CHARLESTON, S.C. - The fledgling Southern Party - "a real choice for the people of Dixie!" - would like to get on with its business of influencing public policy and maybe even seceding from the nation, if only it could end its own civil war. Since the party's formal launch last August in Flat Rock, N.C., the group has split into two camps, with both sides energetically pursuing their common goal: to right what they perceive as the wrongs of the country by establishing, or re-establishing, an independent Southern nation. Southern nationalists tend to be conservative, religious, and mistrustful of the federal government. They also tend to be white. But leaders of the Southern Party say they represent a wide spectrum of ethnicity, citing Asian and Hispanic members.
