What has The League of the South accomplished in its nearly 14 years of existence? Do we have a free and independent South? Do we have political, economic, cultural, or social power in the South?

The answer is, of course, no. But we have made progress.

According to polls and many of those with whom I’ve had contact, more and more people are considering independence at least thinkable, if not desirable. In some localities and even some states, our voting bloc is large enough, if not to win, at least to determine who wins.

Some of us are no longer slaves to debt—no small accomplishment when for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans in the aggregate spend more than they make. If the borrower is slave to the lender, some of us are now free men and women. Even more of us are becoming freeholders (i.e. small business owners, farmers, etc.) and are learning to make a living outside the corporate/government system.

We do have our own local and family cultures, and we are reaching larger numbers of our fellow Southerners each year with the message of cultural independence, the natural precursor to full-scale political independence.

We do have social power among ourselves, and we have created a complex, multi-state community of like-minded people. A fair number of people have found their spouses within this social structure, made their best friends within it, raised and educated children in it, shared work, worship, and leisure, and volunteered time and money for the needy among us. We have supported each other in times of joy and times of crisis. We have functioned in every way as a community ought. And we are expanding our reach, day by day.

Better questions by far than the previous ones are: Have we conserved something? Resurrected something? Taught something? Learned something? Served someone? Loved someone?

And the answer to all of these questions is a resounding “YES, we have!” We have conserved our history, our stories—resurrected them when to all appearances they were moribund. We have learned these stories ourselves and taught them to young and old alike. The recovery of heritage has inspired our people to create books, poetry, songs, and visual arts and crafts, and to revere and practice Southern manners and morals. We have learned more clearly where we came from and therefore who we are. We have served our community, if not tirelessly, then as best we could with the limited time, energy and material resources allotted us.

You who have done this work have done it for no other reason than that you loved someone or something more than yourselves. You certainly did not do it for fame or fortune. You loved your God, your children and grandchildren, your fathers and mothers, and the truth more than you loved comfortable anonymity and non-responsibility. You have done, and are doing, your duty.

Have we done enough to justify our continued existence?

You must judge. We began with nothing to lose, but we are no longer in that position. We have built a dam and filled a small reservoir. Pull the plug now and all that water just flows away into the hills and hollows again. If memberships and donations are any indication, momentum has increased substantially since the debut of The Free Magnolia, the Second North American Secessionist Convention, and the fourteenth annual League of the South national conference.

But where do we go from here?

Wherever duty takes us. However, we must expect the going to be slow most of the time. The “Long March” through our institutions took a century and a half to accomplish!

We didn’t get to this place overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight either. The task will call for all the perseverance we can muster.

But you don’t really expect us to win?

Success, as several of our ancestors have reminded us, is not the criterion of right. We truly win every time we enter the struggle because we are fighting on principle, not policy only. It would be an unconscionable defeat to merely speak upon principle, and not to act upon it. Sadly, it is our nature as human beings to despair when we see the opposition as an invincible force in comparison to our own seeming weakness. But God is not constrained to save by many or by few. If we are right (and we are), then we win whenever we choose to stay on the field.

On the other hand, no force for change can survive without measurable successes. Every one of you, as members of the League of the South, represents one or more victories for the South. You have done much with limited means.

When a friend or relative says to you, “I never learned THAT in public school”—that’s a victory for the South.

When one of us takes up a pen or a paintbrush or a fiddle with the intention of creating something wholesomely Southern with it—that’s a victory for the South.

When one of us pays off a mortgage or a credit card and gets out of debt—that’s a victory for the South.

When a child or grandchild is born to us and then raised with our worldview—that’s a victory for the South.

My wife recalls how nervous she was at the League’s founding meeting in 1994 at mention of the word “secession.” Now, due largely to your efforts, the word comes up freely and fairly often in public dialogue. When anybody in the country discusses the merits or demerits of secession— that’s a victory for the South.

When we reach one single soul with any part of our message, on DixieNet, in The Free Magnolia, The Grey Book, The Southern Patriot, or at a Hedge School or Summer Institute—that’s a victory for the South.

When we keep the commandments to love God above all and our neighbour as ourselves—that, my friends, is a victory for the South.

The very fact that The League of the South and a Southern nationalist movement exist in 2008 is a victory for the South!

So you see, we’ve had a multitude of victories. Keep them coming and we’ll keep going!

And, yes, we do expect to win.

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This article was first published in the January-February 2008 Southern Patriot, The official LS member's magazine.