American Conservatism is Southern

“With so many able-bodied colored men in the South who do not know enough to ask for living wages, it is not hard to guess that while this race continues to increase in numbers and ignorance prosperity will not even knock at the door, much less enter the home of the southern laborer, and that country that has an abundance of ill-fed and ill-bred laborers is not, nor cannot be, a prosperous one.”

Terence V. Powderly, Richmond Dispatch, October 12, 1886

As my few but cherished readers know, much of my writing is a defense of the South. It is important because the South is where American conservatism was born. In my mind, the Anti-Federalists were the original conservatives and most of them were Southerners. It is the only tradition that reminds us that the States existed before what we call the country today. The Southern conservative tradition contains a healthy disdain for central government and power. It is the intellectual foundation for small government and the maximization of liberty.

Many conservatives and Republicans today are confused about this. They don’t realize that their silence in the face of the destruction of Southern heritage undermines their intellectual foundation and threatens their existence.

As is clear from Mr. Powderly’s quote above, disparaging Southerners has a long history on the left. He was a labor leader in the 19th century. It is hard to know what he meant by “ill-bred”, but it is the kind of thing modern elites like to infer. Modern politicians and military leaders refer to Southerners as traitors as if it is an established fact. Republicans and conservatives say nothing. How long before Republicans are siding with Powderly and Bernie Sanders in seeking “living wages”?

Without the Southern conservative tradition, how do you argue for a small central government?