Acknowledgments I wish to thank Euan Hague for his generosity in the many hours he has given in helping me with this paper: proofreading; guidance in Scottish Studies; mailing overseas reference materials; and advice

Officially Approved by the Scottish Tartan Authority

I wish to thank Euan Hague for his generosity in the many hours he has given in helping me with this paper: proofreading; guidance in Scottish Studies; mailing overseas reference materials; and advice. Even more important has been his encouragement and moral support for me to write this paper. 

I also wish to thank those who can not be named, but also made this paper possible. 

Introduction

In the United States a neo-Confederate movement has arisen in the last twenty years. It has adopted theories in which they see themselves and Southerners as being "Celtic." Part of this has been to adopt Scotland as the mother country and Scottish nationalism as their second nationalism. It identifies Scottish secession with Confederate secession and their current hopes for secession. The neo-Confederates are impacting upon Scottish culture, most notably in their proudest accomplishment, the Confederate Memorial Tartan. Books on Scottish culture also project Confederate identity into Scottish identity. They are strong supporters of the Scottish Nationalist Party. 

Neo-Confederacy is a reactionary movement with an ideology against modernity conceiving its ideas and politics within a historical framework of the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the history of the American South. This includes more than a states' rights ideology in opposition to civil rights for African-Americans, other ethnic minorities, women and gays, though it certainly includes all these things. Opposition to civil rights is just a part of a world view desiring a hierarchical society, opposed to egalitarianism and modern democracy. Two articles in the Southern Partisan magazine are examples of these sentiments. One is by Tom Landess which condemns the Statue of Liberty for the ideas which it represents, such as the American idea of freedom and the story of immigration to America (Landess 1984). The other is by Robert Whitaker, who condemns as a sham to pander to Parisian liberals of the 18^th century, the Declaration of Independence, known for the statement concerning the "self-evident truth" that all men are created equal (Whitaker 1983).

Essentially neo-Confederates believe that with the Civil War, 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln was able to expand the power of the federal government beyond constitutional limits, and that with the defeat of the Confederacy the ideals of states' rights were defeated. They believe that the Fourteenth Amendment to the American Constitution, extending citizenship to all persons in the United States, in particular African-Americans, guaranteeing due process for all citizens and penalizing states for disenfranchisement, was illegally adopted during Reconstruction (1865-1876). To the neo-Confederates these measures resulted in the growth of federal government into what they call a "Leviathan," a monstrous beast.

The neo-Confederate historical world view encompasses all of American history, not just the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the South. The early founding era of the American Republic, the American Revolution (1763 -1783) until the Ratification of the American Constitution and adoption of the Bill of Rights (1791) in particular has a prominent place. Neo-Confederate writings on the subject work to define original intentions to justify both current political beliefs and the actions of their historical heroes, such as secession. In this historical view big government, racial integration, especially landmark Supreme Court school desegregation decision Brown vs. Brown (1954), gay rights, civil rights, feminism, minorities, taxes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, immigration, and other issues can be viewed as the result of the American Republic jumping the tracks during the Civil War and being out of control. The neo-Confederates seek to capitalize on discontent with these issues.

Since these issues are national, the movement is national, and neo-Confederate organizations are opening up chapters across the country. Since certain segments of the American public are highly discontented, the movement is growing rapidly. The League of the South starting from a small meeting in 1994 of around fifty people, has grown to 8,000 in 1999.

The neo-Confederates also focus on the usual historical questions, such as, "What caused the Civil War?" This serves to maintain the Confederate pantheon and the "Lost Cause" as supporting elements in their historical world view to justify their efforts.

The neo-Confederate movement sees as its progenitors the Southern Agrarians, (also known as the Nashville Agrarians.) Their foundation stone was the publication of the book, "I'll Take My Stand," 1930, in which the twelve contributors take their stand against modernity and what they saw as attacks on the South. Robert Penn Warren's contribution was "The Briar Patch" an offensively racist defense of segregation (12 Southerners 1930). In Frank Owsley's contribution, "The Irrepressible Conflict," an apologetic for slavery writes (12 Southerners 1930, p.77), "For the negroes were cannibals and barbarians, and therefore dangerous." The presence of Scotland in their thoughts is revealed in the following by John Crowe Ransom in his essay, "Reconstructed But Unregenerate," (12 Southerners 1930, p.24) discussing the position of the South in the United States: 

The leading figures of the Southern Agrarians were frequent contributors to the American fascist publication American Review which folded in the late 1930s. A tradition of not very convincing apologetics has arisen over time to excuse this fascist period. Their publication, "I'll Take My Stand," was immediately rejected as reactionary and by those familiar with agriculture as impractical. However, it was taken up as a defense of the South by reactionary intellectuals to promote a theme of an Agrarian pre-modern South against an industrial modern North. From a Neo-Confederate viewpoint Mark Malvasi describes the Southern Agrarians as founders in his Ph.D. thesis, "Risen From the Bloody Sod: Recovering the Southern Tradition" (Malvasi 1991). It was republished as a book with the title, "The Unregenerate South," by Louisiana State University (Malvasi 1997).

From the 1940s to the 1980s the neo-Confederates theorists were generally in retreat in positions in the universities and academic journals, primarily in the South. M.E. Bradford, late professor of English at the Catholic University of Dallas, edited and published with George Core, "The Southern Tradition At Bay," (1968), a posthumous compilation of University of Chicago English professor Richard M. Weaver's neo-Confederate writings. At the height of the American Civil Rights movement the title accurately described the fortunes of the neo-Confederates. Nevertheless they continued to write and be active.

In the late 1970s the Neo-Confederate movement begins to come to life. In 1979, Southern Partisan is first published with the lead article by John Shelton Reed a famous writer on the South. One Southern Agrarian, Andrew Nelson Lytle, ended up on the masthead of the Southern Partisan.

In the 1980s, as it has continued to be, the Southern Partisan was the primary vehicle for the dissemination of neo-Confederate thinking. It is directed by Richard Quinn a political consultant for Republican candidates such as Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond. Neo-Confederate professors and Reagan administration officials appear in the pages of the Southern Partisan. By 1999 an impressive list of prominent Republican Federal elected officials will have appeared in its pages: U.S. Representative Dick Armey; U.S. Senator, then Rep. Phil Gramm; U.S. Senator Jesse Helms; U.S. Senator John Ashcroft; and U.S. Senator Thad Cochrane and others. Also, an impressive list of Conservative leaders have been interviewed, from anti-feminist Phyllis Schalfy to televangelist and religious right leader Pat Robertson. 

The Citizens Councils of America were the leading organization against civil rights legislation in American in the 1950s and 60s, popularly known as the White Citizens Councils or the Uptown Klan. A later day successor organization to the old Citizens Councils of America, is the Council of Conservative Citizens that was organized in the late 1970s. The Council of Conservative Citizens is steadily growing. 

The 1980s and the 1990s would see two changes which would cause the neo-Confederate movement to surge with growth, moribund organizations expand, and new organizations to be created. One was the challenge by African-Americans and others to the Confederacy being the civil religion of the former major slave states and the reaction against their efforts. The other change was the break up of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Communist governments in Eastern Europe. This was a theme that has been brought up repeatedly by neo-Confederates. A tremendous world power, with armies, secret police, regular police, and all the institutions of politics and industry, disintegrates without any battles or assaults. This gave the neo-Confederates the idea that secession of the South could be done. Also the growing strength of secession in Quebec and Scotland has also given them hope. 

Neo-Confederate Organizations

The League of the South, a group seeking "Southern Independence by all honorable means" started in 1994 with four founding directors, Thomas Fleming, Grady McWhiney, Rev. Steve Wilkins, Clyde N. Wilson and founding president J. Michael Hill. Other more minor groups also have come into existence. The League and the Council of Conservative Citizens are the two major organizations which their own publications, videos, and books. They have memberships of 8,000 and 10,000 respectively. The major publications are Southern Partisanand Chronicles, the latter magazine in its advertisements in the Southern Patriot boasts that all Chronicles editors are members of the League of the South. The Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian organization in Auburn, Alabama, promotes the idea of Southern secession and its officers are members of the League of the South. During the 1980s and continuing to the present, the neo-Confederate movement broadens the Lost Cause into a position on a range of issues, until a full reactionary agenda is derived from the Confederacy. 

The neo-Confederate movement is not monolithic, having different emphases. The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) focuses on race, African-Americans, Hispanics, and others with a program against immigration and civil rights. The League of the South has a similar position, but avoids the notorious and explicit racist language of the CofCC. The League of the South also supports a wider "culture war" program and supports secession. The CofCC is against secession, feeling that it is not viable, and perhaps might result with an African-American dominated South. Chronicles and Southern Partisan have writers from both groups, so the two groups are not separate. 

Neo-Confederates are not isolated in these organizations, but are widely dispersed in conservative organizations. The Conservative Book Club, with an editor that is a League of the South member, recommends in the Dec. 1998 catalog, a book, "Was Jefferson Davis Right?," which asserts that the American Pledge of Allegiance is the propaganda of a socialist plot. This is the leading American conservative book club with full page advertisements in almost all the conservative publications in America. This is just one example of the neo-Confederate penetration of the wider U.S. conservative movement. 

Grady McWhiney, founding director of the League of the South, popularized the concept of the Southerner being a Celt, after previous journal articles and conferences, in his book, co-authored with Perry D. Jamieson, titled, "Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage," (Jamieson and McWhiney, 1982). "Attack and Die" was reviewed by Rod Gragg, (Gragg 1983, Southern Partisan, p.38). He summarizes the theme of this book as follows: 

Also, noted by Gragg, "conventional historians were not likely to accept this theory." 

McWhiney expanded his Celtic ideas in his next book, "Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South," (McWhiney 1988). The forward to this book is written by Forrest McDonald, former Southern Partisan contributor. In this book McWhiney asserts that the culture of the white American South is a Celtic culture. This book is reviewed in the Nov. 1988 issue of Chronicles, by Clyde Wilson, another future founding director of the League of the South (Wilson 1988). Chronicles Chief Editor then and now is Thomas Fleming another founding director of the League of the South. 

The first third of Wilson's review discusses the meaning of the Civil War before mentioning McWhiney. From Wilson's review are the following ideas. 

1. Poor white subsistence farmers in the South, which McWhiney calls "Crackers," are an ethnic Celtic group in America. 

2. The Civil War was "the largest ethnic rift in American history." Celts versus English Puritans.

3. The Southerner and Celt have a common culture of honor, unindustriousness, and willingness to fight. 

Wilson summarizes, "McWhiney believes the distinctiveness of the South is in its redneckery, so to speak, and he gives that phenomenon historical depth by examination of similarities and continuities ranging over many centuries of Celtic Britain and the American South ..."(Wilson 1988, Chronicles, p. 24).

Wilson does bring up the older standard ethnic self-concept of the South, that is that they are descended from the southern English and cavaliers. This identity of the South as a region of Anglo-Saxon purity had been strongly believed in for generations, now it was suddenly and rapidly being erased from Neo-Confederate thought. Wilson, however argues for some inclusion of it. This is last argument for an "English" south that I know of in the entire neo-Confederate literature. Even the title "Cracker & Roundheads" is a play on the classic Southern theme "Cavalier and Roundhead," a theme which this article would eclipse. 

Chronicles magazine, in the March 1989 issue, has an article by Grady McWhiney titled, "The Celtic Heritage of the Old South" (McWhiney 1989). The article is introduced with a drawing of a man somewhat horizontal, pouring what I assume is beer into his mouth with some of it running down his face onto the ground. He is in a field with a couple cows looking on. McWhiney starts his article by stating his view that Southerner and Northerners are culturally divided and "such cultural disharmony has divided the South from the North for more than three hundred years." McWhiney believes the South was settled by various Celtic groups and the North from the English lowlands resulting in "fundamental and lasting divisions" and eventually, he explains, the American Civil War (McWhiney 1989,Chronicles, p. 12) .

McWhiney explains what Celtic culture is by contrasting it to what he feels is English culture. Often he contrasts two paired groups, that of Celts and Southerners versus that of English and Yankees (McWhiney 1989, Chronicles, p. 13). 

McWhiney characterizes Celts and Southerners as a pastoral group that likes gambling, drinking, "raucous music," dancing, hunting, fishing, horse and dog racing. The Celts and Southerners lack ambition, are lazy, and avoid work because they are not materialistic. If these qualities do not sound good, McWhiney becomes a multiculturalist and says they are good in the values of Celtic civilization. The English and Yankees are repeatedly described as censorious and intolerant of Celtic culture. However, McWhiney wishes the reader to know that "when outsiders supply the discipline and constancy, Celts are capable of mighty achievements as British history has shown" (McWhiney 1989,Chronicles, p. 15) With friends like this, who needs enemies? 

Grady McWhiney's next step in the popularization of his Celtic theories was with the publishing of the "Encyclopedia of Southern Culture" edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. Southern studies scholars considered it a monumental work, a landmark, and a major reference in Southern studies. It was reviewed in many newspapers. In the chapter on "Ethnic Life," McWhiney provides the entries for "Irish," "Scotch-Irish," and "Scots, Highland," (McWhiney 1989) The entries contain elements of his theories, though not in an obvious way to a person unfamiliar with his Celtic writings. McWhiney's Celtic ideas were no secret, but despite this the editors chose McWhiney and he and his theories are made authoritative, instead of being the fringe views of neo-Confederates. 

The Southern Partisan also promotes McWhiney's Confederate Celt with David R. Wade review, "Cracker Culture" (Wade 1991). Wade we are told, is a "Southern Illinois Copperhead.," and he clearly approves of McWhiney's thesis. 

With the fall of the Soviet Union, secessionist movements seemed to be thriving all over the world. The rise of the Quebec, Scottish, and Northern Italian secessionist movements excited the imagination of the neo-Confederates. Quebec separatists only lost an independence referendum by a few percent. Political observers noticed that English speakers, especially racial minorities, had started to leave Quebec and that in a revote in a few years the secessionists were likely to win. The League of the South studied Norwegian secession and published an analysis in the Southern Patriot (Kibler 1996). Thomas Fleming repeatedly has reported in Chronicles magazine his visits to the secessionist Northern League in Italy. Their initial success in getting massive popular interest, inspired Fleming to propose a "Southern League," the former name of the League of the South. Fleming declares the Northern Italians to be Celts, in an article that is reprinted from the Southern Patriot, the official publication of the League of the South (Fleming 1996, 1997a). The Scottish movement was also increased in strength and the Scottish parliament was revived after almost 300 years. Suddenly the slogan, "The South Shall Rise Again" no longer seemed to be a romantic expression, but entered the realm of possibility in the minds of many neo-Confederates. 

The Neo-Confederates were not slow to pick up the idea of devolution. A collection of essays on the Southern Agrarians, the book, "A Band of Prophets: The Vanderbilt Agrarians After Fifty Years," was published in 1982. One essay in this collection is "For Dixieland: The Sectionalism of I'll Take My Stand" (Reed 1982) In this essay Reed gives the racist and reactionary Southern Agrarians a 20^th century third world revolutionary gloss. 

In it Reed writes that Southern Agrarian Allen Tate's ideas "would now be called the 'Yugoslavian' model" (Reed 1982, p. 49). The Agrarians and Scottish nationalists are compared and devolution is brought up as follows:

But like the Scottish Nationalists, some of the Agrarians came to believe that toleration was not sufficient. Both Davidson (in Who Owns America?) and Owsley (in that essay approved by "quite a number of the others) called for what the British now call "devolution" - "a new constitutional deal," in Owsley's words, that would put most of the domestic functions of government in the hands of the regions. 

Reed actually states the follows (Reed 1982, p. 51):

Reed after posing this question then goes on to prove to his satisfaction that they all do belong together. The fact that Random, Davidson, Owsley, and Lytle all contributed frequently to the notorious fascist magazine American Review is not discussed or mentioned by Reed. It is interesting to think of what Kenyatta and the others would have thought on reading the following by Davidson in his essay "Still Rebels, Still Yankees" from his devolutionist book, "The Attack on the Leviathan: Regionalism and Nationalism in the United States" (Davidson 1931, p.142):

Davidson renewed the copyright for "I'll Take My Stand" in 1958 (12 Southerners 1930, copyright page) while directing the Tennessee Federation for Constitutional Government, a group he founded on states' rights principles to fight civil rights and preserve segregation (Malvasi 1997). More recently other Neo-Confederates in national publications have jumped on the idea of devolution and have grouped Neo-Confederate secessionism and states rights in with other secessionist and devolutionist groups around the world. 

Thomas Fleming had a cover article in National Review, the leading conservative magazine in the United States, with the cover lead in, "Secession - Coming to a Town Near You," and titled "America's Crackup." (Fleming 1997c, National Review, p. 48). Various secessionist movements across the United States are discussed to give the impression this is not a sectional phenomenon and not exclusively Neo-Confederate. However, the other movements with the exception of the Republic of Texas which is not mentioned, are little more than a few individuals and an Internet webpage. Fleming compares these secessionist movements to other secessionists outside the United States. Fleming asserts there is some fraternal feeling between these secessionist movements and the League of the South as follows (Fleming 1997c, National Review, p.64):

But Dixienet is the most attractive stops on the information highway, and "rebmaster" George Kalas is swamped with messages of congratulation from all over the world, particularly from regions with their own independence movements - Scotland, Italy, and Quebec. 

However, Fleming's opinions might make the reader think more of the Bosnian model of devolution when later in the same article he states (Fleming 1997c, National Review, p.64): :

Donald Livingston, League of the South theorist on secession, professor of philosophy at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, writes on secession for neo-Confederate publications. The University of Chicago has published his book, "Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium: Hume's Pathology of Philosophy," in 1998 which explains his secessionist theories (Livingston 1998). Also, in 1998, Society, a periodical of Transaction Publishers at Rutgers University published an 8,000 word article by Livingston on secession and devolution explaining many ideas from his book (Livingston 1998). The article contains many classic Lost Cause justifications for the Confederacy which is unsurprising as Transaction Publishers is a leading publisher of Neo-Confederate books. Finally the Texas Law Review incredibly published a nearly 10,000 word neo-Confederate essay in 1999 by League of the South member Marshall L. DeRosa (DeRosa 1999). The ideas of Livingston are extensively mentioned in the essay. 

These Neo-Confederate appropriations of the European theories of devolution demands a review of what roughly similar ideas have meant in the United States. 

In the United States, "devolution" was not a political term until recently. The anti-national government concept was "states' rights" and in Lost Cause mythology is given as the justification for the secession of eleven slave states. The advocacy of states' rights has always been seen as a restoration of the Constitution, as they see it was in the past, usually prior to the American Civil War. 

States' rights has been invoked by various movements briefly from abolitionists in Wisconsin before the Civil War to anti-Prohibitionists in the early 20^th century (Prohibitionists advocated making alcohol illegal.) However, primarily and overwhelmingly, States' Rights in the United States has been invoked in the support of white supremacy in the former major slave states in opposition to all legislation that might undermine or oppose it. States' Rights was given as a rationale to oppose the ratification of the 13^th amendment to the American constitution abolishing slavery (Nation, August 5, 1865, p. 133). Opposition to the proposed Dyer anti-lynching legislation in 1922 was based on supposed dangers of centralization that it would bring. States' rights was the theme of the 1948 Dixiecrats in revolt from the Democratic party over civil rights. Endless other examples could be noted. 

A comparison of the United States of America and Europe on the issues of political centralization and decentralization should be written, but it is beyond the scope of this paper.