Southern Party

"Not to be confused with States Rights Democratic Party"

Infobox_Political_party
name_english = Southern Party
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foundation = August 8, 1999
dissolution = June 5, 2003
headquarters = Houston, Texas
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ideology = States' Rights
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website = http://www.southernparty.org
("Website is no longer active")

The Southern Party was a minor political party in the United States that operated exclusively in the South. The party supported states' rights and increased Southern cultural and regionalist activism.

The Party was formed by the League of the South in 1999 and experienced moderate success following the framing of the Asheville Declaration, which was touted by the Party as a second Declaration of Independence. Despite its initial success, the Southern Party was disbanded in 2003 following internal factionalism; all that exists of the Southern Party today are the remnants of its state chapters in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Mississippi.

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History

The merits of a political party representing the regional interests of the Southern United States and border states were first discussed in December 1998 by James Lancaster, George Kalas (both of whom have since renounced and left the Southern movement) and Michael Hill at a League of the South conference held in Monroe, Louisiana. The League authorized the formation of a Southern Party Exploratory Committee (SPEC), which was formally organized at a later meeting in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which was held in January 1999. During this meeting Kalas was elected to chair the committee. The Southern Party achieved its first electoral victory when Wayne Willingham was elected Mayor of West Point, Alabama, on August 22, 2000. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20020618140231/http://ballot-access.org/2000/1001.html#17] ]

Break with the League of the South

The SPEC operated until May 1999, when internal disagreements over ideology and strategy, exacerbated by personal animosities among some members of the committee, led to the fracture of the SPEC into two competing factions. One faction, which continued to operate under the name SPEC, remained loosely affiliated with the League, while the other faction, led by Kalas, Jerry Baxley, and Thomas Reed, among others, formed the Southern National Committee (SNC). Its purpose was to launch the Southern Party as soon as possible. Continued disagreements between the SNC-led faction and the League of the South prompted the SNC to vote for a formal break with the League in May 1999.

While the decision to break with the League was influenced by many factors, the leadership of the SNC faction also had become increasingly concerned about the League of the South's apparent unwillingness to purge elements from its ranks that had become more vocal and seemingly more influential within the previous few months before the break.

The SPEC and SNC factions continued to compete for the allegiance of Southern political activists throughout the spring and summer of 1999. While the SPEC faction continued to enjoy the official support of the League of the South, it appeared to gain little political traction as the date of the SNC-sponsored launch of the Asheville Declaration approached.

Launch of the Asheville Declaration

The official launch of the Asheville Declaration was attended by approximately 200 party supporters and reporters from national and international media, including ABC News, NPR, Voice of America and the BBC.Fact|date=July 2008 The highlight of the event was the presentation of flags of the Southern States and the reading and signing of the Asheville Declaration [ [http://southernpartysw.tripod.com/southernpartiesofthesouthwestssecondsite/id14.html Southern Party of the South West Archives - Asheville Declaration] August 7, 1999] which articulated the SP's paleoconservative founding philosophy. The party launch received substantial and, in the view of most party organizers,fact|date=August 2008 largely positive, media coverage, which in turn sparked a significant number of inquiries from across the South and from around the world. In the years following the Asheville launch, as interest in Southern nationalist movement has waned for lack of progress, the event has been characterized by many Southern regionalists and nationalists as the high-water mark of the Southern movement.Fact|date=July 2008 Even some of the most implacable SP critics have characterized the launch as a notable achievement, garnering substantial media attention and, in the process, increasing public awareness of the nascent Southern regionalist/nationalist movementFact|date=July 2008.

Secession ploy

Although in its public statements and literature the party advocated peaceful secession of the Southern States from the American union and the restoration of an independent Southern nation, the organizers of the SP did not believe that secession was actually an achievable short-term goal. The organizers' real goal was working to achieve devolution of political power from the federal government back to the state governments.

Although party organizers did believe that secession remained a constitutional right of the states, the party's advocacy of secession was mainly a ploy designed to gain media attention and a tactical move intended to differentiate the SP from other minor parties within the crowded U.S. political landscape. The SP's founders believed that their controversial advocacy of peaceful secession via the ballot box would give the party a louder voice by garnering more media attention than they otherwise would have received.

Party organizers also noted that the nationalist "Parti Québécois" ("PQ") had successfully capitalized on the secessionist strategy, using it to win substantial regional autonomy for the province from the Canadian federal government, reflected in the two secessionist referendums it had managed in the previous two decades.

Southern Party leaders hoped to emulate the PQ's success by also posturing as an avowedly secessionist party. In time, SP organizers hoped, this strategy would force federal policymakers to devolve power back to the states. However, SP leaders understood this was achievable only if the party ultimately became politically competitive. While they never expected to become a major political force, SP leaders believed that it was conceivable that a respectable showing at the polls over a period of time would maneuver one or both of the major U.S. political parties into coopting some elements of the SP's devolutionary agenda, thereby advancing the cause of regionalism.

Factionism

Despite its initial media success at Flat Rock, North Carolina, the SP soon squandered its momentum, falling to the same type of internal squabbling that resulted in the earlier rift within SPEC ranks. The rift was sparked by disagreement over a proposed increase in SNC dues for state party organizations. While seemingly a mundane administrative matter, it soon escalated out of control, culminating in a deep and ultimately irreconcilable split of the SNC into two factions - one led by party Chairman George Kalas, the other by party Vice-Chairman Jerry Baxley. A protracted power struggle ensued for control of the party's Web site, treasury and state-party organizational affiliations. In December 1999, SNC chairman George Kalas tried to end the bickering by voluntarily resigning his post. The SNC reluctantly accepted the resignation, though voting to recognize Kalas as "Chairman Emeritus" of the Southern Party in recognition of past services. Mike Crane, a Georgia activist and SNC member, whose immediate goal was to head the rift, subsequently was elected interim chairman. Even so, the conflict continued into the early months of 2000, sowing additional disillusionment and leading to a rapid outflow of dues-paying members from the state party organizations.

Realizing that the feud had undermined the party's viability, the Baxley faction finally agreed to a truce proposed by Crane. The factions began negotiating to reunite the SP, successfully concluding these talks in March 2000. New elections also were scheduled to elect a fresh slate of officers to lead the Southern National Committee. However, the subsequent election resulted in the surprise selection of Jerry Baxley by a narrow margin as the new national SNC chairman. Substantial voting irregularities, which, in the view of many, were orchestrated by the Baxley faction, produced additional disaffection within party ranks. This dissatisfaction was further exacerbated by what many viewed as Baxley's abrasive, erratic and unpopular leadership style. The party reunion was short-lived and Baxley soon found himself presiding over a rapidly shrinking party organization as other SNC members resigned and state party organizations began disaffiliating from the SNC as their recognized national party organ. The steady departure of established state party organizations ultimately led to the final dissolution of the SNC in 2002.

Dissolution

In the aftermath of the SNC's collapse, one faction formed the Federation of States and various state-based Southern Independence Parties (SIPs). Two state SPs (Georgia's and North Carolina's) simply disaffiliated from the SNC and became wholly independent, refusing to recognize any national/regional authority. Many of the other remaining state SPs were, in reality, only "paper parties" led by a few officers and lacking substantial numbers of dues-paying members. These parties soon proved untenable and ultimately collapsed due to their inability to recruit party members and raise operating funds.

Reunion

In the Spring of 2003 the League of the South attempted to re-establish its influence in the Southern Party by volunteering to serve as an honest broker to coordinate the reunion of all SP supporters (excluding the now-discredited Baxley faction) under one flag. The League invited all anti-Baxley factions of the SP to a meeting in North Carolina for the purpose of realigning all of the invited state parties into a loose confederation with no centralized governing body. This approach was publicly endorsed by all of the original founders of the Southern Party with the exception of the Baxley faction, which was not invited to the meeting. Although the North Carolina meeting marked the end of the SP's internal wars, it did not result in a substantial increase in public interest in the SP. By 2003 the Southern Party had lost credibility with many of its erstwhile supporters and had squandered what little political capital it had ever had as a result of its seemingly endless internal squabbles.fact|date=August 2008

Cause of the Factions

The widespread factionalism that derailed the Southern Party's seemingly promising prospects has sometimes been characterized by former supporters as the result of a wide-ranging ideological struggle between "centralizers" versus "decentralizers." This was reflected in the public statements of many of the key Southern Party players after the dissolution of the SNC. Kalas, the principal founder of the SP, was a committed paleoconservative whose interest in Southern heritage and regionalism tended to constitute more a reflection than a foundation of his core beliefs. On the other hand, Lancaster, the author of the Asheville Declaration, was a moderate-conservative Republican in many respects who nonetheless harbored strong regionalist sympathies -- a fact subsequently reflected in later writings. Mike Crane, who succeeded Kalas for a brief time, was far more the stereotypical Southern nationalist --- a longstanding Southern heritage activist and nationalist with strong libertarian convictions. Many others within the SP rank and file mirrored these differences. Still, despite significant differences in political convictions, the major players in the various SP factions nevertheless professed a strong allegiance to the Southern tradition of decentralized government and localized control. The party infighting was actually driven more by personal conflicts between competing party leaders than by genuinely substantive disagreements over party ideology. As one prominent supporter once humorously described the problem: "Organizing Southerners is harder than herding cats!"fact|date=August 2008 This factionalist trait was not lost on outside observers, more than one of whom noted the irony that a party advocating secession found itself undone by multiple secessions within its own ranks.

Today

Today, there is little evidence of any regionally coordinated political effort by the Southern Party - a lack often attributed to a longstanding reluctance among Southern movement activists to empower a "national" coordinating body. Even so, some activity continues at the state level.

One persistent problem is the fact that many of the party's initial organizers, particularly Lancaster and Kalas, have left the Southern movement entirely stemming from concerns about the direction of the League of the South, which remains the largest Southern nationalist organization.fact|date=August 2008

Sometime after their departure from the Southern Party and from the League of the South-led Southern movement, Lancaster and Kalas experimented with a concept known as Home Rule for Dixie, the purpose of which was to provide a forum through which a more mainstream, center-right, racially inclusive movement could be developed. One hallmark of this nascent movement was its emphasis on the abandonment of Confederate restorationist symbolism and ideology. For a time, the movement garnered significant attention and sparked intense debate within Southern movement ranks. However, the Home Rule concept and Web site were abandoned in 2003 after Lancaster and Kalas concluded that the factionalized Southern movement was beyond repair.

The most successful remnant of the original Southern Party is the Southern Party of Georgia, [ [http://www.spofga.org/new_index.phtml?SessionID=1773490 Southern Party of Georgia Website] ] which remains the strongest and most active state party organization.fact|date=August 2008 The Georgia SP fielded multiple candidates for local and state offices in the 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections [ [http://electmikecrane.com/2006/april/platform.php Southern Party of Georgia Candidate, Mike Crane, for the Georgia Senate District 51] ] and was an enduring presence in the statewide political struggle over the redesign of the Georgia State Flag [ [http://spofga.org/flag/56_flag.phtml?SessionID=1773490 Southern Party of Georgia Movement to restore the State Flag] ] . North Carolina also has an active Southern Party which has been continually active since 1999.fact|date=August 2008

The party has yet to field a presidential candidate, but in 2007 Texan Gene Champman tried to seek the nomination of the Southern Party, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party [July 21, 2006 [http://taxprotesters.wordpress.com/2006/07/21/oh-the-joy-the-joy-of-it-all/ Gene Chapman Platform For Running For Libertarian, Constitution, And Southern Party Presidential Nomination] ] .

References

External links

tate party organizations

* [http://southernpartyfl.org Southern Party of Florida]
* [http://spofga.org Southern Party of Georgia]
* [http://spofms.org Southern Party of Mississippi]
* [http://southernpartync.com Southern Party of North Carolina]

News media articles

* [http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/08/01/southern.party/ "Southern Party seeks to revive old times not forgotten", CNN, August 1, 1999]
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990809/ai_n14246815 "South Wants Devolution from U.S.", The Independent, (London, UK), August 9, 1999]