[Non-Sequitur]

...but the fellow who opened the doors through which they walked is none other than Mr. Lincoln and his entourage of leaders of failed socialist revolutions in Europe half a generation earlier who had left their countries one step ahead of the hangman and came here.

How exactly?

[Bigun]

By wiping their collective arses with the Constitution and packing the federal courts with their lackeys for starters!

[Bigun]

You REALLY should get hold of a book written by your pal James McPherson entitled Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution.

In it, while not at all bemoaning the fact, quite thoroughly shows that the war changed the nature of the federal government.