League of the South

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The League of the South is a Southern nationalist organization whose ultimate goal is "a free and independent Southern republic."^[1] The group defines the Southern United States as the states that made up the former Confederacy, plus Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland.^[2] While political independence ranks highly among the group's goals, it is also a social and religious movement, advocating a return to a more traditional, conservative Christian-oriented Southern culture.

Contents 1 History 2 Views 2.1 Culture 2.2 Social 2.3 Economics 2.4 Politics 3 Controversy 4 Members 5 Bibliography 6 See also 7 External links 8 References

[edit] History

Formed in 1994, the League of the South was originally known as the Southern League, a reference to both the Northern League, an Italian political party which advocates autonomy for Northern Italy, and the League of United Southerners, a group organized in 1858 to shape Southern public opinion. The name was changed in 1997 after it was discovered that the rights to the name were held by another, older Southern League, a minor league baseball organization based out of Atlanta.^[3] The League was founded in 1994 by Dr. Michael Hill and a group of about forty others. Most of them were academics and intellectuals, including Clyde Wilson, Thomas Fleming, and "Celtic history" specialist Grady McWhiney (all three professors).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Views

As noted, the League promotes the "independence of the Southern people" from the "American empire"^[4] and this on a variety of levels: culturally, economically, socially, and politically.

[edit] Culture

The League defines Southern culture "in opposition to the corrupt mainstream American culture."^[5] It sees Southern culture as profoundly Christian, and pro-life.^[6] Furthermore, the League believes that Southern culture places a greater emphasis on immediate relationships than on abstract ideas (the nation, the global community, etc) and that Southern geography "defines character and worldview".^[7]

[edit] Social

According to the League, Southern society differs greatly from what it sees as the Marxist and egalitarian society lacking "any grace or charm" that its "alien [American] occupier" seeks to "impress upon it."^[8] Southern culture, for the League, is hierarchical, based on the Bible and decidedly non-feminist.^[9] While the Leagues Core Beliefs Statement does not mention gay rights, it notes that Southern culture "stigmatizes perversity".^[10] It also values politeness — "Southern Hospitality".

[edit] Economics

The League of the South's economic views are best characterized as libertarian. It is opposed to fiat currency, personal income taxation, central banking, property taxes and most state regulation of business. The League supports sales taxes and user fees.^[11]

[edit] Politics

Seeking support in the American Declaration of Independence, the League believes the "Southern people" have the right to secede from the United States, and that it "must throw off the yoke of imperial [American] oppression".^[12] The League promotes a Southern Confederation of sovereign, independent States that "work together . . . to conduct foreign affairs". It believes that the South's foreign policy should favor neutrality and trade with all states.^[13] Furthermore, the League favors strictly limited immigration, opposes standing armies and any regulation whatsoever of firearms.^[14] Though the ultimate goal of the League is to create an independent Southern nation, it sees this aim as the final step in an ongoing process:

Once we have planted the seeds of cultural, social, and economic renewal, then (and only then), should we begin to look to the South's political renewal. Political independence will come only when we have convinced the Southern people that they are indeed a nation in the organic, historical, and Biblical sense of the word, namely, that they are a distinct people with a language, mores, and folkways that separate them from the rest of the world.^[15]

The League's current official activities focus on recruiting and encouraging "cultural secession" and "withholding our support from all institutions and objects of popular culture that are antithetical to our beliefs and heritage."^[16]

[edit] Controversy

The issue of race has become a source of controversy and dispute within the Los. LoS President Michael Hill has argued for the centrality of Christian white men in the movement: "But let us never deny (for the sake of pleasing the implacable Cultural Marxists) that we, the descendants of white, European Christians, are central to a movement to preserve and advance a particular civilization, cultural inheritance, and physical place."^[18] Hill has also advocated the ideology of kinism, and would outlaw racial intermarriage and non-white immigration, expel all “aliens” (including Jews and Arabs) and limit the right to vote to white landowning males over the age of twenty-one.^[19] The Virginia LOS Board of Directors advocated kinism as part of its official ideology in 2001.^[20]

Hill denies charges of racism, naming two black men "who have proven that they belong within our movement."^[21]

[edit] Members

The League's Board of Directors is composed of Michael Hill, Jack Kershaw, Ray McBerry, Franklin Sanders, Rev. Eugene Cas, Mark Thomey, Mike Tuggle.^[22] Other members include H. K. Edgerton, Charley Reese and Robert Stacey McCain.^{[citation needed]}

Academics who are supporters include Don Livingtson (Emory University), Clyde Wilson (South Carolina), Jim Meriweather (South Carolina), and Marshall DeRose (Florida Atlantic University).

[edit] Bibliography

1. What Is the League of the South? "Introductory Essays and Remarks: What Is the League of the South?" by Michael Hill
2. The League of the South FAQ
3. Internal League Dissention "White Nationalism" from the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Intelligence Report", summer 2002, issue #106
4. Official website (To reach the Core Beliefs Statement, follow the links for "Daily Archives" to "February 2005" and "Announcements: Core Beliefs Statement".)
5. Grand Strategy "The League's Grand Strategy."
6. A League of Their Own "A League of Their Own" from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, summer 2000, issue #99 p. 1
7. League of the South Statement on Racism by the League of the South Board of Directors, June 21, 2005
8. Board of Directors "Meet the Board of Directors of the League of the South."

[edit] See also

• List of not fully sovereign nations
• Military Order of the Stars and Bars
• Nationalism
• Separatism
• Sons of Confederate Veterans
• Southern literature
• Southern Poverty Law Center

[edit] External links

Official Websites

• Dixienet
• League of the South

Scholarly and Special Interest

• Confederate Reconstructionist Movements
• Southern Nationalism: Myth or Reality?
• Christianity and Confederate Nationalism "The US Civil War as a Theological War: Confederate Christian Nationalism and the League of the South", by Edward H. Sebesta and Euan Hague. Published in the Canadian Review of American Studies, 2002.

[edit] References