Happy very belated birthday Sam…so far we in the city state of New Orleans have despite Katrina aftermath (and the centralists here as well as scalawags and carpetbaggers ) have managed to embody precisely why your comments are true in other ways…We are different and intend to stay that way!

Boy, that’s clear as a bell.

COMPACT. n. “An agreement; a contract between parties; a word that may be applied in a general sense to any covenant or contract between individuals; but it is more generally applied to agreements between nations and states, as treaties and confederacies. So the constitution of the United States is a political contract between the states, etc.” (Noah Webster’s dictionary, published in 1844)

FEDERAL. a. “From Latin foedus, a league. 1. Pertaining to a league or contract; derived from an agreement or covenant between parties, particularly between nations. 2. Consisting in a contract between parties, particularly and chiefly between states or nations; founded on alliance or mutual agreement; as a federal government, such as that of the United States.” (Noah Webster’s dictionary, published in 1844)

FEDERAL. “A term commonly used to express a league or compact between two or more states. In the United States the central government of the Union is federal. The constitution was adopted ‘to form a more perfect union’ among the states…” (Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, the authoritative legal dictionary of the Nineteenth Century, 1868)

Happy Birthday, Sam. May more people in this country learn again to value your generation’s gift to us.