Nashville for bi-weekly sessions of reading and dissecting each other’s prose and poetry. It was the beginning of an outpouring of creativity from a group that would try to defend and restore . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
The Kennedys are an American institution. No, not the Massachusetts rabble, but the Louisiana Kennedys, James Ronald (of Mandeville) and Walter Donald (of Simsboro), self-described "Scotch-Irish crackers" and authors of The South Was Right! and Why Not Freedom! America's Revolt Against Big Government . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article...
At the end of the 60's, the Establishment began a deliberate campaign to destroy a number of American symbols it considered inimical to black welfare. That these symbols—such as the various flags of the Confederate States of America and the song "Dixie"—are revered by a large . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
"The fiction of Mr. Simms gave indication, we repeat, of genius, and that of no common order. Had he been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately manifest to his countrymen, but unhappily (perhaps) he was a Southerner. . . . His book, therefore, depended entirely upon its . . . Subscribers...
The Southern Baptist Convention finally had its Appomattox, surrendering the flag of its ancestors at its annual meeting of messengers (representative delegates) held in mid-June in St. Louis. Reportedly, an overwhelming majority of messengers voted in favor of Resolution 7, in which they determined to “call our brothers . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
“The fiction of Mr. Simms gave indication, we repeat, of genius, and that of no common order. Had he been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately manifest to his countrymen, but unhappily (perhaps) he was a Southerner…. His book, therefore, depended entirely upon its own intrinsic value and...
"Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?" —Job 41:1 No idea is more central to the American political tradition than that of limited government. As a nation we began with our commitment to the liberty of commonwealths, of communities . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access...
The Southern Classics Series is a new venture of J.S. Sanders and Company. John Stoll Sanders and his series editor M.E. Bradford are systematically resurrecting worthy titles that have disappeared from the pages of Books In Print. In so doing, they are making a valuable . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
enlightenment. The flag's partisans,rnmeanwhile, rehise to accept their adversaries'rndefinition of what it is they arerndefending. And, God knows, everybodyrnis earnest.rnCan we sort this out? Is there anythingrnhelpful to be said, or must this allrnjust come down to a political contest ofrnwills?rnFirst of all, let's . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...
“[T]o speak in general terms of the prototypical Southern conservative we would say first of all that he was not an alienated man.” —M.E. Bradford, “Where We Were Born and Raised” White nationalism has long existed on . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive...
Sitting through a showing of the recent film Gettysburg in a multiplex theater amid the abstract sprawl of suburban Yankeedom was somehow an unnerving experience. I don’t mean to say that the movie itself was off-putting or unsuccessful, though come to think of it, there were a few awkward moments here and there. No, the...
Longtime readers of Chronicles are familiar with John Shelton Reed, who used to write a column for this magazine. Those less familiar may recall the occasional news story based on the latest intelligence-gathering done by the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
In the aftermath of a conference not long ago, a dozen of us spent a night in downtown Little Rock. (No, this wasn't the Economic Summit. It was a gathering of poets, novelists, and essayists to discuss Southern autobiography, and the talk was a whole lot better.) All . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Early in Owen Wister’s 1905 novel Lady Baltimore, the narrator, recently arrived in Charleston from Philadelphia, remarks upon the stillness of the city, its “silent verandas” and cloistered gardens behind their wrought iron gates—“this little city of oblivion . . . with its lavender and pressed shut memories . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
em thinkers: Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henr)-, George Mason,rnSt. George Tucker, John Randolph, Abel Upshur, John C. Calhoun,rnWilliam Gilmore Simms, Albert Taylor Bledsoe, RobertrnLouis Dabney, Basil Gildersleeve, the Nashville Agrarians,rnRichard M. Weaver, M.E. Bradford, and many others.rnThe cultural elites goerning America today have embracedrnthe very intellectual . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
The Confederate flag, which had been in a place of honor (though not sovereignty) above the South Carolina capitol for almost 40 years, was removed in the stealth of the night of June 30/July 1. The removal was made possible because all but a handful of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
The human universe, we are told by optimists on the editorial pages, is contracting into a gray and insipid doughball, pasted over with brightly colored labels advertising the only ethnic rivalries that persist: the struggles between Nissan and Daimler, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Unfortunately, there are people around . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Veterans of South Carolina politics have been waiting and wondering what the last minute stunt would be leading up to Saturday’s First-in-the-South bellwether Republican primary. I predicted it would be a Confederate flag stunt and begged the Ron Paul campaign to make his positions on . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
What price would you place upon your soul? For the people of Mississippi, this question recently became more than a mere philosophical or theological inquiry. True enough, all of us face this question in small, unnoticed ways as we move through life. Thankfully, most of us can make our . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Yeah, I know we've got two Southerners running on the Democratic ticket. Don't rub it in, OK? As Miss Scarlett used to say, I'll think about it tomorrow. Let's talk about sports. As you probably know, in four years jocks and TV cameramen . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article...
“There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson What helps set this study . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in here