Books and Pipes: The Southern Front

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Well, it has been a while since I've made a full video for YouTube. So, here I am in [clears throat] all of my glory.

[00:00:13]I'm going to talk about some tobaccos today cuz I realized that I have amassed a large cellar of pipe tobacco.

[00:00:28]And I didn't even know what all I had.

[00:00:32]And so, I just wanted to share with you today uh and I'm going to get into some history and things in just a second, but I wanted to share with you some of the blends that I found in the cellar that I think cellar extraordinarily well. At least uh for me they do.

[00:00:56]Now, the pipe that I'm smoking today is my old uh trusty Peterson 87.

[00:01:07]First Peterson I ever bought years ago.

[00:01:10]First well, the first 87 shape.

[00:01:13]And it's still my favorite pipe that I have in my collection.

[00:01:19]Back when the Peterson bowls were made a little bit more robustly than what they appeared to be made like today.

[00:01:27]And in it I'm smoking a house blend that came from a little tobacco store in Greenwood, South Carolina called The Tobacco Case. And it's a black cherry uh blend.

[00:01:40]Now, I've had it for 4 years, and most of the uh aromatic aspect of it is nearly gone, but it's very quality tobacco, and it still smells good. And I'm trying to work through a lot of the aromatic stuff that I have. So, that it just doesn't go to waste.

[00:01:55]But people have been uh wanting to talk about more pipe videos and that thing.

[00:02:00]They've been asking for more pipe content.

[00:02:03]And so, I thought I'd just share a little bit today about some tobaccos that I'm cellaring. Now, uh some of these are pretty old. Uh some of them [clears throat] are not as old. The first one that I appear to have a great deal of uh is uh Rattray's Red Rapparee.

[00:02:20]And I've talked about this blend in previous videos, probably 3 or 4 years ago.

[00:02:26]And most of the tins that I have are 4 to 5 years old now.

[00:02:33]So, I look forward to popping this baby open. Now, for those of you who don't know what this blend is, it's considered to be a Scottish blend uh primarily uh cuz it has Cavendish in it. And it's uh Latakia, cut Virginia tobaccos, dark Cavendish, and Oriental. Uh a lot of English blends do not have Cavendish in them.

[00:02:55]But, uh this one does, and I particularly favor a little Cavendish in the tobacco blend.

[00:03:02]It offers just a tinge of of sweetness that I particularly enjoy. That's why I've always liked My Mixture 965 from Peterson's so well.

[00:03:12]Uh another one that I have collected a great deal of, and again, this is also these tins have about 5 years on them, is uh Peterson's Nightcap.

[00:03:22]Uh and people often think that this is uh uh rather difficult blend to smoke.

[00:03:28]Well, it's not. It's very easy, at least it is for me. A rich flavor smoking mixture for the evening with its period of relaxation and leisure.

[00:03:36]I've always loved the tin art on uh this particular Peterson blend. It's got the little nightcap on it. It has the clay pipe, uh the candlestick. It's just it's the way a pipe smoking session should look.

[00:03:52]Um even though I don't buy Cornell & Diehl products anymore, I still have a lot of them and I ain't throwing them in the trash.

[00:04:01]And uh for those of you who want to know why I don't buy from Cornell & Diehl, you can go back into the archive and listen to the video entitled why I no longer support L D Z Enterprises.

[00:04:14]However, when this blend came out, I bought a hefty amount of it.

[00:04:21]Uh many of you know what it is if you're a pipe smoker, Carolina Red Flake.

[00:04:25]And it's one of the best red Virginia, straight red Virginia blends I've ever had.

[00:04:32]Uh and this particular uh series was from 2022. So, this has nearly 4 years on it, August 2022. And that's about right for cellaring uh Virginia. You get into the 4 or 5 year mark, the sugars begin to crystallize in the Virginia leaf. And this is the time they get the leaf from, I think this uh was from yeah, North Carolina.

[00:04:54]It's a 2020 uh crop year.

[00:04:57]So, the tobacco itself is now 6 years old.

[00:05:01]Um and of course all these tobaccos are perishable products. You cannot just simply hold on to them forever.

[00:05:09]And uh you're not going to live forever forever either, so if you have a I I I've seen some people online that have massive massive sellers.

[00:05:18]And whereas I would have books behind me, they would have shelves like this with tobacco just everywhere.

[00:05:24]I don't smoke enough uh pipe tobacco to ever smoke that much during the course of my lifetime.

[00:05:31]Um at most, I may smoke um these days just one bowl a day.

[00:05:39]Um some days I won't smoke a pipe at all. I go through periods like that. And some days I'll smoke two or three bowls a day. It It It's It's according to of whether I'm dealing with a two or three pipe problem.

[00:05:52]And uh but this is one that sellers well. I'm looking forward to cracking that open, too.

[00:05:58]>> [clears throat] >> Now, the the next one >> [clears throat] >> I've got several tins of the old McClelland Christmas Cheer.

[00:06:08]And when I used to go to pipe shows, I don't really have the time or the interest to go to many pipe shows anymore because I don't need anything. And I just really don't need to buy anything.

[00:06:20]>> [clears throat] >> I've got more pipes and more tobacco than one man could ever need. But I used to seek these out because um the first time I smoked this was probably again a several years ago when we were still living in South Carolina.

[00:06:35]And oh, it's just beautiful. I don't know that >> [clears throat] >> any Virginia blend will ever exceed the quality of what McClelland put into uh into their blends.

[00:06:48]So, I need to start smoking this stuff, too. This has got a 2017 date on it.

[00:06:52]So, we are we're getting close to 10 years on this tin.

[00:06:56]Now, I'm confident that it's aged well and that it's it's going to smoke perfectly. But you never know. Some people take the uh tobacco out of the tins and put them in glass jars even if they're brand new. They'll cellar them in cellar in glass jars.

[00:07:12]I usually don't do that because I like the look at the tins. I don't like the look of glass jars. I like the tin art on a lot of the blends that that I like to smoke.

[00:07:23]Now, this is another one that um I haven't smoked in a long time, but I enjoy it tremendously. Got a few bags of Esoterica Dorchester in the uh in the cellar.

[00:07:34]And this stuff is awful difficult to find these days. But I It's It's very moist. You can feel how moist that tobacco is inside this bag. No air has gotten in here. If If air had gotten into this bag, I would be able to feel and hear the crinkle.

[00:07:57]So, I've never worried about it. I mean, I got so many other things in life to worry about. I don't worry about Excuse me. I don't [clears throat] worry about the tins that the manufacturers >> [clears throat] >> put the pipe tobacco in.

[00:08:22]>> [snorts] >> I um >> [clears throat] >> read an article on Chronicles Magazine's website this morning.

[00:08:39]And it It was entitled something like the ghosts of the Confederacy. And you know I can't do a video without talking a little bit about Southern history. Or at least I don't like doing a video without at least touching on a little bit of it.

[00:08:58]And what >> [clears throat] >> the author was saying, his first name Scott. I don't recall the last name and I don't know anything about what Chronicles really does these days. When Chronicles Magazine was started in the '80s, it was heavily influenced by Southern writers.

[00:09:16]Uh heavily influenced by people who had a great admiration for >> [clears throat] >> the history of the South and the culture of the region. And who were outstandingly knowledgeable about it.

[00:09:27]Um >> [clears throat and cough] >> And I I I've met or have personally known a lot of the people who were there in the '80s writing that writing that, good material. But this morning the article was >> [clears throat] >> in some sense arguing that Southern culture is dead. That uh the South is no longer preserving its traditions.

[00:09:48]And one of the pieces of evidence >> [clears throat] >> that the author uses to suggest this is that the Confederate battle flags are coming down around uh uh state capitals and he suggests that there's not nearly as many Confederate battle flags uh flying around the South on private property as there once was.

[00:10:09]And um it it he's got a point to to a certain extent. And we do have a problem with uh governments not wanting to display Confederate symbols and taking monuments down, etc. But I think that uh there's far, far more to the reality of Southern culture and Southern traditions than Confederate symbols.

[00:10:34]And uh it it I do believe that uh many people realize that. And and uh it's one thing to talk about the representation of Southern history in most respects, Confederate symbols on public property. And it's a completely different conversation to talk about how those cultures and traditions are preserved in the home and in the private lives of the people who are living in the region, particularly people who have history, family history in the region.

[00:11:10]So regardless as to whether other [clears throat] people want to recognize that Southern culture and traditions are still very much alive.

[00:11:18]I have always thought that they are.

[00:11:20]That they exist. That the South continues to exist as a unique region uh within the confines of American society.

[00:11:29]You just have to help people rediscover what those things are.

[00:11:35]Sometimes you do that through recommending books that people can read, but other times you do it through ignoring those who would have us uh forget who we are and forget our past.

[00:11:51]Uh you just ignore them. And this was one of the great sources of wisdom of Walter Williams years ago.

[00:11:58]Um and he had a great uh economist.

[00:12:02]And he said that when people want to talk to you about how evil the Confederate battle flag is, just ignore them.

[00:12:08]And I I would have to push back a little bit on this idea that Confederate symbolism is not found uh on private property just as much in certain parts of the South now as it as it used to be.

[00:12:20]Um when I even here in our part of Kentucky, uh they are Confederate battle flags being flown on a constant basis on on private property around here.

[00:12:31]I don't think that many of those people are flying it because they have a very strong connection to Confederate history or that they are in tune with the history of the um the cotton South, so to speak.

[00:12:46]But they are very much interested in displaying a symbol of defiance towards external authority. And if that's the way certain people want to view the display of the Confederate battle flag, then I have absolutely no problem with that.

[00:13:00]Of course, you've also got scumbags who will display it uh for reasons that are entirely inappropriate.

[00:13:07]Um and it we have allowed uh a little bit too much of Southern culture to be hijacked by a lesser sort.

[00:13:16]And so I think that um uh there is a a process of rediscovery that needs to be occurring.

[00:13:24]And [clears throat] I wrote an article for Substack um yesterday morning and I wrote it about the Southern writer M.E. Bradford.

[00:13:38]But I don't think many people are going to read that article. So, I wanted to share with you a quote from the Southern historian Eugene Genovese about M.E. Bradford. And for those of you who don't know who Bradford was, I'm sure many of you do.

[00:13:54]He was perhaps the foremost Southern conservative writer and thinker during the second half of the 20th century.

[00:14:01]His immediate predecessor would have been Richard Weaver and of course and Donald Donald Davidson and many of the Southern agrarians were the principal mentors of Bradford as he studied at Vanderbilt. He was the chairman of the English department at the University of Dallas for a great number of years and he died early on an operating table. He was having heart surgery in 1993 and at 58 years of age he passed away. He was a rather large rotund man. He wasn't in good health, but his mind was sharp as a tack. I wish I had the chance to meet him, but I never did. I have over the years met several people who did know him personally and I have greatly benefited from it.

[00:14:44]But there's this question that people often ask me and I'm sure ask other people who mention the phrase Southern conservatism.

[00:14:53]What is it? How is it different from any other type of conservatism within American politics and American society?

[00:15:02]Well, it is strikingly different from what we would call conservatism now. I personally don't believe that there any there there is any truly traditional national conservative movement. MAGA is not it and and I've told you this time and time again. So, after Bradford died Eugene Genovese who was not a Southerner, he was from New England, and I don't really think that he identified himself as a Southern conservative, but he understood it uh far better than most. And I want to read to you uh a quote from an essay he wrote after Bradford's death, sort of a tribute to Bradford, entitled The Voice of Southern Conservatism.

[00:15:42]Now, for those of you who want to tune out, that's fine. But I think that for those of you who are interested in learning more about what this phrase is, just listen to this listen to this uh paragraph. Now, this is Genovese.

[00:15:56]I don't know what year exactly. It can't be any later than '93 or '95.

[00:16:03]At the risk of oversimplification and homogenization, their, meaning Southern Conservatives, core ideas may be summarized as rejection of finance capitalism's substitution of the market and its consumer values for society and values determined by religious and historically developed moral principles.

[00:16:27]Now, some of this is in direct keeping with Catholic social teaching. As a matter of fact, Genovese himself converted to the Catholic Church uh later on in life, well well before this essay was written.

[00:16:43]The second thing, a rejection of a radical individualism that places personal expression above social order.

[00:16:51]In other other words, society that I can be whatever I want to be, do whatever I want to do, regardless as to the consequences or what anybody thinks about it. This radical individualism is something that both uh Bradford and Richard Weaver >> [clears throat] >> wrote strongly against beginning in the 1960s.

[00:17:10]Third thing, advocacy of broad-based private property in a market economy subject to socially determined moral restraints.

[00:17:20]Private property is at the heartbeat of any type [clears throat] of true conservatism that may exist in the United States, then or now.

[00:17:31]From this perspective, no, excuse me.

[00:17:35]The fourth point. And faith in a republic based upon respect for local and national cultures that are free to establish their own moral standards.

[00:17:45]>> [clears throat] >> From this perspective, Southern conservatives have cried out with with Richard Weaver, and this is a quote from Weaver that Genovese is writing here.

[00:17:55]This is Weaver. There is ground for declaring that modern man has become a moral idiot.

[00:18:02]For four centuries, every man has been not only his own priest, but his own professor of ethics.

[00:18:09]And the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state.

[00:18:18]Now, I write more about this in the article that I published on Substack.

[00:18:22]Go read it. There's no paywall, so it's it's free for you to to read if you wish.

[00:18:28]And by the way, that essay is located in this book entitled The Southern Front.

[00:18:35]History and politics in the cultural war.

[00:18:39]A little known book that I have rarely see people use.

[00:18:44]So, um going back to the article in Chronicles this morning.

[00:18:48]>> [clears throat] >> There's far more to the South than simply the Confederacy, and the article recognizes that point.

[00:18:55]But I think that it didn't explain enough about what it is regarding the South that we should pay attention to.

[00:19:02]And literary scholar Marion Montgomery used to say all the time that when we think about these principles that we claim as Southern, we should probably put quotation marks around Southern because most of them are universal. And they were respected in parts of the world at one time well beyond the South. It just so happens that the South is, in my opinion and in the opinion of many people, a final bastion of Western tradition and Western civilization uh on the North American continent. So, what we define as Southern conservatism, those principles can be located in other civilized societies throughout history.

[00:19:46]Going back to antiquity.

[00:19:49]And so, I don't think it's fair to say that Southern culture and Southern traditions are dead the or or even that they're dying out. No, it depends on how you define Southern and it depends on how how you define the first principles that Southern conservatives have always generally tried to define and defend.

[00:20:14]So, I think the moment is ripe at this time in American history for as I say, I keep using that word, rediscovery. Rediscovery. It is ripe for a more robust and more widely known rediscovery of these first principles.

[00:20:31]Which Southern conservatism, including Southern agrarianism, and have always articulated.

[00:20:39]Another thing M.E. Bradford said years ago in a conversation I had with him is that the Vanderbilt agrarians, and you've heard me talk about them time and again, they were just coming to realize something that the Catholic Church had known for years.

[00:20:55]And you see this in Rerum Novarum roughly the same time period as the agrarians are coming into into their maturity.

[00:21:05]You see the papacy pointing out some serious issues with industrialism.

[00:21:11]And the church had always been concerned with rampant growth of industrialism and this notion that man is nothing more than that that relationships between between people is predicated primarily upon the market.

[00:21:26]There's a social aspect to that.

[00:21:29]>> [clears throat] >> And the only person really in in national politics in recent times that has recognized this in any meaningful way in my opinion is Pat Buchanan.

[00:21:38]Um And by the way, the the only real online publication that I am these days learning much from is the American Conservative. Which was co-founded by Pat Buchanan over 20 years ago.

[00:21:54]So, that what I want to do is something different. And I want to I'm not really buddy-buddy with a lot of institutes and organizations. I tend to keep to myself in a lot of those areas.

[00:22:08]Um But I want to start something new.

[00:22:12]And I've been wanting to do it for months, just haven't had the time and it's going to take even more It's going to take a lot of time and effort to get it off the ground. But in in I don't want to say in memory, but for the purpose of continuing a discussion about the themes that Emmy Bradford thought to be important, I want to create something called the Emmy Bradford Institute.

[00:22:37]And >> [clears throat] >> some people may laugh at that idea, may think that it's not going to work, but I'm going to give it a shot. I want to build something. I want to create something that's important, that's meaningful to other people. And I know that what we've done through YouTube and writing on Substack and going to different places and talking to people, that's been beneficial and I enjoy enjoy doing it, but I want to do something that's uh uh more in keeping with my academic training and more in keeping with where my heart rests when it comes to uh American history and American society.

[00:23:18]So, look for more of that. And by the way, if you want more election material, let me remind you that uh >> [clears throat] >> I answered the call of many viewers and offered courses uh on a new website we created, alanharrelson.com. It's just my name in small letters, alanharrelson.com.

[00:23:36]And at the time I I have two courses [clears throat] that you can purchase.

[00:23:41]Uh one is over 8 hours of election material on on American history for 67 bucks.

[00:23:47]That's dirt cheap. And that's as cheap as I'm willing to go uh for that. And the second one is $47 and I think there may be five or six hours of material there. And it's a discussion of Catholic social teaching, Rerum Novarum, and as it relates to Southern Agrarianism, Chesterton, the distributists, etc. Hilaire Belloc, uh all of those wonderful people who were critics of the 20th century modern world. And uh look into that if you if you are interested in more election material because I love doing it and I love helping people uh where I can. But in the meantime, I've got to go and finish enjoying this wonderful bowl of pipe tobacco.

[00:24:28]This is Alan Harrelson with Pipe Cottage. Thank you for stopping by.