General Longstreet served as Robert E. Lee’s solid right hand, commanding the First Corps. of the Confederate Army during most of the Civil war.  A strong believer in states rights (but not necessarily slavery) before the war, afterwards he was a strong Republican, believing that having been defeated during the war, the Southern states needed to work to be fully accepted back into the Union.  His post war political beliefs earned him the scorn of many Southerners, especially the old ruling class which hoped (and succeed) to place themselves back in power.

Amity Shlaes in her excellent history of the Depression, The Forgotten Man, outlines how FDR in his admitted goal of “unimagined power”, begin the process of cutting the American electorate like a sausage and appealing to each groups individual interests. No longer was the public asked to support what was good for the country as a whole, but the interests of labor, senior citizens, farmers and union workers were systematically offered rewards for their support.