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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ayn rand who wrote (59654)	1/3/2010 7:40:15 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 219863

Secession Studies, Out in the Open Today’s idea: Secession remains a sensitive subject on campus because of its racial connotations — so much so that Southern scholars quietly gather on their own to study and discuss it. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ben Terris profiles Donald W. Livingston, an Emory University philosophy professor, and his Abbeville Institute, named after the South Carolina birthplace of John C. Calhoun (right), the slavery and states’ rights advocate who was the country’s seventh vice president. The usually low-profile institute, founded in 2003 and claiming more than 60 associated scholars, is for the first time publicly advertising one of its conferences; it’s on secession and state nullification of federal laws in February in Charleston, S.C. While the Southern Poverty Law Center says the institute’s work borders on white supremacy, the academics say it’s a way to discuss Southern topics misrepresented in today’s classrooms. Or, as Livingston puts it, to examine Southern tradition “in terms of its own inner light” rather than “as a function of the ideological needs of others” — “as if you had programs of Jewish studies explored from the point of view of Catholics, or worse, of Nazis.” The article elaborates: Abbeville’s scholars contend, for example, that the Civil War—or as they often refer to it, the War of Northern Aggression or the War to Prevent Southern Independence—was not about slavery (the system was on its way out anyway, they argue) and that the antebellum Southern states had every right to secede. They say they are not able to make these points to their campus colleagues, however, without being painted into a corner as racists. So instead of discussing them with professors down the hall, they turn to Abbeville. And though they offer many historical and philosophical justifications for secession, Abbeville’s members say the argument boils down to two points. First, the United States was founded on the basis of secession (from Britain and then from the Articles of Confederation). Second, the best way to combat an unwieldy central government is to allow states the ultimate right: their independence. Interestingly, Calhoun advocated annexing Texas into the union, while the state’s present-day Governor, also in the spirit of Calhoun, seems less than thrilled about staying there. [The Chronicle of Higher Education] ideas.blogs.nytimes.com