Point well made, Strict, and I'm not sayin' that poverty is exclusively a Southern problem but not long ago I saw the listing of states by the percentage of their respective populations that lived in poverty and not surprisingly the Southern states occupy the top of the list. What I did find surprising is that my state, Wes Ginny, topped the list at 16.5% beating out Mississippi and Alabama...

And good points, Chief Chaos... Just a couple of other points somewhat related. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves *only* in the Southern States...

Secondly, it was the Union's degrading burning of Southern cities by Sherman and Co, the total destruction of the South's economy, the killing off of so many of the South's educated and a dozen years of occupation that insured that the Civil War (which it wasn't) would never really end, which, with the exception of the physical violence, it hasn't. Jim Crow is alive and well. Anti-Union/governemnt feelings are alive and well and with the current president, those states that formed "the Union" are in Johnny Reb's sigths....

Bobert