A standard for us all...
The South
What to say in brief compass about the South? --- a subject that is worthy of the
complete works of a Homer, a Shakespeare, or a Faulkner. The South is a
geographical/historical/cultural reality that has provided a crucial source of identity
for millions of people for three centuries. Long before there was an entity known as
"the United States of America," there was the South. Possibly, there will still be a
Southern people long after the American Empire has collapsed upon its hollow shell.
One fine historian defines the South as "not quite a nation within the nation, but
the next thing to it." The late M.E. Bradford, whose genial spirit watches
over us even now, defined the South as "a vital and long-lasting bond, a
corporate identity assumed by those who have contribute to it." This is,
characteristically, a broad and generous definition. He proceeded to illustrate that
when visualizing the South, he always thought "of Lee in the Wilderness that day
when his men refused to let him assume a position in the line of fire and tugged at
the bridle of Traveler until they had turned him aside." This was clearly a society at
war, not a government military machine.
The South is larger and more salient in population, territory, historical import,
distinctive folkways, music, and literature than many of the separate nations of the
earth. Were the South independent today, it would be the fourth or fifth largest
economy in the world. Citizens of Minneapolis consider themselves cultured
because of their Japanese-conducted symphony that plays European music, and
assume that the Nashville geniuses who create music all the world loves are rubes
and hayseeds. New Yorkers pride themselves on their literary culture. Yet in the
second half of the twentieth century (if you subtract Southern writers) American
literature would be on par with Denmark or Bulgaria and somewhere below Norway
and Rumania.

"Southerners have less reason to be loyal to the
collective enterprise of the United States than
does any group of citizens. The South was
invaded, laid waste, and conquered when it tried
to uphold the original and correct understanding
of the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution."

Southerners are the most regionally loyal citizens of the United States. But
paradoxically -- or perhaps not -- they have traditionally been the most loyal to the
country at large, ready to repel insult or injury without the need to be dragooned by
any ridiculous folderol about saving Haiti or Somalia for democracy. Southerners
have given freely to the Union and generally avoided the demands for entitlements
that now characterize American life. But their loyalty has been severely tested,
especially considering all they have ever asked in return is to be left alone.

Southerners have less reason to be loyal to the collective enterprise of the United
States than does any group of citizens. The South was invaded, laid waste, and
conquered when it tried to uphold the original and correct understanding of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It took twenty-two million
northerners, aided by the entire plutocracy and proletariat of the world, four years of
the bloodiest warfare in American history and the most unparalleled terrorism
against civilians, to subdue five million Southerners -- all followed by the horror of
Reconstruction. During this entire period, "the Northern conservatives" have never,
in the course of American history, conserved anything.
Since the war, the South has been a colonial possession, economically and
culturally, to whatever sleazy elements have been able to exercise national power. A
major theme of the American media and popular culture is ridicule and contempt for
everything Southern. A major theme of American historical writing is the portrayal of
the South as the unique repository of evil in a society that is otherwise shining and pure.
A severely condensed but essentially accurate interpretation of American history
could be stated thusly: There are two kinds of Americans. There are those who want
to be left alone to pursue their destiny, restrained only be tradition and religion; and
those whose identity revolves around compelling others to submit to their own
manufactured vision of the good society.
These two aspects of American culture were formed in the 17th century, by the
Virginians and Yankees, respectively. The Virginians moved into the interior of
America and carve their farms and plantations out of the wilderness. Their goal was
to re-create the best of English rural society. They merged with even more vigorous
and independent people, such as the Scots-Irish, to form what is still the better side
of the American character.

The Yankees of Massachusetts lived in villages with preacher and teacher. They
viewed themselves as a superior, chosen people, a City upon a Hill. As far as they
were concerned, they were the true Americans and the only Americans that
counted, ignoring or slandering other Americans relentlessly -- a sentiment
persisting to this day.
The days of Jefferson and Jackson illustrate the freedom and honor underlying
America when ruled by the South. During their eras, Virginians gave away their vast
Western empire for the joint enjoyment of all Americans, (thus making possible the
Mid-west and West) and labored to erect a limited, responsible government.
The New Englanders, during the same periods, demanded a reserve of lands for
themselves in Ohio; instituted a national bank and funding system by which their
money-men profited off the blood of the Revolution; passed the Alien and Sedition
laws to essentially enforce their own narrow ideological code on others; opposed
the Louisiana Purchase; and demanded tariffs to protect their industries at others'
expense. All of which was done in the name of "Americanism." (One of the first laws
passed by Congress was a measure to continue the British imperial subsidy for
New England fisheries.)

"The bloody St. Andrews cross of the
Confederacy is a symbol throughout the world of
heroic resistance of oppression -- except in the
U.S., where it is in the process of suppression."

This profiteering through government, which John Taylor of Caroline called the
"paper aristocracy," has always been accompanied by moral imperialism and
assumptions of superiority that are even more offensive than the looting. It is from
this that the South seceded. It is this combination of greed and moralism which
constitutes the Yankee legacy, gives the American empire whatever legitimacy it
can claim, and fuels the never-ending reconstruction of society. That is why we use
marines for social work, so that our leaders can congratulate themselves on their
moral posture. That is why every town in the land is burdened with empty parking
spaces bearing the symbol of the empire, so that the Connecticut Yankee George
Bush can posture over his charity to the disabled. That is why, right now, wealthy
Harvard University receives from the treasury a 200 percent overhead bonus on its
immense federal grants, while the impoverished University of South Carolina
receives only 50 percent of its much smaller bounty.
The term American is an abstraction without human content -- it refers, at best, to a
government, territory, standard of living, and a set of dubious and dubiously
observed propositions. It refers to nothing akin to values or culture, nothing that
represents the humanness of human beings. It could be reasonably argued that
there is no such thing as an American people, although we have persuaded
ourselves there was when shouldering the burdens of several wars. There was
perhaps a time earlier in this century when an American nationality might have
emerged naturally. But that time has passed with the onslaught of new immigrants.
Unlike the term American, when we say Southern, we know we imply a certain
history, literature, music, and speech, sets of folkways, attitudes and manners; a
certain set of political responses and pieties; and a view of the proper dividing line
between the private and the public. Things which are unique, clear, easily
observable, and continual over many generations.

The bloody St. Andrews cross of the Confederacy is a symbol throughout the world
of heroic resistance of oppression -- except in the U.S., where it is in the process of
suppression. Southerners are democratic in spirit, but they have never made a
fetish of democracy and certainly not of what Mel Bradford called "Equality." With
T.S. Eliot, Southerners intuitively recognize that democracy is a procedure and not a
goal, a content, or a substitute for an authentic social fabric. However free and equal
we may be, we are nothing without a culture, and there is no culture without religion.
The South, many believe, still has a substantial authentic culture, both high and folk,
and it still has a purchase on Christianity. That is, the South is a civilisational reality
in a sense which the United States is not, and it will last longer than the American
Empire.
A proper question to now ask is what can the United States do for the South? The
Union is nothing except for its constituent parts. The Union is good and just to the
degree that it fosters its authentic parts. That is precisely why our forefathers made
the Constitution and the Union and gave consent, voluntarily, to them -- to enhance
themselves, not the government.

Author: Unknown