After teaching in several venues, Livingston became a professor of philosophy at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Philosophical views
He supports the compact theory of the United States, with its concomitant provisions for corporate resistance, nullification, and secession. He views the American revolution not as a revolution but an act of secession, which has raised for some the concern "that characterizing the favorably-viewed American Revolution as a secession from Britain confers legitimacy on the later attempt by the Confederate states to secede from the Union °—an attempt that, by most contemporary perspectives, wants for legitimacy." Chris Hedges has called him "one of the intellectual godfathers of the secessionist movement."
Abbeville Institute
In 2003, Livingston was instrumental in founding the Abbeville Institute. According to its website, the Institute is "an association of scholars in higher education devoted to a critical study of what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition". The Institute is named for the town of Abbeville, South Carolina, often regarded as the birthplace of the Confederacy. The Institute adopted as part of its mission statement the following by slavery historian Eugene Genovese: "Rarely these days, even on Southern campuses, is it possible to acknowledge the achievements of white people in the South;" once a partisan of the Far Left, Genovese had left Marxism for conservatism. Heidi Beirich, research director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, objected that the "idea that white people are America's underappreciated stepchildren is ludicrous." In 2004, the SPLC characterized Livingston as a neo-Confederate ideologue, in part for his former association with the League of the South, labelled "the premier state sovereignty and secessionist organization;" the League has been classified as a "hate group" by the SPLC. Livingston responded that, although he helped the League set up an institute in the mid-1990s, he left them before 1999 over their support for secession. As of 2009, the Abbeville Institute had a total of 64 associated scholars from various colleges and disciplines. It operates an annual summer school for graduate students and an annual scholars' conference. It focuses particularly on issues of secession, which its scholars believe is a topic excluded from mainstream academia. In 2010, it held a conference on secession and nullification. Notable faculty include Thomas DiLorenzo, Clyde Wilson, and Thomas Woods. The Abbeville Institute has developed a press, an Abbeville Institute Review, and a blog, all to communicate its scholars' work.
