The
Abbeville Institute claims that it isn’t a racist organization.[i]
However, its real views can be inferred fairly clearly from its web page and
publications that of opposition to civil rights, racial equality and its
support for a neo-Confederate interpretation of American history. From an
Abbeville newsletter about their 2011 Summer School, there is a condemnation of
civil rights legislation, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and egalitarianism:
In “Perpetual War for
Perpetual Union: Kendall and Bradford on Lincoln’s Imperial Rhetoric,” Daniel
argues that Lincoln’s rhetoric at Gettysburg was not for defense or honor but
for an ideological war to establish a “new birth of freedom.” Instead of
viewing America as a federation of States enjoying a rule of law for conducting
their business, Lincoln came to think of America in the manner of the French
Revolution, namely as a unitary state dedicated to shaping society into the
mold of abstract principles of liberty and equality. McCarthy observes that
since these principles are absolute, abstract, and indeterminate in content,
there is no non-arbitrary way to know what they mean or how to satisfy them.
Every claim that equality has been achieved can be met with the counter claim
that it has yet to be fully realized. So equality before the law, must give way
to equality of opportunity, and that to equality in quotas for marginalized
groups, that to equality of outcome. Traditional laws regarding marriage are
offenses against equality because same sex couples are excluded, and so forth.
With each ratcheting up of the abstract ideal of equality, more power is
necessarily concentrated in the central government which diminishes the liberty
of individuals and the corporate liberty of the States to protect a valuable
way of life binding together generations. Moreover, since the idea of equality
is abstract, it applies to all human beings, not just Americans, and this
provides a justification for centralizing even more power and projecting that
power abroad in an effort to achieve, in the words of George W. Bush, a “global
democratic revolution.”[ii]
[i]
Terris, Ben, “Scholars Nostalgic for the Old South Study the Virtues of
Secession, Quietly,” The Chronicle of
Higher Education, Dec. 6, 2009, www.chronicle.com/article/Secretive-Scholars-of-the-Old/49337/,
printed out 12/7/2012.
[ii]
No author, “2011 Summer School,” Abbeville:
The Newsletter of the Abbeville Institute, Vol. 2 Issue 2, Fall 2011, pages 1, 4-9, quote from pages 8-9.
