A Letter: Southern National Party

A Letter: Southern National Party

Thomas Allen

[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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A Letter: South Africa

A Letter: South Africa

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is a letter written in 1986 responding to an article by Ms. Frances Kendall in Reason magazine.]

    The solution to South Africa's problem offered by Frances Kendall is interesting. If implemented, I would be surprised that her solution would work without some significant changes. Based on the information in her article, her solution contains several major flaws.
    First, she recommends drawing cantonal boundaries without regard to tribal or racial boundaries. Thus, she proposes to commit the same error that has been committed in the rest of Africa. The colonial powers drew political boundaries with little regard to tribal or ethnic boundaries. When they withdrew, the colonial boundaries remained. The result of this disregard for tribal and ethnic boundaries has led to oppression and bloodshed all over Africa. This has happened in spite of the constitutions that most of these countries have which guarantee all sorts of rights for the people. There is no reason to believe that South Africa would be any different. Besides, most Swiss cantons are racially, ethnically, and culturally homogeneous. The German-Swiss and French-Swiss have much more in common than do the Zulu and Xhosa, who are traditional enemies. They certainly have much more in common than these two tribes have with the Afrikaner.
    Another flaw is the erroneous belief that a bill of rights is compatible with democracy. A bill of rights is as antidemocratic as a true monarchy. In a democracy the majority rules. The will of the majority must prevail if democracy is to live. The purpose of a bill of rights is to limit the political power of the rulers, which in a democracy is the majority. But if the power of the majority is limited, i.e., the majority cannot change the bill of rights at its whim, then some sort of minority rule exists. Where a minority rules, a democracy cannot exist.
    Another flaw is the absurd idea that the antidiscrimination provisions of the constitution would be used only against the central and cantonal governments, but not against private companies, associations, and individuals. One needs only to look at the Second Reconstruction of the South in the United States to see how ridiculous this concept is. During the Second Reconstruction of the South, antidiscrimination laws have been aimed as much at, or perhaps even more so, the private sector as they have been aimed at the State and local governments. There is no reason to believe that the Black rulers of South Africa would allow Whites even in a totally White canton to refuse to sell, rent, or provide services to a Black who enters or tries to enter that canton.
    She also proposes to allow communists and other terrorists to participate in formulating a new government for South Africa. Unless she desires despotic socialism, which she seems to abhor, allowing communists to participate is highly questionable. Although there may be one, I know of no instance in the third world where communists have been allowed to participate in formulating a government without the communists or at least despotic socialists eventually ruling.
    In her article, she offers no method to keep the central government from becoming more powerful by usurping the rights and powers of the cantonal governments and the people as the central government has done in the United States and, to a lesser degree perhaps, in Switzerland. Most likely, the usurpation would occur more quickly and more completely in South Africa for at least two reasons. First, there is no tradition of independent cantonal government. Second, her solution seems to require the central government to antedate or be created simultaneously with the cantonal governments; thus, the cantonal governments will appear to be creations of the central government.
    The only difference between her solution and the predictions of the prophets of doom is the method by which the Afrikaner will perish and the amount of time involved. If war comes as the prophets of doom predict, the Afrikaner may perish. But he will die like a man fighting for his race, culture, and homeland. (Oh, if only the rest of the West had this courage!) If her solution is implemented, the Afrikaner will surely perish. But he will die like a wimp as he is bred out of existence. (To die like wimps seems to be the insatiable desire of the West, not only for the Afrikaner, but for all that is European in race and culture.)
    There is, I believe, a better solution to the South Africa problem than the cantonal solution offered by Kendall, and that is, what I would term, the States’ rights’ solution, which, unlike her cantonal solution, requires true decentralization and dispersal of political power.
    First, the boundaries of the cantons should be drawn along tribal, ethnic, racial, cultural lines. This would ensure that the inhabitants of a given canton would have a common language, tradition, culture, heritage, etc. It would greatly reduce internal conflict within a canton.
    Next, instead of adopting a democratic form of government for the central and cantonal governments where rule is by the will of the majority, a republican form of government where rule is by law and where each important political faction and segment of society can be guaranteed some degree of representation should be adopted. The principle of “one man, one vote” should be abandoned. Representation should be proportioned primarily on the basis of the tax base and not on the basis of population. Voting should be weighted in accordance with the amount of taxes paid. The more taxes a person pays, the more votes he should have. This is the market concept of the more wealth a person has, the more “votes” he has in the market, applied to the political process.
    Perhaps the reason that Switzerland is among the freest of countries is that it was one of the last (maybe the last) in the non-Islamic world to grant suffrage to women. In the United States, the rapid acceleration in the growth of government and the decline of liberty began within a decade after women gained the “right” to vote. With few, if any, exceptions, as the franchise has expanded, the government has grown and liberty has declined. With political equality, democracy, has come economic equality, socialism. If liberty is one of Kendall’s objectives, democracy is not the panacea that she believes it to be. As John Randolph of Roanoke proclaimed “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I hate equality.” In other words, one can have liberty; one can have equality; one can have neither; but one can never have both.
    Perhaps the most important principle that needs adopting is Calhoun’s doctrine of concurrent majority. Under this principle, each canton would have the right and power to veto acts of the central government, as far as that canton is concerned, that are, in the opinion of the canton, unconstitutional or unduly infringe upon the rights of the canton and its citizens. This principle could be applied at the cantonal level where important segments of society could have the power to veto acts of the canton as far as the acts apply to that segment. Likewise, each canton should possess the ultimate veto and have the right to secede without molestation or armed conflict.
    To protect the cantons from the central government and to preserve their rights and the rights of their citizens, the cantonal governments should have control of a significant part of the armed forces.
    The plan proposed by Kendall probably will not solve South Africa’s problems. It will surely not save the Afrikaner. The plan that I have briefly outlined above may not solve South Africa’s problems either. However, it does offer the Afrikaner a much better chance of surviving. (I am convinced that the West will accept no solution short of turning South Africa into a Soviet colony with a Black-led puppet government.)
    As an unreconstructed Southerner, my sympathy and empathy are with the Afrikaner. I believe that Western civilization may well live or die with him. Just as the South stood against the world and fought and died for all the nobleness of Western civilization 125 years ago, so today does the Afrikaner. I wish him victory.

Copyright © 1986 by Thomas C. Allen.

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