Southern Partisan
Encyclopedia
Southern Partisan is a right-wing political magazine published in the United States
founded in 1979 that focuses on its Southern region and those states that were formerly members of the Confederate States of America
. Its first editor was Thomas Fleming. Since 1999 it has been edited by Christopher Sullivan.
The magazine generally espouses a pro-southern perspective on political issues and the American Civil War
. The magazine features commentary on southern culture, history, literature, the Southern Agrarians
, the Civil War and Confederacy, and current political issues. It carries a news section entitled "CSA Today" covering stories from each of the eleven former Confederate states, as well as Missouri and Kentucky.
The magazine is harshly critical of political correctness
and highlights news events involving what it describes as "politically correct" policy-making, such as the removal of Confederate historical monuments. It also gives out a "Scalawag
Award" in each issue to politicians who support politically correct actions.
Book reviews of current texts pertaining to all aspects of the southern United States appear in each issue, as do general political opinion pieces from conservative and libertarian
perspectives. The magazine carries columns by syndicated opinion commentators including Walter Williams
, William Murchison
, Joseph Sobran
, and Charley Reese
. It is currently published on a bimonthly basis.
Although the magazine is frequently found in the historical racks in mainstream bookstores, it would be more fitting to find it in the current events section. Its emphasis is also cultural and political. Its statement of purpose, stated at the top of its masthead in every issue, is taken from a letter written by Donald Davidson (poet)
to Allen Tate
in May 1927: "If there were a Southern magazine, intelligently conducted and aimed specifically, under the doctrine of provincialism, at renewing a certain sort of sectional consciousness and drawing separate groups of Southern thought together, something might be done to save the South."
and the Union during the Civil War, and tendency to "venerate the rebel soldiers who fought to secede from the United States." According to the Times, it is also socially conservative as evidenced by a 1999 editorial denouncing the Miami Herald's coverage of gay issues. Though critical of these beliefs, the Times nevertheless notes that "Many of (Southern Partisan's) articles, however, are more high-minded historical reviews in the tradition of the Southern agrarian movement, which glorified the South's slow-paced traditions of farms and small towns." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE6DD143EF93BA35751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Several sources on the political left have openly accused the magazine of racism. Ed Sebesta, an anti-confederate partisan based in Dallas, Texas
commonly attacks the magazine, asserting that Southern Partisan, along with Chronicles
, are the " major publications" of the Confederate movement.http://templeofdemocracy.com/ScottishAffairs.htm Slate
online magazine has described the Southern Partisan as a "crypto-racist, pro-Confederate magazine."http://slate.msn.com/id/1006749/ In 2000, the president of People for the American Way
called it "racist" and pointed to columns that criticize Martin Luther King, Jr and Nelson Mandela
, and alleged that it views slavery favorably.http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2581 The Times report quotes a passage about the "myth that vicious white slave traders dragged Africans from their idyllic homeland to serve as chattel for arrogant white Americans." They also note that the same article describes white slave traders as being better to the blacks than the African warlords. The Times notes that "(t)he magazine rarely writes about slavery," preferring to focus on more genteel aspects of the past. According to the Times article, Southern Partisan "takes the position that the Civil War was fought not over slavery, but over the preservation of a Southern way of life that to this day is worth preserving." (2/8/2000)
The magazine rejects many of its critics' characterizations, arguing that they derive primarily from the far left wing of the political spectrum and from advocates of political correctness. Responding to critics the magazine's Christopher Sullivan charged them with taking "quotes out of context to paint a picture of racial and historical bigotry in the Partisan." (The Never Ending Struggle by Christopher Sullivan, Southern Partisan 1999 4th Quarter) As a prime example, Sullivan pointed to excerpted quotations that critics purported to speak favorably about slavery but were in fact a synopsis of statistical data from Time on the Cross, a scholarly study on slavery authored by socialist cliometrists Stanley Engerman
and Nobel prize
recipient Robert Fogel
. Sullivan contended that other quotations had been similarly misconstrued by critics on the left and rejected their attacks as the product of a politically correct and politically motivated "feeding frenzy."
Responding to the allegations of racism, the magazine's editors are quick to point out that they regularly publish articles by African American writers such as Walter E. Williams
. Sullivan dismisses these allegations as ad hominem
attacks and predicts they will continue from sources in the media and on the political left as long as the magazine is published. "Will it end? As King Lear put it, 'Never, never, never, never, never.' And that's why our resistance to the assaults must also never end."
. Democrats in the U.S. Senate criticized Ashcroft over a 1998 interview he gave with the magazine in which he praised Robert E. Lee
. It was alleged that Ashcroft's statements exhibited racial insensitivity since Lee was a former general for the Confederacy. The magazine responded that Ashcroft's critics were engaging in political correctness and playing the "race card
" for political reasons. When pressed by Democratic Senators Joseph Biden and Ted Kennedy
about the interview during his confirmation hearings, Ashcroft replied "I would rather be falsely accused of racism than to falsely accuse others."
Supportive
Critics
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
founded in 1979 that focuses on its Southern region and those states that were formerly members of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. Its first editor was Thomas Fleming. Since 1999 it has been edited by Christopher Sullivan.
The magazine generally espouses a pro-southern perspective on political issues and the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The magazine features commentary on southern culture, history, literature, the Southern Agrarians
Southern Agrarians
The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
, the Civil War and Confederacy, and current political issues. It carries a news section entitled "CSA Today" covering stories from each of the eleven former Confederate states, as well as Missouri and Kentucky.
The magazine is harshly critical of political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
and highlights news events involving what it describes as "politically correct" policy-making, such as the removal of Confederate historical monuments. It also gives out a "Scalawag
Scalawag
In United States history, scalawag was a derogatory nickname for southern whites who supported Reconstruction following the Civil War.-History:...
Award" in each issue to politicians who support politically correct actions.
Book reviews of current texts pertaining to all aspects of the southern United States appear in each issue, as do general political opinion pieces from conservative and libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
perspectives. The magazine carries columns by syndicated opinion commentators including Walter Williams
Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams, is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.- Early life and education :Williams family during childhood...
, William Murchison
William Murchison (journalist)
William Murchison is a nationally syndicated political columnist in the United States. Murchison is normally of a conservative political persuasion. He is also a regular contributor to Chronicles and The Lone Star Report...
, Joseph Sobran
Joseph Sobran
Michael Joseph Sobran, Jr. was an American journalist and writer, formerly with National Review and a syndicated columnist, known as Joe Sobran. Pundit Pat Buchanan called Sobran "perhaps the finest columnist of our generation", although Sobran was fired from National Review by his one-time mentor...
, and Charley Reese
Charley Reese
Charley Reese is a syndicated columnist known for his anti-Isreal and conservative views. He was associated with the Orlando Sentinel from 1971–2001, both as a writer and in various editorial capacities...
. It is currently published on a bimonthly basis.
Although the magazine is frequently found in the historical racks in mainstream bookstores, it would be more fitting to find it in the current events section. Its emphasis is also cultural and political. Its statement of purpose, stated at the top of its masthead in every issue, is taken from a letter written by Donald Davidson (poet)
Donald Davidson (poet)
Donald Grady Davidson was a U.S. poet, essayist, social and literary critic, and author...
to Allen Tate
Allen Tate
John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.-Life:...
in May 1927: "If there were a Southern magazine, intelligently conducted and aimed specifically, under the doctrine of provincialism, at renewing a certain sort of sectional consciousness and drawing separate groups of Southern thought together, something might be done to save the South."
Critics and commentary
Due to its conservative political leaning and advocacy of the southern side in the American Civil War, Southern Partisan has been the subject of controversy. The New York Times described Southern Partisan as "one of the (southern) region's most right-wing magazines," notes its disapproval of Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
and the Union during the Civil War, and tendency to "venerate the rebel soldiers who fought to secede from the United States." According to the Times, it is also socially conservative as evidenced by a 1999 editorial denouncing the Miami Herald's coverage of gay issues. Though critical of these beliefs, the Times nevertheless notes that "Many of (Southern Partisan's) articles, however, are more high-minded historical reviews in the tradition of the Southern agrarian movement, which glorified the South's slow-paced traditions of farms and small towns." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE6DD143EF93BA35751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Several sources on the political left have openly accused the magazine of racism. Ed Sebesta, an anti-confederate partisan based in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
commonly attacks the magazine, asserting that Southern Partisan, along with Chronicles
Chronicles (magazine)
Chronicles is a U.S. monthly magazine published by the Rockford Institute. Its full current name is Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The magazine is known for promoting anti-globalism, anti-intervention and anti-immigration stances within conservative politics, and is considered one of...
, are the " major publications" of the Confederate movement.http://templeofdemocracy.com/ScottishAffairs.htm Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
online magazine has described the Southern Partisan as a "crypto-racist, pro-Confederate magazine."http://slate.msn.com/id/1006749/ In 2000, the president of People for the American Way
People For the American Way
People For the American Way is a progressive advocacy group in the United States. Under U.S. tax code, People For the American Way is organized as a tax-exempt 501 non-profit organization.-Purpose:...
called it "racist" and pointed to columns that criticize Martin Luther King, Jr and Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, and alleged that it views slavery favorably.http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2581 The Times report quotes a passage about the "myth that vicious white slave traders dragged Africans from their idyllic homeland to serve as chattel for arrogant white Americans." They also note that the same article describes white slave traders as being better to the blacks than the African warlords. The Times notes that "(t)he magazine rarely writes about slavery," preferring to focus on more genteel aspects of the past. According to the Times article, Southern Partisan "takes the position that the Civil War was fought not over slavery, but over the preservation of a Southern way of life that to this day is worth preserving." (2/8/2000)
The magazine rejects many of its critics' characterizations, arguing that they derive primarily from the far left wing of the political spectrum and from advocates of political correctness. Responding to critics the magazine's Christopher Sullivan charged them with taking "quotes out of context to paint a picture of racial and historical bigotry in the Partisan." (The Never Ending Struggle by Christopher Sullivan, Southern Partisan 1999 4th Quarter) As a prime example, Sullivan pointed to excerpted quotations that critics purported to speak favorably about slavery but were in fact a synopsis of statistical data from Time on the Cross, a scholarly study on slavery authored by socialist cliometrists Stanley Engerman
Stanley Engerman
Stanley Lewis Engerman is an economist and economic historian at the University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. in economics in 1962 from Johns Hopkins University. Engerman is known for his quantitative historical work along with Nobel prize winning economist Robert Fogel...
and Nobel prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
recipient Robert Fogel
Robert Fogel
Robert William Fogel is an American economic historian and scientist, and winner of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He is now the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of American Institutions and director of the Center for Population Economics at the...
. Sullivan contended that other quotations had been similarly misconstrued by critics on the left and rejected their attacks as the product of a politically correct and politically motivated "feeding frenzy."
Responding to the allegations of racism, the magazine's editors are quick to point out that they regularly publish articles by African American writers such as Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams, is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.- Early life and education :Williams family during childhood...
. Sullivan dismisses these allegations as ad hominem
Ad hominem
An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...
attacks and predicts they will continue from sources in the media and on the political left as long as the magazine is published. "Will it end? As King Lear put it, 'Never, never, never, never, never.' And that's why our resistance to the assaults must also never end."
John Ashcroft nomination
Southern Partisan received national attention in 2001 during the confirmation hearings of U.S. Attorney General John AshcroftJohn Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri and a U.S...
. Democrats in the U.S. Senate criticized Ashcroft over a 1998 interview he gave with the magazine in which he praised Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
. It was alleged that Ashcroft's statements exhibited racial insensitivity since Lee was a former general for the Confederacy. The magazine responded that Ashcroft's critics were engaging in political correctness and playing the "race card
Race card
Playing the race card is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either racist or anti-racist attitudes to gain a personal advantage, typically by falsely accusing others of racism against oneself.-Usage:...
" for political reasons. When pressed by Democratic Senators Joseph Biden and Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
about the interview during his confirmation hearings, Ashcroft replied "I would rather be falsely accused of racism than to falsely accuse others."
External links
- The Southern Partisan magazine website
Supportive
- The Southern Partisan interview with Thomas DiLorenzoThomas DiLorenzoThomas James DiLorenzo is an American economics professor at Loyola University Maryland. He is an adherent of the Austrian School of Economics. He is a senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and an associated scholar of the Abbeville Institute...
- A Guide for the Perplexed: What’s the Matter With Abe Lincoln a defense of the Southern Partisan on LewRockwell.com, by David Dieteman.
Critics
- Southern Partisan: Attorney general nominee praised white supremacist magazine critical article by the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in ReportingFairness and Accuracy in ReportingFairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...
- Flirting with the Confederacy: Phil Gramm's & Dick Armey's Interviews in the Southern Partisan critical article by Ed Sebesta
- "Neo-Confederate Culture" critical article by Brian Britt on the left-wing Z CommunicationsZ CommunicationsZ Communications is a radical left-wing media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent. It advocates participatory socialism as a replacement for capitalism. Its publications include Z Magazine, ZNet, Z Media, and Z Video.Z Communications is based outside Woods Hole, Massachusetts...
webzine.