Defending Dixie: A Defender of the South

[Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture by Clyde N. Wilson (Shotwell Publishing, 2025[2006]; 474pp.)]

Clyde Wilson is the world’s foremost authority on John C. Calhoun and taught for many decades at the University of South Carolina. He is also the foremost historian defending the cause of the Confederacy, and the welcome republication of Defending Dixie presents us with the opportunity to examine some of the themes of his carefully argued and erudite work. (The book should not be confused with Isaac Bishop’s Defending Dixie’s Land, recently reviewed in these pages, which shares a similar standpoint).

Conventional opinion has it that the South rebelled against the Union to defend slavery, and if Wilson rejects this, does he not have to confront the fact that many of the secession documents mention slavery? That is indeed so, but the conventional view rests on an unsupported premise, viz. that secession was a rebellion. On the contrary, the South wished to preserve the strictly limited form of government established by the Constitution, and if it deemed that this was no longer in place, it had a right to depart. As Wilson says,

The preservation of slavery, or more precisely the protection of slavery from outside interference that was considered irresponsible and self-interested, was the immediate cause of the first secession. However, in what sense was slavery the cause of the federal government’s military suppression of the elected governments of the Southern states? That was what constituted the War. The War was formally declared not to be against slavery but to enforce the power of the “United States.” If irritation over the slavery issue caused the secession of the first seven states, what caused that of those who followed after Fort Sumter and the enthusiastic enlistment of most opponents of secession into the cause of independence? Lincoln’s intent to subdue states by military force, which to Southerners, and to a great many more Northerners than is usually admitted, involved a false and revolutionary interpretation of the Union. How can the War be only about slavery when the War consists of the federal government “preserving the Union,” and there is voluminous evidence that Northerners who were making war did not consider emancipation as a primary goal or a goal at all.

In brief, the war was about the Constitution, not slavery; and the South rightly rejected Lincoln’s despotic measures, which were truly immense:

In our day, it is easy to overlook the extent and unprecedented nature of Lincoln’s actions — organizing armies and spending money, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, declaring blockades, confiscating property without legislative sanction until after the fact and often in the teeth of court rulings. The precedent for the “Imperial Presidency” is obvious. James G. Randall, who was a great Lincoln scholar and a great excuser of Lincoln’s conduct, which he portrays as reluctant, unavoidable, and moderate (compared to the Radicals), yet writes: “When the government of Lincoln is set over against this standard (of the rule of law), its irregular and extra-legal characteristics become conspicuous…. Lincoln, who stands forth in the popular conception as a great democrat, was driven by circumstances to the use of more arbitrary power than perhaps any other President has seized… While greatly enlarging his executive powers he also seized legislative and judicial functions as well.”

Wilson notes that the right of secession was defended by the great classical liberals Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Acton. Tocqueville said:

The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their sovereignty, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right.

Wilson describes Acton’s position in this way:

A few months after the close of the American Civil War there was a brief but intense and interesting correspondence between Lord Acton, the European historian of liberty, and General R.E. Lee, hero of the defeated Confederacy, on the issues of the War. In the course of this correspondence Acton commented that Appomattox had been a greater defeat for the cause of constitutional liberty over despotism than Waterloo had been a victory.

For those who seek further information about the Southern position, Wilson recommends Albert Taylor’s Bledsoe’s short book Is Davis a Traitor?, which has recently been reissued. Davis—who was imprisoned for two years after the war—wanted to be tried for treason, since he knew that he would be able to show that the Southern position was correct and that it was Lincoln, not he, who was the traitor:

Bledsoe’s most lasting achievement was undoubtedly this little book, Is Davis a Traitor; or Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861? Its importance is evident from the story Bledsoe often related of his encountering General Lee shortly after the War Between the States. Lee remarked to him: “Take care of yourself, Doctor; you have a great task; we look to you for our vindication.” And vindicate the Confederacy Bledsoe did—as ably as it has ever been done; as ably as it ever can be done in an indifferent world where might is often mistaken for right. A number of Southerners wrote books on the constitutional understandings and political and moral motives that governed the Southern people in their great lost struggle for independence. None did it better than Bledsoe. His argument for the right of secession is absolutely irrefutable to any honest mind. No single Northern apologist—and he takes them all on—is left with a leg to stand on. As a great 20th century Southern scholar, Richard M. Weaver, put it, Bledsoe’s book is “a model of conciseness and cogent argument” which presents a case “formidable in law and equity.” What Alexander H. Stephens did in two brilliant but prolix volumes of A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, Bledsoe did better in 263 pages.

Why should we care about this issue today? Wilson’s answer is that the effort to destroy the South has continued, in demands to destroy Confederate monuments and flags, efforts which have intensified since the first edition of the book:

In my opinion, it is not really the flag they hate—it is us. They hate Southerners and are determined to defame and eradicate everything Southern. They are repeating a pattern evident before in American history and the very thing our fathers fought so valiantly against. We are not in a fight over historical interpretation; we are in a war against our culture. Until we realize that, until we are prepared to fight the enemy on a broad front, we will not make much progress in truly preserving the honor of those we remember today. I am certain we can restore our heritage to its rightful place. We need determination. We need the tactical skill that our forefathers used against overwhelming odds. And we need a firm and clear understanding that we Southerners are in a war for our survival as a people—that the relentless barrage of lies against our heritage is more than a series of petty skirmishes about historical interpretation. Despite the enemy’s efforts, we have a tremendous well-proven advantage on our side. The heritage we remember and honor today validates itself. It is intrinsically powerful and beautiful and good.