[Editor’s note: The following is a letter written in 1986 responding to an article by Mr. Vanover in the Southern Partisan magazine.]
As a member of the Southern National Party, I can inform Mr. Vanover that it is still alive. If he had read the party’s newsletters of the past five years, he would have discovered that most writers who address the race issue do not advocate “White supremacy.” They advocate the solution offered by Thomas Jefferson.
I am sure that Mr. Vanover would consider me a “racist” because I advocate Jefferson’s solution. However, I do not believe that the Jeffersonian solution is a “racist” solution in the sense of degrading or destroying a race. It is racist only in the sense that it preserves the races that God created. The new South integrationist is the true racist. Integration leads to interracial marriages, which lead irrevocably to the destruction of the races. At least it has in all other societies that have tried it. I see no reason that the South would be any different. Because of its total destructiveness, racial integration must be based upon racial hatred. Racial destruction seems to be the position advocated by Mr. Vanover.
Following Mr. Vanover’s logic (one “who truly loves the South loves it for what it is”), one must love and perhaps even advocate “White supremacy.” Historically and traditionally, Blacks generally have been subordinated politically, economically, and socially to Whites. [The same was true in the North.] At least this has been true up to the Second Reconstruction when State governments were prohibited from enforcing segregation and were required to enforce integration. White supremacy, segregation, and geographical separation are not necessarily motivated by racial hatred. Even if they were, there is less hatred in them than in integration. Integration has always led to the destruction of the races, which are God’s creations. Unlike advocates of the aforementioned three, the integrationist is consumed with self-hatred, for he seeks to destroy himself and his kind. In the long run, integration is a highly unchristian principle.
[Historically and traditionally, not only did Southerners segregate Blacks, so did Northerners. However, unlike the South, which segregated Blacks by statute because of their large numbers, the North segregated Blacks by custom, because their small numbers did not require laws to segregate them. Moreover, the typical Northerner had a lower opinion of Blacks than did the typical Southerner. While Southerners saw Blacks as real persons, Yankees, especially the abolitionist types, saw them as abstractions.]
Those in the same wing of the Southern National Party in which I am, advocate the preservation of the Negro race without White supremacy. We believe as Jefferson believed that this goal can only be achieved by geographical separation of the races. This position can hardly be considered antiblack — at least not by rational thinkers.
Mr. Vanover never really answers his question: “Is the White Southerner ready for equality?” He implies that the answer is “yes.” He may be correct. However, if he is, the White Southerner is ready for something that is contrary to nature and the Bible. We may all be equally guilty of sinning, but that is about the end of our equality. What can be more unequal than some going to paradise while others do not? Or, as Calvin would put it, some are predestined to heaven; most are predestined to hell. Because every individual and every race is unique and innately different, they can never be equal. The closest man has come to achieving equality in recent times is in the Soviet Union, communist China, and Cambodia. I doubt that many Southerners desire such a society, but if they desire equality, this type of society is what they will achieve.
The prevention of “mongrelization” and the preservation of “White civilization” is only one reason for an independent Southern Republic. (I suspect most Southerners prefer these goals to Mr. Vanover’s nebulous egalitarianism. I also doubt that most Southerners feel the same contempt for White civilization as Mr. Vanover seems to exhibit.) An independent Southern Republic would greatly improve our chances of preserving our Southern culture, heritage, and traditions for our great-grandchildren. Political boundaries can control immigration; thus, retard the influx of carpetbaggers and their socialistic, democratic, miscegenous, egalitarian Yankee ideology. Those values advocated in the Southern Partisan can best be preserved and regained with an independent South. In fact, I believe that is the only chance that they can be. An independent South would greatly improve our chances of regaining the liberties that our pre-Statue of Liberty antebellum ancestors enjoyed. Regaining these lost liberties in the present union is virtually nil. An independent South would free us from a federal court system, presidency, and Congress controlled by Yankeedom. Who knows, it may even end new South style progress and reduce the quantity of hazardous waste dumped in South Carolina.
About the only thing that Mr. Vanover and I may agree on is our opposition to groups like the White Patriot Party and the Klans desecrating the Confederate flag. However, I do find myself in agreement with most of what the Southern Partisan advocates. Where we depart is to how to best achieve these goals. The writers in the Southern Partisan, for the most part, believe that the present union can be reformed and Southern values can thus be preserved, and those lost, regained. I am convinced that the present union cannot be so reformed and that these goals can only be achieved in an independent South. Of course, Southerners have been in this predicament before. In 1770 most Southerners believed that the union with England could be reformed. By 1776, many were convinced that their only hope lay in independence. In 1855, most Southerners believed that the union with the North could be reformed. By l861, most were convinced that it could not.
For your erudition, several recent issues of the Southern National Party’s newsletter are enclosed. For your edification, I have marked the articles that I have written. Perhaps Mr. Vanover can peruse them to discover why someone not in prison would support Southern independence. I am sure that he will conclude that I am a member of the right-wing lunatic fringe. [If so, he would be wrong; according to Pam Dunn, I am a “a totally moronic left winger idiot.”] However, I suspect that if I were transported back to April 1776 when my ancestors, John Bradford and Jeptha Atherton, voted for the Halifax Resolves, I would be in the mainstream. [Later, I learned that Atherton was not a member of the Fourth Provincial Congress, which adopted the Halifax Resolves. He was a member of the Fifth Provincial Congress, which approved the first North Carolina Constitution, along with a “Declaration of Rights.”] I doubt if my Uncle Nathaniel Macon (an article about him appeared in an earlier issue of the Southern Partisan) would disagree with too many of my positions. I also suspect that my great-grandfather, who shed his blood at Chancellorsville, and his brother, who left an arm there, and a host of their comrades would be more inclined to agree with my position on race, equality, and Southern independence than with Mr. Vanover’s position.
I have written numerous articles for the “Southern National Newsletter” over the past five years. Only two of these articles were on race per se. So there are other reasons for desiring Southern independence — namely, liberty. As John Randolph said, I believe that it was he, “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty, I hate equality.” In other words, man can have liberty. Man can have equality. Man can have neither. But man can never have both.
I write this letter not as an official or spokesman for the Southern National Party, for I have no authority to do so. I merely write to inform Mr. Vanover that the Southern National Party still exists and to let him know why one person who is not a convict would consider joining it.
[In 1999, if I remember correctly, the Southern National Party dissolved. Sometime later, a new Southern National Party was formed. I have had no relations with the new party.]
Copyright © 1986, 2019 by Thomas C. Allen.
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