Editor's Note: We wrote this article in 2005 to discuss the significance of the Mississippi River in general and New Orleans in particular for the geopolitics of the United States. In light of the current circumstances, we have decided to feature this article. Editor's Note: This article contained a numerical error as originally published and distributed to readers. The error is corrected in the version below. By George Friedman The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.