[varina davis]

Whether you like to acknowledge it or not, the followers of Calhoun were the intellectual heirs of James Madison, if not Jefferson himself; and the common people who populated the Confederate Army were Jacksonian Democrats. And their defeat was a defeat for the vision of the Founders, that turned their nation of free men into a cage full of clock-punchers. That, dear Ditto, is what I'm saying.

So well said! My ancestors were agrarians and among "the common people who populated the Confederate Army." No doubt they are spinning in their graves at what has happened to their Democrat (read Dixiecrat) Party.

As agrarianism continues to die a slow and painful death -- are we, as a society, better off? I think not. As Gerald O'Hara told his daughter, to paraphrase, nothing is as important as land. The end of the War for Southern Independence was the beginning of the end of Individual land and property rights -- and with it the erosion of independence and self-determination.