You have to go back a LOT further than feudalism to discover the beginnings of state power.

it makes me want to research the whiskey. -- j
.

I would disagree with your assessment. The USA, starting with Jefferson (since he seems to have been singled out by many lately) has provided the greatest amount of freedom and opportunity to all classes of people, as compared to what was available at the time anywhere else. There are no realistically achieved ideals; everything must be viewed in relation to other choices. Even in the case of slavery, the slaves in America were treated much better than anywhere else in the world (at that time) and some had an opportunity to become free and to own other slaves, which some did. Perhaps due to the relatively high cost of the slaves, they were treated much better than in their native land, or by the other customers, like the Arabs.
Mormons, you say, were run out of town - but not killed like people of other religions were in the rest of the world. And even considering the atrocities done to the Indians, those were often less barbaric than what the Indians were doing to their rival tribes.
In any case, I don't see the relationship between the faults of Jefferson, et.al., and the national suicide that we've embarked on, which is socialism. Perhaps in the case of Russia a hundred years ago, socialism was embraced due to poverty, but in the 20-21 century America, socialism is being embraced due to gluttony.

IMHO, the phrase "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence, an open letter to King George III, was an assault on the divine right of kings and had nothing to do with race or gender. Therefore, Thomas Jefferson being a slave owner was not hypocritical in making such a statement. It was putting the King and his minions on notice that "We The People" in the colonies weren't going to buy into that "royalty" right to rule crap anymore. The false notion of a royal/commoner blood dichotomy sanctioned by God is so far removed from our nations consciousness in these contemporary times that such an idea is actually ridiculous and, therefore, the true meaning of Jefferson's famous phrase in its context and time is lost on most of us. The application of "all men are created equal" to races and gender came later. The American Revolution and the contributions the Founding Fathers covered a lot of ground regarding individual liberty and rights, but it didn't cover all of it all at once.

Texans fought a war of independence from the totalitarian rule of Mexico and became an independent nation before opting to become part of the United States.

Yep, there are inconsistencies.

Consider replacing "socialism" with "collectivism"?

The only one who is even coming close to getting government out of our lives is Rand Paul, and you see how popular his ideas are. As long as you have farmers getting subsidies for ethanol, and multinationals getting subsidies for exports, and welfare recipients getting subsidies for living, and healthcare getting subsidies for drugs and other supplies, etc., you will continue to have enough critical mass to keep the game going. Until and unless EVERYONE gets his eyes off his neighbor's wallet, this system will prevail until it finally collapses. What's needed, at a minimum, is a constitutional amendment restricting the government from dabbling in the economy. However, with all the special interests desiring such dabbling, it's probably a fool's errand to keep dreaming about something that looks like it will never happen.

And I would hazard a guess that - absent the government extortion - there would be plenty of funding offered voluntarily for such endeavors by interested parties.