Both the South before the war and the North afterward suffered from a similar affliction: rich people. Most of the men in the Confederate Army were more likely to live in near-slave conditions than to own any. The call to arms was issued by people of little or no military training who had no intention of serving. Sound familiar?

Post-bellum, the North was inundated with a class of nouveau riche who had just made a mint on war profiteering and, with that business model firmly entrenched, turned all their attentions to perpetuating it. For a wonderful look at the same, combined with the new administrative bureaucracy in full flower, see Twain’s “The Facts In The Great Beef Contract.”

In many ways, our Republic never recovered from what happened between 1860-65. MIght Mr. Lincoln have made a difference in that fact? We like to think so.

And, of course, we have Lincoln to thank for the state from whence I write this day. No Abe, no West Virginia. He still has his own holiday here.