@cjd @nobody

> Davis wrote a book called The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, and apparently that is practically unknown, even to people who study him.

Oh, I've heard of the book. A lot of people in the South like his version of events; as for the cause of the war, Judah P. Benjamin's speech in the Senate was a competent case, I think. Lately, for PR reasons, they have attempted to adopt a vaguely libertarian-ish approach to the rhetoric, but the history doesn't match. At the time, the South worked (and at a social level, it still works this way) like an old-timey French aristocracy. The names on the mailboxes seem to indicate the reason for this.

I'll defer to General William T. Sherman, in his (excellent) letter to the mayor of Atlanta: "If the United States submits to a Division now it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is Eternal War."

> Perhaps even more significant than that is The Bank Wars, which pretty much nobody wants to talk about...

I'd be pleased to talk about this book, which I have never heard of, as far as I remember.