Our Purpose

The Institute for Southern Historical Review (hereafter ISHR) is a "think tank" and not a political activist or heritage preservation organization. While there are some Southern organizations which advocate secession and others which focus on protesting various "heritage violations" throughout the South, such is not our purpose.
         The staff of ISHR understands that, while the South was constitutionally correct in resorting to secession in 1861, the nature of the modern American Empire renders a new secession movement among the Southern States a political impossibility at present (see Greg Loren Durand, America's Caesar: The Decline and Fall of Republican Government in the United States of America, Part Four). The vast majority of the Southern people have long ago lost any real connection with their Confederate forefathers and they no longer possess either the necessary education or the requisite will to even begin a secession movement, much less carry it out successfully. Most modern Southerners do not fully understand why their forefathers fought against such great odds in the War for Southern Independence, and they have even been convinced by nearly a century and a half of Northern propaganda to be ashamed of the "boys in gray." It is, in our opinion, therefore unwise to consider secession a viable option for the South in its present condition.
         Furthermore, while we honor and love the Confederate flag and other traditional Southern symbols, we believe that the continuing removal of such symbols from the public venue is but a symptom of the real problem throughout the South. Again, most modern Southerners do not understand the weighty constitutional and philosophical matters for which Confederate symbols stand. While we may at times discuss such matters, the primary purpose of ISHR is to educate the American people, and Southerners in particular, about the events in our past which created the nation we all live in today.

We Are Christians

The staff of ISHR are Christians and we believe that Christianity has much to say to modern society. However, we also believe that to blur the biblical distinction between Church and State is dangerous to the purity of the Gospel and counter-productive to the God-ordained purpose of civil government (see James Henley Thornwell and Thomas Peck, "Two Views on Church and State"). Consequently, we reject the theocratic theory of government which influences much of today's Southern movement, commonly known as Christian Reconstruction or Theonomy (see Greg Loren Durand, Judicial Warfare: Christian Reconstruction and Its Blueprints For Dominion).
         While we know that neither the original American Union nor the Confederate Union were intended by their framers to be theocracies, we nevertheless understand that some weighty theological issues were involved in the events leading up to the war between North and South from 1861-1865. We see the growth of the Jacobin heresy of egalitarianism in the North, beginning in the 1830s, and the reaction of the more religiously conservative South against it, as one of the main causes of the conflict (see Albert Taylor Bledsoe, "The Nature of Civil Liberty" and Robert Lewis Dabney, "The Difference Between Natural and Civil Liberty"). This clash of worldviews was most visible in, but not limited to, the debate on the moral legitimacy of the South's institution of slavery (see John Henry Hopkins, "The Bible View of Slavery" and J.H. Van Evrie, "The Institution of the South Not Chattelism").
         It should also be noted that while we do not believe that the United States political system has stood upon a constitutional foundation since 1861, we nevertheless understand and strive to obey the biblical command in Romans 13:1-7 and other such passages of Scripture to submit peacefully to the existing authorities, whether they be de jure (of law) or de facto (of fact). We repudiate the belief of some individuals in the various "patriot" and "militia" groups, and even in some Southern organizations, which attempts to usurp the legitimate function of the State by giving the power of coercion to the individual. Nevertheless, we heartily affirm the biblical and historic Christian doctrine of the right of revolution, which is possessed and may be lawfully exercised by the people as an organized political community (see Charles Hodge, "Civil Government and the Right of Revolution").

We Need Your Help

If you are a like-minded American, whether Northern or Southern by birth, we welcome your participation in the work of ISHR. We are not only seeking literary contributions to this website and our planned Journal for Southern Historical Review, but also gifted speakers who can represent ISHR in the public forum. Please feel free to contact us either by letter or e-mail:

Institute for Southern Historical Review
Post Office Box 386
Dahlonega, Georgia 30533

e-mail: editor[at]southernhistoricalreview.org
(you will need to insert @ in the above address)