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J. David Woodard: The Role of Church, Military and Tradition

J. David Woodard teaches political science at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. He is the author of "The New Southern Politics."

The South is more conservative because, in the words of C. Vann Woodward, it was “the only part of the nation to experience the pain of a military defeat, occupation by a victorious external foe, and subsequent domination by its former servants.” Robert Penn Warren wrote that, “That kind of defeat, gives the past great importance.” Conservatives love the past, never more so than in the South....

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