The South Was Right

by James Ronald Kennedy

  SUMMARY

  The struggle between the proponents of state sovereignty and those favoring centralized Federalism would continue until the numerical majority of the North at last seized complete control of the federal government. When the Southern states seceded, the North saw its “milch cow” escaping and waged aggressive war against the South to maintain its commercial empire. The South was at last conquered and turned into a colonial province of the Yankee empire. What most Americans do not understand is that state sovereignty is the primary principle upon which the Constitutional Federal Republic was established. Our liberties and freedoms as Americans can not be guaranteed and protected without state sovereignty. Recall federal Judge Chase’s words, “State Sovereignty died at Appomattox.” He was right, state sovereignty died with the Confederate States of America—slain by the commercial and political interest of the Northern numerical majority. Therefore it follows that the Constitutional Federal Republic of the United States, a government based upon the principle of the consent of the governed, also died at Appomattox. It then again becomes painfully clear that the current, centralized, federal government is an unconstitutional, unauthorized, illegitimate de facto government founded not upon a compact among consenting sovereign states but upon the harsh and cruel fact of conquest and maintained by military force and coercion. It is the task of Southern Nationalists and all true conservatives to use the most efficient political methods possible to return this country to its original form of government—a constitutional federal republic of sovereign states.

  William Owen, Georgia. Owen was fifteen years old when he entered Confederate service. From the way he holds his weapon and from the placement of his accouterments, he must have still been a raw recruit when this photograph was taken. (Image courtesy of Rick Formby, Gadsen, Alabama)

  CHAPTER 10

  New Unreconstructed Southerners

  That the Southern people literally were put to the torture is vaguely understood, but even historians have shrunk from the unhappy task of showing us the torture chambers.1

  Claude G. Bowers

  INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

  In the last five chapters we have demonstrated that the Southern people have a moral and legal right to be free. We reviewed the origins of the political philosophy on which the Original Constitutional Republic was based. We observed that from the very beginning of that government there was a conflict between the Northern and Southern cultures. We saw that through various means the Northern element finally accomplished its primary purpose of destroying the constitutional limits on the power of the central government. The current federal government is now controlled by Northern liberals and their Southern Scalawag lackeys.

  Following the war came the second phase of the Northern attack against the Southern people—Reconstruction. This action was a deliberate attempt to remake the Southern people so that they would conform to the Yankee standard. The attempt continues today as we see the national media proclaiming the wonders of some “New South” politician every five or ten years. As we might expect, these New South (Scalawag) idols of the liberal media all parrot the liberal, Northern party line.

  Today, a new type of Unreconstructed Southerner is emerging in the South. This individual, more than at any time since the war, refuses to apologize for the war and has become aggressive in his demand that “Southerners have rights too!” Though it may at times be oh so difficult to discern—there is a hint of nationalism in his voice!

  The New Unreconstructed Southerner

  During the military phase of the War for Southern Independence, outspoken Yankee political leaders had already announced their intentions to remake the Southern people into a mass that would be acceptable to the conquering Yankee. Immediately after the close of the military phase of the war, and in the occupied territories prior to the end of the military phase, Northern politicians in conjunction with Southern Scalawags positioned themselves to begin the remaking of Southern society and its people. The Northern radicals and their Southern lackeys were confident that with the aid of Federal bayonets and the blessings of the Northern-controlled Congress, they would soon enjoy complete success. Thus the people of the South were subjected to the crudest peace ever inflicted upon a nation conquered by the United States. The North prefers to disguise its crimes by referring to this period as Reconstruction. In reality it was a cruel, scandalous, and criminal oppression of an erstwhile free people!

  Led by men such as Thaddeus Stevens, the Northern powers declared that they would turn Mississippi (and by inference the entire South) into a “frog pond.”2 The North viewed the war as an opportunity to punish the South and vowed that the Southern states would be treated as “conquered provinces” which would be forced to “eat the fruit of foul rebellion.”3 Thaddeus Stevens had a clear view of how to manage Reconstruction:

  Hang the leaders—crush the South—arm the Negroes-confiscate the land. … Our generals have a sword in one hand and shackles in the other. … The South must be punished under the rules of war, its land confiscated. … These offending States were out of the Union and in the role of a belligerent nation to be dealt with by the laws of war and conquest.4

  Claude Bowers documented these facts in his book The Tragic Era. He described the condition in Louisiana during Reconstruction as “… Ruin everywhere—enforced by Federal marshals backed if need be by Federal soldiers.”5 The more things change, the more they remain the same!

  Albion W. Tourgee, a former Carpetbagger, admitted the failure of Reconstruction in his book, A Fool’s Errand. He came South to overthrow the supposedly deplorable social conditions. He imagined it would be done by mass emigration from the North and by settlement of large numbers of Yankee soldiers in the conquered states. He thought that the only way to prevent a future generation of Southerners from attempting to re-assert their independence was by rebuilding the Southern states

  … from the very ground-sill … a thorough change in the tone and bent of the people. How much prospect there is of such a change being wrought by the spontaneous action of the Southern people, I do not know; I fear, not much. … what the subjugated section most required was Northern capital, Northern energy, and Northern men to put it again on the high road. …6

  At last, the Fool was forced to admit the differences between the Northern and the Southern peoples:

  The North and the South are simply convenient names for two distinct, hostile, and irreconcilable ideas,—two civilizations they are sometimes called, especially at the South. At the North there is somewhat more of intellectual arrogance; and we are apt to speak of the one as civilization, and of the other as a species of barbarism. These two must always be in conflict until the one prevails, and the other falls. To uproot the one, and plant the other in its stead, … We tried to superimpose the idea of the North, upon the South. … So we tried to build up communities there which should be identical in thought, sentiment, growth, and development, with those of the North. It was A FOOL’S ERRAND.7

  Perhaps the most telling line in the book is Tourgee’s announcement of the then and current Yankee attitude regarding the Southern people:

  The sick man cannot cure himself. The South will never purge itself of the evils which affect it.8

  Grady McWhiney, in Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South, tells of an Englishman who, prior to the war, stated that there was nothing Northerners “hate with so deep a hatred” as Southerners, and that Northern journalists spoke of the South as the home of the “ignorant, illiterate, and barbarian”—a region that “has already sunk three centuries back toward the age of barbarism.” The leisure-oriented, agrarian society of the South was the very antithesis of the money-grubbing, materialistic Northern lifestyle. For decades prior to the War for Southern Independence, the Northern mind had been trained to demean the worth of the Southerner as an individual, not just Southern society but the Southerner as a human being—as a person of less value than his Northern counterpart—as a sub-human who desperately needed
salvation by conversion to the Yankee gospel of progress. Little wonder then that the modern world should have been introduced to the cruel and inhuman concept of total war not by rampaging Nazis but by the heartless brigades of Abraham Lincoln’s army of Northern aggression and occupation.

  The Yankee’s first experiment with social engineering left an indelible mark upon Southern society. For years after the termination of military activities, the Southern people were forced to tolerate strangers in their midst who were determined to remake the South according to the Yankee image. After suffering military defeat, they were forced to tolerate military occupation and were required to stand aside while others with little or no qualifications were raised to positions of absolute power over their society. Unfortunately, each subsequent generation of Southerners has been forced to watch as missionaries of the Yankee gospel of liberal progress and local Scalawags have attempted to remake the “Old South” into a “New South” more in keeping with the Yankee image of what it should be. The Yankee mind has a fixation on social engineering or, as Admiral Semmes stated, “The Yankee is compelled to toil to make the world go around.” This deliberate attempt of the North to remake Southern society after its own image led to the development of a group of people in the South known as “unreconstructed Southerners.”

  Originally, an unreconstructed Southerner was an individual who refused to accept a pardon. The pardon was offered by the United States to anyone who would renounce prior allegiance and swear new allegiance to the United States government. The response of many Southerners can be heard in the words of a former Confederate soldier. When a friend inquired of him if he had asked the Yankees for a pardon, he curtly replied, “Why should I ask them for a pardon when I haven’t pardoned them yet!” These early unreconstructed Southerners represented the soldier class who had experienced the hardships of war, knew first-hand the principles for which they had fought, and retained their loyalty to those principles. To them it was not a “lost cause,” but the right cause.

  The writings of the Southern Apologia is an example of this tradition at its best. Men such as Jefferson Davis, Edward Pollard, Albert Taylor Bledsoe, R. L. Dabney, and Raphael Semmes turned out great works in an effort to justify the South’s efforts to defend itself in the War for Southern Independence. The purpose of their work was to show that the Southern people had a legitimate right to self-determination and independence. Their cause was just, and for their allegiance to it they offered no apology and sought no pardon. They wrote about the past and did not try to project into the future. Being in the position of an occupied people, they could not afford to incur the wrath of the occupying forces.

  Some Southerners, such as Gen. P. G. T Beauregard, would voice their secret desire to renew the struggle:

  Would that I could have said to [my soldiers], resist, and hang out our banners on the outer wall etc! but the day of retribution has not yet come when we shall be able to satiate our spirit of revenge on those fanatics and radicals of the North. Whenever it does, we shall make them drink of the poisoned chalice to the very dregs … maybe a counter-revolution would be necessary. …9

  But the reality of military occupation and political domination would soon bring even the strongest Southern Nationalist back to the real world. At most, Southerners could only concentrate on restoring some semblance of order to the local level. Grand strategy had to be left to generations yet to come.

  The relationship between the conqueror and the conquered can be very deceptive. On the surface there is an uneasy calm. This “detente” serves both parties. The conqueror is required to expend less resources to maintain control, and the conquered people are allowed to put their lives back together and to go on with living. The new social order is established, though by its very nature it denies the basic right of all people—the right to a government established by the free and unfettered consent of the governed. The casual observer viewing from the victor’s perspective will assume that the people are content with the new order and are busy going about the business of reconstructing their lives. After the first few years, the awkward adjustments required to break in a new government will have been completed and the citizens will give every indication of accepting the new order.They will obey the laws, rules, and regulations established by the official government and generally will conduct themselves as loyal subjects. Pacification will be a success!

  The prior paragraph is a thumbnail sketch of the results of the invasion, defeat, and occupation of the erstwhile free people of Eastern Europe. The Russian conqueror enforced his will upon the people of the Baltic nations who were forced to accept a new order with a new government which was required to do the bidding of its master in faraway Moscow. The people, seeing the utter futility of further military resistance, accepted the new order and began the long and arduous task of rebuilding their lives. Seemingly, they accepted the government which ruled them. Yet, would anyone today deny that these same people and their descendants are still far removed from being loyal citizens of the Soviet Union? [Since the publication of the first edition of this book, not only have the Baltic nations succeeded in their secession from the Soviet Union, but the perpetual union of the Soviet republics is no more! Three cheers for secession!] Even though from 1945 to as late as 1985 it appeared that these people were securely within the Soviet Bloc, it is now evident from the wave of discontent, protest, and secession that they were far from being pacified. Just because they were forced to accept the new order is no reason to presume that the new order was legitimate and should or will remain in power. The necessity of the moment forced them to accept the new order quietly, but they remained unreconstructed in their hearts. When the moment was right, they moved from being merely unreconstructed to being openly nationalistic.

  What does this have to do with the modern South? Just as the Baltic peoples, Southerners too were invaded, and their legitimate governments were replaced with a new order that would do the bidding of its masters in a faraway city. Just as the Baltic peoples, Southerners were forced by the necessity of the moment to accept this new order. But unlike the Baltic nations, the South has been occupied beyond living memory. The effects of the conqueror’s propaganda are so pervasive that the lies have been accepted unquestioningly by latter-day Southerners. But acceptance can bestow legitimacy upon a government only if it flows from the free and unfettered consent of the governed. Enter the modern unreconstructed Southerner—the Southern Nationalist.

  The South still has its share of traditional unreconstructed Southerners. They usually fall into two groups: (1) the closet Confederates: they are proud of their ancestry, they love to study the “Civil War,” but they don’t do anything that might call public attention to the cause; and (2) the batdefield junkies: they love to read and study about the war, but not to the point of appearing politically motivated. In a word, these Southerners have been pacified. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with being proud of one’s ancestors or loving to study about the war, or any other such activity. But when the current condition of the South is examined we discover the following facts:

  A. The South is the poorest region of the nation.

  B. The South has been locked into its poor economic position since it lost the War for Southern Independence.

  C. The Southern people do not have the same rights as citizens of other states regarding the establishment of legitimate voter qualifications.

  D. The schools of the South suffer to a far greater extent than those of other regions from federal court orders and enforced busing.

  E. Traditional Southern conservatives are not allowed representation on the United States Supreme Court.

  F. Southern natural resources have been used to benefit large businesses outside of the South without proper compensation or concern for the Southern environment.

  G. Symbols of the Southern nation, such as the playing of “Dixie” and the display of the Confederate flag, have been banned by the federal courts and local Scalawag politicians.


  H. Neither national political party represents the aspirations and concerns of the average middle-class Southerner.

  When confronted with the reality of the current social, economic, and political domination of the South, contemporary Southerners must make one of three choices:

  1.

  Join the New South politicians who have embraced the Northern liberal political philosophy and proclaim that all the evils of the South will be cured once it has atoned for its sins and followed the Yankee’s example of material and social progress.

  2.

  Deny or ignore the economic and political disparity between the South and the other sections of the United States.

  3.

  Become actively involved in diverse methods and efforts to promote the Southern cause (the Southern national appeal).

  Across the South, more and more Southerners are beginning to choose the last option. Their activities are usually limited to the local level, but even in these areas it is possible to detect a resurgence of pride in the South. This resurgence in Southern pride is greatly feared by the Northern liberal and his Southern Scalawag counterpart because national pride strikes at the heart of liberal philosophy—guilt.