THE
FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY
by
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER
PREFACE
In republishing these essays in collected
form, it has seemed best to
issue them as they were originally printed,
with the exception of a few
slight corrections of slips in the text and
with the omission of
occasional duplication of language in the
different essays. A
considerable part of whatever value they may
possess arises from the
fact that they are commentaries in different
periods on the central
theme of the influence of the frontier in
American history. Consequently
they may have some historical significance
as contemporaneous attempts
of a student of American history, at successive
transitions in our
development during the past quarter century
to interpret the relations
of the present to the past. Grateful acknowledgment
is made to the
various societies and periodicals which have
given permission to reprint
the essays.
Various essays dealing with the connection
of diplomatic history and the
frontier and others stressing the significance
of the section, or
geographic province, in American history,
are not included in the
present collection. Neither the French nor
the Spanish frontier is
within the scope of the volume.
The future alone can disclose how far these
interpretations are correct
for the age of colonization which came gradually
to an end with the
disappearance of the frontier and free land.
It alone can reveal how
much of the courageous, creative American
spirit, and how large a part
of the historic American ideals are to be
carried over into that new age
which is replacing the era of free lands and
of measurable isolation by
consolidated and complex industrial development
and by increasing
resemblances and connections between the New
World and the Old.
But the larger part of what has been distinctive
and valuable in
America's contribution to the history of the
human spirit has been due
to this nation's peculiar experience in extending
its type of frontier
into new regions; and in creating peaceful
societies with new ideals in
the successive vast and differing geographic
provinces which together
make up the United States. Directly or indirectly
these experiences
shaped the life of the Eastern as well as
the Western States, and even
reacted upon the Old World and influenced
the direction of its thought
and its progress. This experience has been
fundamental in the economic,
political and social characteristics of the
American people and in their
conceptions of their destiny.
Writing at the close of 1796, the French minister
to the United States,
M. Adet, reported to his government that Jefferson
could not be relied
on to be devoted to French interests, and
he added: "Jefferson, I say,
is American, and by that name, he cannot be
sincerely our friend. An
American is the born enemy of all European
peoples." Obviously erroneous
as are these words, there was an element of
truth in them. If we would
understand this element of truth, we must
study the transforming
influence of the American wilderness, remote
from Europe, and by its
resources and its free opportunities affording
the conditions under
which a new people, with new social and political
types and ideals,
could arise to play its own part in the world,
and to influence Europe.
FREDERICK J. TURNER.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, March, 1920.
THE 
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY[1:1]
In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent
of the Census for 1890 appear
these significant words: "Up to and including
1880 the country had a
frontier of settlement, but at present the
unsettled area has been so
broken into by isolated bodies of settlement
that there can hardly be
said to be a frontier line. In the discussion
of its extent, its
westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore,
any longer have a place
in the census reports." This brief official
statement marks the closing
of a great historic movement. Up to our own
day American history has
been in a large degree the history of the
colonization of the Great
West. The existence of an area of free land,
its continuous recession,
and the advance of American settlement westward,
explain American
development.
Behind institutions, behind constitutional
forms and modifications, lie
the vital forces that call these organs into
life and shape them to meet
changing conditions. The peculiarity of American
institutions is, the
fact that they have been compelled to adapt
themselves to the changes of
an expanding people--to the changes involved
in crossing a continent, in
winning a wilderness, and in developing at
each area of this progress
out of the primitive economic and political
conditions of the frontier
into the complexity of city life. Said Calhoun
in 1817, "We are great,
and rapidly--I was about to say fearfully--growing!"[2:1]
So saying, he
touched the distinguishing feature of American
life. All peoples show
development; the germ theory of politics has
been sufficiently
emphasized. In the case of most nations, however,
the development has
occurred in a limited area; and if the nation
has expanded, it has met
other growing peoples whom it has conquered.
But in the case of the
United States we have a different phenomenon.
Limiting our attention to
the Atlantic coast, we have the familiar phenomenon
of the evolution of
institutions in a limited area, such as the
rise of representative
government; the differentiation of simple
colonial governments into
complex organs; the progress from primitive
industrial society, without
division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization.
But we have in
addition to this a recurrence of the process
of evolution in each
western area reached in the process of expansion.
Thus American
development has exhibited not merely advance
along a single line, but a
return to primitive conditions on a continually
advancing frontier line,
and a new development for that area. American
social development has
been continually beginning over again on the
frontier. This perennial
rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this
expansion westward with
its new opportunities, its continuous touch
with the simplicity of
primitive society, furnish the forces dominating
American character. The
true point of view in the history of this
nation is not the Atlantic
coast, it is the Great West. Even the slavery
struggle, which is made so
exclusive an object of attention by writers
like Professor von Holst,
occupies its important place in American history
because of its relation
to westward expansion.
In this advance, the frontier is the outer
edge of the wave--the meeting
point between savagery and civilization. Much
has been written about the
frontier from the point of view of border
warfare and the chase, but as
a field for the serious study of the economist
and the historian it has
been neglected.
The American frontier is sharply distinguished
from the European
frontier--a fortified boundary line running
through dense populations.
The most significant thing about the American
frontier is, that it lies
at the hither edge of free land. In the census
reports it is treated as
the margin of that settlement which has a
density of two or more to the
square mile. The term is an elastic one, and
for our purposes does not
need sharp definition. We shall consider the
whole frontier belt,
including the Indian country and the outer
margin of the "settled area"
of the census reports. This paper will make
no attempt to treat the
subject exhaustively; its aim is simply to
call attention to the
frontier as a fertile field for investigation,
and to suggest some of
the problems which arise in connection with
it.
In the settlement of America we have to observe
how European life
entered the continent, and how America modified
and developed that life
and reacted on Europe. Our early history is
the study of European germs
developing in an American environment. Too
exclusive attention has been
paid by institutional students to the Germanic
origins, too little to
the American factors. The frontier is the
line of most rapid and
effective Americanization. The wilderness
masters the colonist. It finds
him a European in dress, industries, tools,
modes of travel, and
thought. It takes him from the railroad car
and puts him in the birch
canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization
and arrays him in the
hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him
in the log cabin of the
Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade
around him. Before
long he has gone to planting Indian corn and
plowing with a sharp stick;
he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp
in orthodox Indian fashion. In
short, at the frontier the environment is
at first too strong for the
man. He must accept the conditions which it
furnishes, or perish, and so
he fits himself into the Indian clearings
and follows the Indian trails.
Little by little he transforms the wilderness,
but the outcome is not
the old Europe, not simply the development
of Germanic germs, any more
than the first phenomenon was a case of reversion
to the Germanic mark.
The fact is, that here is a new product that
is American. At first, the
frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the
frontier of Europe in a very
real sense. Moving westward, the frontier
became more and more American.
As successive terminal moraines result from
successive glaciations, so
each frontier leaves its traces behind it,
and when it becomes a settled
area the region still partakes of the frontier
characteristics. Thus the
advance of the frontier has meant a steady
movement away from the
influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence
on American lines.
And to study this advance, the men who grew
up under these conditions,
and the political, economic, and social results
of it, is to study the
really American part of our history.
In the course of the seventeenth century the
frontier was advanced up
the Atlantic river courses, just beyond the
"fall line," and the
tidewater region became the settled area.
In the first half of the
eighteenth century another advance occurred.
Traders followed the
Delaware and Shawnese Indians to the Ohio
as early as the end of the
first quarter of the century.[5:1] Gov. Spotswood,
of Virginia, made an
expedition in 1714 across the Blue Ridge.
The end of the first quarter
of the century saw the advance of the Scotch-Irish
and the Palatine
Germans up the Shenandoah Valley into the
western part of Virginia, and
along the Piedmont region of the Carolinas.[5:2]
The Germans in New York
pushed the frontier of settlement up the Mohawk
to German Flats.[5:3] In
Pennsylvania the town of Bedford indicates
the line of settlement.
Settlements soon began on the New River, or
the Great Kanawha, and on
the sources of the Yadkin and French Broad.[5:4]
The King attempted to
arrest the advance by his proclamation of
1763,[5:5] forbidding
settlements beyond the sources of the rivers
flowing into the Atlantic;
but in vain. In the period of the Revolution
the frontier crossed the
Alleghanies into Kentucky and Tennessee, and
the upper waters of the
Ohio were settled.[5:6] When the first census
was taken in 1790, the
continuous settled area was bounded by a line
which ran near the coast
of Maine, and included New England except
a portion of Vermont and New
Hampshire, New York along the Hudson and up
the Mohawk about
Schenectady, eastern and southern Pennsylvania,
Virginia well across the
Shenandoah Valley, and the Carolinas and eastern
Georgia.[6:1] Beyond
this region of continuous settlement were
the small settled areas of
Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Ohio, with
the mountains intervening
between them and the Atlantic area, thus giving
a new and important
character to the frontier. The isolation of
the region increased its
peculiarly American tendencies, and the need
of transportation
facilities to connect it with the East called
out important schemes of
internal improvement, which will be noted
farther on. The "West," as a
self-conscious section, began to evolve.
From decade to decade distinct advances of
the frontier occurred. By the
census of 1820[6:2] the settled area included
Ohio, southern Indiana and
Illinois, southeastern Missouri, and about
one-half of Louisiana. This
settled area had surrounded Indian areas,
and the management of these
tribes became an object of political concern.
The frontier region of the
time lay along the Great Lakes, where Astor's
American Fur Company
operated in the Indian trade,[6:3] and beyond
the Mississippi, where
Indian traders extended their activity even
to the Rocky Mountains;
Florida also furnished frontier conditions.
The Mississippi River region
was the scene of typical frontier settlements.[7:1]
The rising steam navigation[7:2] on western
waters, the opening of the
Erie Canal, and the westward extension of
cotton[7:3] culture added five
frontier states to the Union in this period.
Grund, writing in 1836,
declares: "It appears then that the universal
disposition of Americans
to emigrate to the western wilderness, in
order to enlarge their
dominion over inanimate nature, is the actual
result of an expansive
power which is inherent in them, and which
by continually agitating all
classes of society is constantly throwing
a large portion of the whole
population on the extreme confines of the
State, in order to gain space
for its development. Hardly is a new State
or Territory formed before
the same principle manifests itself again
and gives rise to a further
emigration; and so is it destined to go on
until a physical barrier must
finally obstruct its progress."[7:4]
In the middle of this century the line indicated
by the present eastern
boundary of Indian Territory, Nebraska, and
Kansas marked the frontier
of the Indian country.[8:1] Minnesota and
Wisconsin still exhibited
frontier conditions,[8:2] but the distinctive
frontier of the period is
found in California, where the gold discoveries
had sent a sudden tide
of adventurous miners, and in Oregon, and
the settlements in Utah.[8:3]
As the frontier had leaped over the Alleghanies,
so now it skipped the
Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains; and
in the same way that the
advance of the frontiersmen beyond the Alleghanies
had caused the rise
of important questions of transportation and
internal improvement, so
now the settlers beyond the Rocky Mountains
needed means of
communication with the East, and in the furnishing
of these arose the
settlement of the Great Plains and the development
of still another kind
of frontier life. Railroads, fostered by land
grants, sent an
increasing tide of immigrants into the Far
West. The United States Army
fought a series of Indian wars in Minnesota,
Dakota, and the Indian
Territory.
By 1880 the settled area had been pushed into
northern Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, along Dakota rivers,
and in the Black Hills
region, and was ascending the rivers of Kansas
and Nebraska. The
development of mines in Colorado had drawn
isolated frontier settlements
into that region, and Montana and Idaho were
receiving settlers. The
frontier was found in these mining camps and
the ranches of the Great
Plains. The superintendent of the census for
1890 reports, as previously
stated, that the settlements of the West lie
so scattered over the
region that there can no longer be said to
be a frontier line.
In these successive frontiers we find natural
boundary lines which have
served to mark and to affect the characteristics
of the frontiers,
namely: the "fall line;" the Alleghany Mountains;
the Mississippi; the
Missouri where its direction approximates
north and south; the line of
the arid lands, approximately the ninety-ninth
meridian; and the Rocky
Mountains. The fall line marked the frontier
of the seventeenth century;
the Alleghanies that of the eighteenth; the
Mississippi that of the
first quarter of the nineteenth; the Missouri
that of the middle of this
century (omitting the California movement);
and the belt of the Rocky
Mountains and the arid tract, the present
frontier. Each was won by a
series of Indian wars.
At the Atlantic frontier one can study the
germs of processes repeated
at each successive frontier. We have the complex
European life sharply
precipitated by the wilderness into the simplicity
of primitive
conditions. The first frontier had to meet
its Indian question, its
question of the disposition of the public
domain, of the means of
intercourse with older settlements, of the
extension of political
organization, of religious and educational
activity. And the settlement
of these and similar questions for one frontier
served as a guide for
the next. The American student needs not to
go to the "prim little
townships of Sleswick" for illustrations of
the law of continuity and
development. For example, he may study the
origin of our land policies
in the colonial land policy; he may see how
the system grew by adapting
the statutes to the customs of the successive
frontiers.[10:1] He may
see how the mining experience in the lead
regions of Wisconsin,
Illinois, and Iowa was applied to the mining
laws of the Sierras,[10:2]
and how our Indian policy has been a series
of experimentations on
successive frontiers. Each tier of new States
has found in the older
ones material for its constitutions.[10:3]
Each frontier has made
similar contributions to American character,
as will be discussed
farther on.
But with all these similarities there are
essential differences due to
the place element and the time element. It
is evident that the farming
frontier of the Mississippi Valley presents
different conditions from
the mining frontier of the Rocky Mountains.
The frontier reached by the
Pacific Railroad, surveyed into rectangles,
guarded by the United States
Army, and recruited by the daily immigrant
ship, moves forward at a
swifter pace and in a different way than the
frontier reached by the
birch canoe or the pack horse. The geologist
traces patiently the shores
of ancient seas, maps their areas, and compares
the older and the newer.
It would be a work worth the historian's labors
to mark these various
frontiers and in detail compare one with another.
Not only would there
result a more adequate conception of American
development and
characteristics, but invaluable additions
would be made to the history
of society.
Loria,[11:1] the Italian economist, has urged
the study of colonial life
as an aid in understanding the stages of European
development, affirming
that colonial settlement is for economic science
what the mountain is
for geology, bringing to light primitive stratifications.
"America," he
says, "has the key to the historical enigma
which Europe has sought for
centuries in vain, and the land which has
no history reveals luminously
the course of universal history." There is
much truth in this. The
United States lies like a huge page in the
history of society. Line by
line as we read this continental page from
West to East we find the
record of social evolution. It begins with
the Indian and the hunter; it
goes on to tell of the disintegration of savagery
by the entrance of the
trader, the pathfinder of civilization; we
read the annals of the
pastoral stage in ranch life; the exploitation
of the soil by the
raising of unrotated crops of corn and wheat
in sparsely settled farming
communities; the intensive culture of the
denser farm settlement; and
finally the manufacturing organization with
city and factory
system.[11:2] This page is familiar to the
student of census statistics,
but how little of it has been used by our
historians. Particularly in
eastern States this page is a palimpsest.
What is now a manufacturing
State was in an earlier decade an area of
intensive farming. Earlier yet
it had been a wheat area, and still earlier
the "range" had attracted
the cattle-herder. Thus Wisconsin, now developing
manufacture, is a
State with varied agricultural interests.
But earlier it was given over
to almost exclusive grain-raising, like North
Dakota at the present
time.
Each of these areas has had an influence in
our economic and political
history; the evolution of each into a higher
stage has worked political
transformations. But what constitutional historian
has made any adequate
attempt to interpret political facts by the
light of these social areas
and changes?[12:1]
The Atlantic frontier was compounded of fisherman,
fur-trader, miner,
cattle-raiser, and farmer. Excepting the fisherman,
each type of
industry was on the march toward the West,
impelled by an irresistible
attraction. Each passed in successive waves
across the continent. Stand
at Cumberland Gap and watch the procession
of civilization, marching
single file--the buffalo following the trail
to the salt springs, the
Indian, the fur-trader and hunter, the cattle-raiser,
the pioneer
farmer--and the frontier has passed by. Stand
at South Pass in the
Rockies a century later and see the same procession
with wider intervals
between. The unequal rate of advance compels
us to distinguish the
frontier into the trader's frontier, the rancher's
frontier, or the
miner's frontier, and the farmer's frontier.
When the mines and the cow
pens were still near the fall line the traders'
pack trains were
tinkling across the Alleghanies, and the French
on the Great Lakes were
fortifying their posts, alarmed by the British
trader's birch canoe.
When the trappers scaled the Rockies, the
farmer was still near the
mouth of the Missouri.
Why was it that the Indian trader passed so
rapidly across the
continent? What effects followed from the
trader's frontier? The trade
was coeval with American discovery. The Norsemen,
Vespuccius, Verrazani,
Hudson, John Smith, all trafficked for furs.
The Plymouth pilgrims
settled in Indian cornfields, and their first
return cargo was of beaver
and lumber. The records of the various New
England colonies show how
steadily exploration was carried into the
wilderness by this trade. What
is true for New England is, as would be expected,
even plainer for the
rest of the colonies. All along the coast
from Maine to Georgia the
Indian trade opened up the river courses.
Steadily the trader passed
westward, utilizing the older lines of French
trade. The Ohio, the Great
Lakes, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and
the Platte, the lines of
western advance, were ascended by traders.
They found the passes in the
Rocky Mountains and guided Lewis and Clark,[13:1]
Frémont, and Bidwell.
The explanation of the rapidity of this advance
is connected with the
effects of the trader on the Indian. The trading
post left the unarmed
tribes at the mercy of those that had purchased
fire-arms--a truth which
the Iroquois Indians wrote in blood, and so
the remote and unvisited
tribes gave eager welcome to the trader. "The
savages," wrote La Salle,
"take better care of us French than of their
own children; from us only
can they get guns and goods." This accounts
for the trader's power and
the rapidity of his advance. Thus the disintegrating
forces of
civilization entered the wilderness. Every
river valley and Indian trail
became a fissure in Indian society, and so
that society became
honeycombed. Long before the pioneer farmer
appeared on the scene,
primitive Indian life had passed away. The
farmers met Indians armed
with guns. The trading frontier, while steadily
undermining Indian power
by making the tribes ultimately dependent
on the whites, yet, through
its sale of guns, gave to the Indian increased
power of resistance to
the farming frontier. French colonization
was dominated by its trading
frontier; English colonization by its farming
frontier. There was an
antagonism between the two frontiers as between
the two nations. Said
Duquesne to the Iroquois, "Are you ignorant
of the difference between
the king of England and the king of France?
Go see the forts that our
king has established and you will see that
you can still hunt under
their very walls. They have been placed for
your advantage in places
which you frequent. The English, on the contrary,
are no sooner in
possession of a place than the game is driven
away. The forest falls
before them as they advance, and the soil
is laid bare so that you can
scarce find the wherewithal to erect a shelter
for the night."
And yet, in spite of this opposition of the
interests of the trader and
the farmer, the Indian trade pioneered the
way for civilization. The
buffalo trail became the Indian trail, and
this became the trader's
"trace;" the trails widened into roads, and
the roads into turnpikes,
and these in turn were transformed into railroads.
The same origin can
be shown for the railroads of the South, the
Far West, and the Dominion
of Canada.[14:1] The trading posts reached
by these trails were on the
sites of Indian villages which had been placed
in positions suggested by
nature; and these trading posts, situated
so as to command the water
systems of the country, have grown into such
cities as Albany,
Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Council
Bluffs, and Kansas
City. Thus civilization in America has followed
the arteries made by
geology, pouring an ever richer tide through
them, until at last the
slender paths of aboriginal intercourse have
been broadened and
interwoven into the complex mazes of modern
commercial lines; the
wilderness has been interpenetrated by lines
of civilization growing
ever more numerous. It is like the steady
growth of a complex nervous
system for the originally simple, inert continent.
If one would
understand why we are to-day one nation, rather
than a collection of
isolated states, he must study this economic
and social consolidation of
the country. In this progress from savage
conditions lie topics for the
evolutionist.[15:1]
The effect of the Indian frontier as a consolidating
agent in our
history is important. From the close of the
seventeenth century various
intercolonial congresses have been called
to treat with Indians and
establish common measures of defense. Particularism
was strongest in
colonies with no Indian frontier. This frontier
stretched along the
western border like a cord of union. The Indian
was a common danger,
demanding united action. Most celebrated of
these conferences was the
Albany congress of 1754, called to treat with
the Six Nations, and to
consider plans of union. Even a cursory reading
of the plan proposed by
the congress reveals the importance of the
frontier. The powers of the
general council and the officers were, chiefly,
the determination of
peace and war with the Indians, the regulation
of Indian trade, the
purchase of Indian lands, and the creation
and government of new
settlements as a security against the Indians.
It is evident that the
unifying tendencies of the Revolutionary period
were facilitated by the
previous coöperation in the regulation of
the frontier. In this
connection may be mentioned the importance
of the frontier, from that
day to this, as a military training school,
keeping alive the power of
resistance to aggression, and developing the
stalwart and rugged
qualities of the frontiersman.
It would not be possible in the limits of
this paper to trace the other
frontiers across the continent. Travelers
of the eighteenth century
found the "cowpens" among the canebrakes and
peavine pastures of the
South, and the "cow drivers" took their droves
to Charleston,
Philadelphia, and New York.[16:1] Travelers
at the close of the War of
1812 met droves of more than a thousand cattle
and swine from the
interior of Ohio going to Pennsylvania to
fatten for the Philadelphia
market.[16:2] The ranges of the Great Plains,
with ranch and cowboy and
nomadic life, are things of yesterday and
of to-day. The experience of
the Carolina cowpens guided the ranchers of
Texas. One element favoring
the rapid extension of the rancher's frontier
is the fact that in a
remote country lacking transportation facilities
the product must be in
small bulk, or must be able to transport itself,
and the cattle raiser
could easily drive his product to market.
The effect of these great
ranches on the subsequent agrarian history
of the localities in which
they existed should be studied.
The maps of the census reports show an uneven
advance of the farmer's
frontier, with tongues of settlement pushed
forward and with
indentations of wilderness. In part this is
due to Indian resistance, in
part to the location of river valleys and
passes, in part to the unequal
force of the centers of frontier attraction.
Among the important centers
of attraction may be mentioned the following:
fertile and favorably
situated soils, salt springs, mines, and army
posts.
The frontier army post, serving to protect
the settlers from the
Indians, has also acted as a wedge to open
the Indian country, and has
been a nucleus for settlement.[16:3] In this
connection mention should
also be made of the government military and
exploring expeditions in
determining the lines of settlement. But all
the more important
expeditions were greatly indebted to the earliest
pathmakers, the Indian
guides, the traders and trappers, and the
French voyageurs, who were
inevitable parts of governmental expeditions
from the days of Lewis and
Clark.[17:1] Each expedition was an epitome
of the previous factors in
western advance.
In an interesting monograph, Victor Hehn[17:2]
has traced the effect of
salt upon early European development, and
has pointed out how it
affected the lines of settlement and the form
of administration. A
similar study might be made for the salt springs
of the United States.
The early settlers were tied to the coast
by the need of salt, without
which they could not preserve their meats
or live in comfort. Writing in
1752, Bishop Spangenburg says of a colony
for which he was seeking lands
in North Carolina, "They will require salt
& other necessaries which
they can neither manufacture nor raise. Either
they must go to
Charleston, which is 300 miles distant . . . Or
else they must go to
Boling's Point in V{a} on a branch of the
James & is also 300 miles from
here. . . Or else they must go down the Roanoke--I
know not how many
miles--where salt is brought up from the Cape
Fear."[17:3] This may
serve as a typical illustration. An annual
pilgrimage to the coast for
salt thus became essential. Taking flocks
or furs and ginseng root, the
early settlers sent their pack trains after
seeding time each year to
the coast.[17:4] This proved to be an important
educational influence,
since it was almost the only way in which
the pioneer learned what was
going on in the East. But when discovery was
made of the salt springs of
the Kanawha, and the Holston, and Kentucky,
and central New York, the
West began to be freed from dependence on
the coast. It was in part the
effect of finding these salt springs that
enabled settlement to cross
the mountains.
From the time the mountains rose between the
pioneer and the seaboard, a
new order of Americanism arose. The West and
the East began to get out
of touch of each other. The settlements from
the sea to the mountains
kept connection with the rear and had a certain
solidarity. But the
over-mountain men grew more and more independent.
The East took a narrow
view of American advance, and nearly lost
these men. Kentucky and
Tennessee history bears abundant witness to
the truth of this statement.
The East began to try to hedge and limit westward
expansion. Though
Webster could declare that there were no Alleghanies
in his politics,
yet in politics in general they were a very
solid factor.
The exploitation of the beasts took hunter
and trader to the west, the
exploitation of the grasses took the rancher
west, and the exploitation
of the virgin soil of the river valleys and
prairies attracted the
farmer. Good soils have been the most continuous
attraction to the
farmer's frontier. The land hunger of the
Virginians drew them down the
rivers into Carolina, in early colonial days;
the search for soils took
the Massachusetts men to Pennsylvania and
to New York. As the eastern
lands were taken up migration flowed across
them to the west. Daniel
Boone, the great backwoodsman, who combined
the occupations of hunter,
trader, cattle-raiser, farmer, and surveyor--learning,
probably from the
traders, of the fertility of the lands of
the upper Yadkin, where the
traders were wont to rest as they took their
way to the Indians, left
his Pennsylvania home with his father, and
passed down the Great Valley
road to that stream. Learning from a trader
of the game and rich
pastures of Kentucky, he pioneered the way
for the farmers to that
region. Thence he passed to the frontier of
Missouri, where his
settlement was long a landmark on the frontier.
Here again he helped to
open the way for civilization, finding salt
licks, and trails, and land.
His son was among the earliest trappers in
the passes of the Rocky
Mountains, and his party are said to have
been the first to camp on the
present site of Denver. His grandson, Col.
A. J. Boone, of Colorado, was
a power among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains,
and was appointed an
agent by the government. Kit Carson's mother
was a Boone.[19:1] Thus
this family epitomizes the backwoodsman's
advance across the continent.
The farmer's advance came in a distinct series
of waves. In Peck's New
Guide to the West, published in Boston in
1837, occurs this suggestive
passage:
Generally, in all the western settlements,
three classes, like
the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after
the other. First
comes the pioneer, who depends for the subsistence
of his
family chiefly upon the natural growth of
vegetation, called
the "range," and the proceeds of hunting.
His implements of
agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make,
and his efforts
directed mainly to a crop of corn and a "truck
patch." The
last is a rude garden for growing cabbage,
beans, corn for
roasting ears, cucumbers, and potatoes. A
log cabin, and,
occasionally, a stable and corn-crib, and
a field of a dozen
acres, the timber girdled or "deadened," and
fenced, are
enough for his occupancy. It is quite immaterial
whether he
ever becomes the owner of the soil. He is
the occupant for
the time being, pays no rent, and feels as
independent as the
"lord of the manor." With a horse, cow, and
one or two
breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods
with his family,
and becomes the founder of a new county, or
perhaps state. He
builds his cabin, gathers around him a few
other families of
similar tastes and habits, and occupies till
the range is
somewhat subdued, and hunting a little precarious,
or, which
is more frequently the case, till the neighbors
crowd around,
roads, bridges, and fields annoy him, and
he lacks elbow room.
The preëmption law enables him to dispose
of his cabin and
cornfield to the next class of emigrants;
and, to employ his
own figures, he "breaks for the high timber,"
"clears out for
the New Purchase," or migrates to Arkansas
or Texas, to work
the same process over.
The next class of emigrants purchase the lands,
add field to
field, clear out the roads, throw rough bridges
over the
streams, put up hewn log houses with glass
windows and brick
or stone chimneys, occasionally plant orchards,
build mills,
school-houses, court-houses, etc., and exhibit
the picture and
forms of plain, frugal, civilized life.
Another wave rolls on. The men of capital
and enterprise come.
The settler is ready to sell out and take
the advantage of the
rise in property, push farther into the interior
and become,
himself, a man of capital and enterprise in
turn. The small
village rises to a spacious town or city;
substantial edifices
of brick, extensive fields, orchards, gardens,
colleges, and
churches are seen. Broadcloths, silks, leghorns,
crapes, and
all the refinements, luxuries, elegancies,
frivolities, and
fashions are in vogue. Thus wave after wave
is rolling
westward; the real Eldorado is still farther
on.
A portion of the two first classes remain
stationary amidst
the general movement, improve their habits
and condition, and
rise in the scale of society.
The writer has traveled much amongst the first
class, the real
pioneers. He has lived many years in connection
with the
second grade; and now the third wave is sweeping
over large
districts of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.
Migration has
become almost a habit in the West. Hundreds
of men can be
found, not over 50 years of age, who have
settled for the
fourth, fifth, or sixth time on a new spot.
To sell out and
remove only a few hundred miles makes up a
portion of the
variety of backwoods life and manners.[21:1]
Omitting those of the pioneer farmers who
move from the love of
adventure, the advance of the more steady
farmer is easy to understand.
Obviously the immigrant was attracted by the
cheap lands of the
frontier, and even the native farmer felt
their influence strongly. Year
by year the farmers who lived on soil whose
returns were diminished by
unrotated crops were offered the virgin soil
of the frontier at nominal
prices. Their growing families demanded more
lands, and these were dear.
The competition of the unexhausted, cheap,
and easily tilled prairie
lands compelled the farmer either to go west
and continue the exhaustion
of the soil on a new frontier, or to adopt
intensive culture. Thus the
census of 1890 shows, in the Northwest, many
counties in which there is
an absolute or a relative decrease of population.
These States have been
sending farmers to advance the frontier on
the plains, and have
themselves begun to turn to intensive farming
and to manufacture. A
decade before this, Ohio had shown the same
transition stage. Thus the
demand for land and the love of wilderness
freedom drew the frontier
ever onward.
Having now roughly outlined the various kinds
of frontiers, and their
modes of advance, chiefly from the point of
view of the frontier itself,
we may next inquire what were the influences
on the East and on the Old
World. A rapid enumeration of some of the
more noteworthy effects is all
that I have time for.
First, we note that the frontier promoted
the formation of a composite
nationality for the American people. The coast
was preponderantly
English, but the later tides of continental
immigration flowed across to
the free lands. This was the case from the
early colonial days. The
Scotch-Irish and the Palatine Germans, or
"Pennsylvania Dutch,"
furnished the dominant element in the stock
of the colonial frontier.
With these peoples were also the freed indented
servants, or
redemptioners, who at the expiration of their
time of service passed to
the frontier. Governor Spotswood of Virginia
writes in 1717, "The
inhabitants of our frontiers are composed
generally of such as have been
transported hither as servants, and, being
out of their time, settle
themselves where land is to be taken up and
that will produce the
necessarys of life with little labour."[22:1]
Very generally these
redemptioners were of non-English stock. In
the crucible of the
frontier the immigrants were Americanized,
liberated, and fused into a
mixed race, English in neither nationality
nor characteristics. The
process has gone on from the early days to
our own. Burke and other
writers in the middle of the eighteenth century
believed that
Pennsylvania[23:1] was "threatened with the
danger of being wholly
foreign in language, manners, and perhaps
even inclinations." The German
and Scotch-Irish elements in the frontier
of the South were only less
great. In the middle of the present century
the German element in
Wisconsin was already so considerable that
leading publicists looked to
the creation of a German state out of the
commonwealth by concentrating
their colonization.[23:2] Such examples teach
us to beware of
misinterpreting the fact that there is a common
English speech in
America into a belief that the stock is also
English.
In another way the advance of the frontier
decreased our dependence on
England. The coast, particularly of the South,
lacked diversified
industries, and was dependent on England for
the bulk of its supplies.
In the South there was even a dependence on
the Northern colonies for
articles of food. Governor Glenn, of South
Carolina, writes in the
middle of the eighteenth century: "Our trade
with New York and
Philadelphia was of this sort, draining us
of all the little money and
bills we could gather from other places for
their bread, flour, beer,
hams, bacon, and other things of their produce,
all which, except beer,
our new townships begin to supply us with,
which are settled with very
industrious and thriving Germans. This no
doubt diminishes the number of
shipping and the appearance of our trade,
but it is far from being a
detriment to us."[23:3]
Before long the frontier created a demand
for merchants. As it
retreated from the coast it became less and
less possible for England to
bring her supplies directly to the consumer's
wharfs, and carry away
staple crops, and staple crops began to give
way to diversified
agriculture for a time. The effect of this
phase of the frontier action
upon the northern section is perceived when
we realize how the advance
of the frontier aroused seaboard cities like
Boston, New York, and
Baltimore, to engage in rivalry for what Washington
called "the
extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire."
The legislation which most developed the powers
of the national
government, and played the largest part in
its activity, was conditioned
on the frontier. Writers have discussed the
subjects of tariff, land,
and internal improvement, as subsidiary to
the slavery question. But
when American history comes to be rightly
viewed it will be seen that
the slavery question is an incident. In the
period from the end of the
first half of the present century to the close
of the Civil War slavery
rose to primary, but far from exclusive, importance.
But this does not
justify Dr. von Holst (to take an example)
in treating our
constitutional history in its formative period
down to 1828 in a single
volume, giving six volumes chiefly to the
history of slavery from 1828
to 1861, under the title "Constitutional History
of the United States."
The growth of nationalism and the evolution
of American political
institutions were dependent on the advance
of the frontier. Even so
recent a writer as Rhodes, in his "History
of the United States since
the Compromise of 1850," has treated the legislation
called out by the
western advance as incidental to the slavery
struggle.
This is a wrong perspective. The pioneer needed
the goods of the coast,
and so the grand series of internal improvement
and railroad legislation
began, with potent nationalizing effects.
Over internal improvements
occurred great debates, in which grave constitutional
questions were
discussed. Sectional groupings appear in the
votes, profoundly
significant for the historian. Loose construction
increased as the
nation marched westward.[25:1] But the West
was not content with
bringing the farm to the factory. Under the
lead of Clay--"Harry of the
West"--protective tariffs were passed, with
the cry of bringing the
factory to the farm. The disposition of the
public lands was a third
important subject of national legislation
influenced by the frontier.
The public domain has been a force of profound
importance in the
nationalization and development of the government.
The effects of the
struggle of the landed and the landless States,
and of the Ordinance of
1787, need no discussion.[25:2] Administratively
the frontier called out
some of the highest and most vitalizing activities
of the general
government. The purchase of Louisiana was
perhaps the constitutional
turning point in the history of the Republic,
inasmuch as it afforded
both a new area for national legislation and
the occasion of the
downfall of the policy of strict construction.
But the purchase of
Louisiana was called out by frontier needs
and demands. As frontier
States accrued to the Union the national power
grew. In a speech on the
dedication of the Calhoun monument Mr. Lamar
explained: "In 1789 the
States were the creators of the Federal Government;
in 1861 the Federal
Government was the creator of a large majority
of the States."
When we consider the public domain from the
point of view of the sale
and disposal of the public lands we are again
brought face to face with
the frontier. The policy of the United States
in dealing with its lands
is in sharp contrast with the European system
of scientific
administration. Efforts to make this domain
a source of revenue, and to
withhold it from emigrants in order that settlement
might be compact,
were in vain. The jealousy and the fears of
the East were powerless in
the face of the demands of the frontiersmen.
John Quincy Adams was
obliged to confess: "My own system of administration,
which was to make
the national domain the inexhaustible fund
for progressive and unceasing
internal improvement, has failed." The reason
is obvious; a system of
administration was not what the West demanded;
it wanted land. Adams
states the situation as follows: "The slaveholders
of the South have
bought the coöperation of the western country
by the bribe of the
western lands, abandoning to the new Western
States their own proportion
of the public property and aiding them in
the design of grasping all the
lands into their own hands." Thomas H. Benton
was the author of this
system, which he brought forward as a substitute
for the American system
of Mr. Clay, and to supplant him as the leading
statesman of the West.
Mr. Clay, by his tariff compromise with Mr.
Calhoun, abandoned his own
American system. At the same time he brought
forward a plan for
distributing among all the States of the Union
the proceeds of the sales
of the public lands. His bill for that purpose
passed both Houses of
Congress, but was vetoed by President Jackson,
who, in his annual
message of December, 1832, formally recommended
that all public lands
should be gratuitously given away to individual
adventurers and to the
States in which the lands are situated.[26:1]
"No subject," said Henry Clay, "which has
presented itself to the
present, or perhaps any preceding, Congress,
is of greater magnitude
than that of the public lands." When we consider
the far-reaching
effects of the government's land policy upon
political, economic, and
social aspects of American life, we are disposed
to agree with him. But
this legislation was framed under frontier
influences, and under the
lead of Western statesmen like Benton and
Jackson. Said Senator Scott of
Indiana in 1841: "I consider the preëmption
law merely declaratory of
the custom or common law of the settlers."
It is safe to say that the legislation with
regard to land, tariff, and
internal improvements--the American system
of the nationalizing Whig
party--was conditioned on frontier ideas and
needs. But it was not
merely in legislative action that the frontier
worked against the
sectionalism of the coast. The economic and
social characteristics of
the frontier worked against sectionalism.
The men of the frontier had
closer resemblances to the Middle region than
to either of the other
sections. Pennsylvania had been the seed-plot
of frontier emigration,
and, although she passed on her settlers along
the Great Valley into the
west of Virginia and the Carolinas, yet the
industrial society of these
Southern frontiersmen was always more like
that of the Middle region
than like that of the tide-water portion of
the South, which later came
to spread its industrial type throughout the
South.
The Middle region, entered by New York harbor,
was an open door to all
Europe. The tide-water part of the South represented
typical Englishmen,
modified by a warm climate and servile labor,
and living in baronial
fashion on great plantations; New England
stood for a special English
movement--Puritanism. The Middle region was
less English than the other
sections. It had a wide mixture of nationalities,
a varied society, the
mixed town and county system of local government,
a varied economic
life, many religious sects. In short, it was
a region mediating between
New England and the South, and the East and
the West. It represented
that composite nationality which the contemporary
United States
exhibits, that juxtaposition of non-English
groups, occupying a valley
or a little settlement, and presenting reflections
of the map of Europe
in their variety. It was democratic and nonsectional,
if not national;
"easy, tolerant, and contented;" rooted strongly
in material prosperity.
It was typical of the modern United States.
It was least sectional, not
only because it lay between North and South,
but also because with no
barriers to shut out its frontiers from its
settled region, and with a
system of connecting waterways, the Middle
region mediated between East
and West as well as between North and South.
Thus it became the
typically American region. Even the New Englander,
who was shut out from
the frontier by the Middle region, tarrying
in New York or Pennsylvania
on his westward march, lost the acuteness
of his sectionalism on the
way.[28:1]
The spread of cotton culture into the interior
of the South finally
broke down the contrast between the "tide-water"
region and the rest of
the State, and based Southern interests on
slavery. Before this process
revealed its results the western portion of
the South, which was akin to
Pennsylvania in stock, society, and industry,
showed tendencies to fall
away from the faith of the fathers into internal
improvement legislation
and nationalism. In the Virginia convention
of 1829-30, called to revise
the constitution, Mr. Leigh, of Chesterfield,
one of the tide-water
counties, declared:
One of the main causes of discontent which
led to this
convention, that which had the strongest influence
in
overcoming our veneration for the work of
our fathers, which
taught us to contemn the sentiments of Henry
and Mason and
Pendleton, which weaned us from our reverence
for the
constituted authorities of the State, was
an overweening
passion for internal improvement. I say this
with perfect
knowledge, for it has been avowed to me by
gentlemen from the
West over and over again. And let me tell
the gentleman from
Albemarle (Mr. Gordon) that it has been another
principal
object of those who set this ball of revolution
in motion, to
overturn the doctrine of State rights, of
which Virginia has
been the very pillar, and to remove the barrier
she has
interposed to the interference of the Federal
Government in
that same work of internal improvement, by
so reorganizing the
legislature that Virginia, too, may be hitched
to the Federal
car.
It was this nationalizing tendency of the
West that transformed the
democracy of Jefferson into the national republicanism
of Monroe and the
democracy of Andrew Jackson. The West of the
War of 1812, the West of
Clay, and Benton and Harrison, and Andrew
Jackson, shut off by the
Middle States and the mountains from the coast
sections, had a
solidarity of its own with national tendencies.[29:1]
On the tide of the
Father of Waters, North and South met and
mingled into a nation.
Interstate migration went steadily on--a process
of cross-fertilization
of ideas and institutions. The fierce struggle
of the sections over
slavery on the western frontier does not diminish
the truth of this
statement; it proves the truth of it. Slavery
was a sectional trait that
would not down, but in the West it could not
remain sectional. It was
the greatest of frontiersmen who declared:
"I believe this Government
can not endure permanently half slave and
half free. It will become all
of one thing or all of the other." Nothing
works for nationalism like
intercourse within the nation. Mobility of
population is death to
localism, and the western frontier worked
irresistibly in unsettling
population. The effect reached back from the
frontier and affected
profoundly the Atlantic coast and even the
Old World.
But the most important effect of the frontier
has been in the promotion
of democracy here and in Europe. As has been
indicated, the frontier is
productive of individualism. Complex society
is precipitated by the
wilderness into a kind of primitive organization
based on the family.
The tendency is anti-social. It produces antipathy
to control, and
particularly to any direct control. The tax-gatherer
is viewed as a
representative of oppression. Prof. Osgood,
in an able article,[30:1]
has pointed out that the frontier conditions
prevalent in the colonies
are important factors in the explanation of
the American Revolution,
where individual liberty was sometimes confused
with absence of all
effective government. The same conditions
aid in explaining the
difficulty of instituting a strong government
in the period of the
confederacy. The frontier individualism has
from the beginning promoted
democracy.
The frontier States that came into the Union
in the first quarter of a
century of its existence came in with democratic
suffrage provisions,
and had reactive effects of the highest importance
upon the older States
whose peoples were being attracted there.
An extension of the franchise
became essential. It was _western_ New York
that forced an extension of
suffrage in the constitutional convention
of that State in 1821; and it
was _western_ Virginia that compelled the
tide-water region to put a
more liberal suffrage provision in the constitution
framed in 1830, and
to give to the frontier region a more nearly
proportionate
representation with the tide-water aristocracy.
The rise of democracy as
an effective force in the nation came in with
western preponderance
under Jackson and William Henry Harrison,
and it meant the triumph of
the frontier--with all of its good and with
all of its evil
elements.[31:1] An interesting illustration
of the tone of frontier
democracy in 1830 comes from the same debates
in the Virginia convention
already referred to. A representative from
western Virginia declared:
But, sir, it is not the increase of population
in the West
which this gentleman ought to fear. It is
the energy which the
mountain breeze and western habits impart
to those emigrants.
They are regenerated, politically I mean,
sir. They soon
become _working politicians_; and the difference,
sir, between
a _talking_ and a _working_ politician is
immense. The Old
Dominion has long been celebrated for producing
great orators;
the ablest metaphysicians in policy; men that
can split hairs
in all abstruse questions of political economy.
But at home,
or when they return from Congress, they have
negroes to fan
them asleep. But a Pennsylvania, a New York,
an Ohio, or a
western Virginia statesman, though far inferior
in logic,
metaphysics, and rhetoric to an old Virginia
statesman, has
this advantage, that when he returns home
he takes off his
coat and takes hold of the plow. This gives
him bone and
muscle, sir, and preserves his republican
principles pure and
uncontaminated.
So long as free land exists, the opportunity
for a competency exists,
and economic power secures political power.
But the democracy born of
free land, strong in selfishness and individualism,
intolerant of
administrative experience and education, and
pressing individual liberty
beyond its proper bounds, has its dangers
as well as its benefits.
Individualism in America has allowed a laxity
in regard to governmental
affairs which has rendered possible the spoils
system and all the
manifest evils that follow from the lack of
a highly developed civic
spirit. In this connection may be noted also
the influence of frontier
conditions in permitting lax business honor,
inflated paper currency and
wild-cat banking. The colonial and revolutionary
frontier was the region
whence emanated many of the worst forms of
an evil currency.[32:1] The
West in the War of 1812 repeated the phenomenon
on the frontier
of that
day, while the speculation and wild-cat banking
of the period of the
crisis of 1837 occurred on the new frontier
belt of the next tier of
States. Thus each one of the periods of lax
financial integrity
coincides with periods when a new set of frontier
communities had
arisen, and coincides in area with these successive
frontiers, for the
most part. The recent Populist agitation is
a case in point. Many a
State that now declines any connection with
the tenets of the Populists,
itself adhered to such ideas in an earlier
stage of the development of
the State. A primitive society can hardly
be expected to show the
intelligent appreciation of the complexity
of business interests in a
developed society. The continual recurrence
of these areas of
paper-money agitation is another evidence
that the frontier can be
isolated and studied as a factor in American
history of the highest
importance.[32:2]
The East has always feared the result of an
unregulated advance of the
frontier, and has tried to check and guide
it. The English authorities
would have checked settlement at the headwaters
of the Atlantic
tributaries and allowed the "savages to enjoy
their deserts in quiet
lest the peltry trade should decrease." This
called out Burke's splendid
protest:
If you stopped your grants, what would be
the consequence? The
people would occupy without grants. They have
already so
occupied in many places. You can not station
garrisons in
every part of these deserts. If you drive
the people from one
place, they will carry on their annual tillage
and remove with
their flocks and herds to another. Many of
the people in the
back settlements are already little attached
to particular
situations. Already they have topped the Appalachian
Mountains. From thence they behold before
them an immense
plain, one vast, rich, level meadow; a square
of five hundred
miles. Over this they would wander without
a possibility of
restraint; they would change their manners
with their habits
of life; would soon forget a government by
which they were
disowned; would become hordes of English Tartars;
and, pouring
down upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce
and irresistible
cavalry, become masters of your governors
and your
counselers, your collectors and comptrollers,
and of all the
slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and
in no long time
must, be the effect of attempting to forbid
as a crime and to
suppress as an evil the command and blessing
of Providence,
"Increase and multiply." Such would be the
happy result of an
endeavor to keep as a lair of wild beasts
that earth which
God, by an express charter, has given to the
children of men.
But the English Government was not alone in
its desire to limit the
advance of the frontier and guide its destinies.
Tidewater
Virginia[34:1] and South Carolina[34:2] gerrymandered
those colonies to
insure the dominance of the coast in their
legislatures. Washington
desired to settle a State at a time in the
Northwest; Jefferson would
reserve from settlement the territory of his
Louisiana Purchase north of
the thirty-second parallel, in order to offer
it to the Indians in
exchange for their settlements east of the
Mississippi. "When we shall
be full on this side," he writes, "we may
lay off a range of States on
the western bank from the head to the mouth,
and so range after range,
advancing compactly as we multiply." Madison
went so far as to argue to
the French minister that the United States
had no interest in seeing
population extend itself on the right bank
of the Mississippi, but
should rather fear it. When the Oregon question
was under debate, in
1824, Smyth, of Virginia, would draw an unchangeable
line for the limits
of the United States at the outer limit of
two tiers of States beyond
the Mississippi, complaining that the seaboard
States were being drained
of the flower of their population by the bringing
of too much land into
market. Even Thomas Benton, the man of widest
views of the destiny of
the West, at this stage of his career declared
that along the ridge of
the Rocky mountains "the western limits of
the Republic should be drawn,
and the statue of the fabled god Terminus
should be raised upon its
highest peak, never to be thrown down."[35:1]
But the attempts to limit
the boundaries, to restrict land sales and
settlement, and to deprive
the West of its share of political power were
all in vain. Steadily the
frontier of settlement advanced and carried
with it individualism,
democracy, and nationalism, and powerfully
affected the East and the Old
World.
The most effective efforts of the East to
regulate the frontier came
through its educational and religious activity,
exerted by interstate
migration and by organized societies. Speaking
in 1835, Dr. Lyman
Beecher declared: "It is equally plain that
the religious and political
destiny of our nation is to be decided in
the West," and he pointed out
that the population of the West "is assembled
from all the States of the
Union and from all the nations of Europe,
and is rushing in like the
waters of the flood, demanding for its moral
preservation the immediate
and universal action of those institutions
which discipline the mind and
arm the conscience and the heart. And so various
are the opinions and
habits, and so recent and imperfect is the
acquaintance, and so sparse
are the settlements of the West, that no homogeneous
public sentiment
can be formed to legislate immediately into
being the requisite
institutions. And yet they are all needed
immediately in their utmost
perfection and power. A nation is being 'born
in a day.' . . . But what
will become of the West if her prosperity
rushes up to such a majesty of
power, while those great institutions linger
which are necessary to form
the mind and the conscience and the heart
of that vast world. It must
not be permitted. . . . Let no man at the
East quiet himself and dream
of liberty, whatever may become of the West.
. . . Her destiny is our
destiny."[36:1]
With the appeal to the conscience of New England,
he adds appeals to her
fears lest other religious sects anticipate
her own. The New England
preacher and school-teacher left their mark
on the West. The dread of
Western emancipation from New England's political
and economic control
was paralleled by her fears lest the West
cut loose from her religion.
Commenting in 1850 on reports that settlement
was rapidly extending
northward in Wisconsin, the editor of the
_Home Missionary_ writes: "We
scarcely know whether to rejoice or mourn
over this extension of our
settlements. While we sympathize in whatever
tends to increase the
physical resources and prosperity of our country,
we can not forget that
with all these dispersions into remote and
still remoter corners of the
land the supply of the means of grace is becoming
relatively less and
less." Acting in accordance with such ideas,
home missions were
established and Western colleges were erected.
As seaboard cities like
Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore strove
for the mastery of Western
trade, so the various denominations strove
for the possession of the
West. Thus an intellectual stream from New
England sources fertilized
the West. Other sections sent their missionaries;
but the real struggle
was between sects. The contest for power and
the expansive tendency
furnished to the various sects by the existence
of a moving frontier
must have had important results on the character
of religious
organization in the United States. The multiplication
of rival churches
in the little frontier towns had deep and
lasting social effects. The
religious aspects of the frontier make a chapter
in our history which
needs study.
From the conditions of frontier life came
intellectual traits of
profound importance. The works of travelers
along each frontier from
colonial days onward describe certain common
traits, and these traits
have, while softening down, still persisted
as survivals in the place of
their origin, even when a higher social organization
succeeded. The
result is that to the frontier the American
intellect owes its striking
characteristics. That coarseness and strength
combined with acuteness
and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive
turn of mind, quick to
find expedients; that masterful grasp of material
things, lacking in the
artistic but powerful to effect great ends;
that restless, nervous
energy;[37:1] that dominant individualism,
working for good and for
evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance
which comes with
freedom--these are traits of the frontier,
or traits called out
elsewhere because
of the existence of the frontier. Since the
days when
the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters
of the New World, America
has been another name for opportunity, and
the people of the United
States have taken their tone from the incessant
expansion which has not
only been open but has even been forced upon
them. He would be a rash
prophet who should assert that the expansive
character of American life
has now entirely ceased. Movement has been
its dominant fact, and,
unless this training has no effect upon a
people, the American energy
will continually demand a wider field for
its exercise. But never again
will such gifts of free land offer themselves.
For a moment, at the
frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and
unrestraint is triumphant.
There is not _tabula rasa_. The stubborn American
environment is there
with its imperious summons to accept its conditions;
the inherited ways
of doing things are also there; and yet, in
spite of environment, and in
spite of custom, each frontier did indeed
furnish a new field of
opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage
of the past; and
freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older
society, impatience of its
restraints and its ideas, and indifference
to its lessons, have
accompanied the frontier. What the Mediterranean
Sea was to the Greeks,
breaking the bond of custom, offering new
experiences, calling out new
institutions and activities, that, and more,
the ever retreating
frontier has been to the United States directly,
and to the nations of
Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries
from the discovery of
America, at the end of a hundred years of
life under the Constitution,
the frontier has gone, and with its going
has closed the first period of
American history.
FOOTNOTES:
[1:1] A paper read at the meeting of the American
Historical Association
in Chicago, July 12, 1893. It first appeared
in the Proceedings of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December
14, 1893, with the
following note: "The foundation of this paper
is my article entitled
'Problems in American History,' which appeared
in _The Ægis_, a
publication of the students of the University
of Wisconsin, November 4,
1892. . . . It is gratifying to find that
Professor Woodrow
Wilson--whose volume on 'Division and Reunion'
in the Epochs of American
History Series, has an appreciative estimate
of the importance of the
West as a factor in American history--accepts
some of the views set
forth in the papers above mentioned, and enhances
their value by his
lucid and suggestive treatment of them in
his article in _The Forum_,
December, 1893, reviewing Goldwin Smith's
'History of the United
States.'" The present text is that of the
_Report of the American
Historical Association_ for 1893, 199-227.
It was printed with additions
in the _Fifth Year Book of the National Herbart
Society_, and in various
other publications.
[2:1] "Abridgment of Debates of Congress,"
v, p. 706.
[5:1] Bancroft (1860 ed.), iii, pp. 344, 345,
citing Logan MSS.;
[Mitchell] "Contest in America," etc. (1752),
p. 237.
[5:2] Kercheval, "History of the Valley";
Bernheim, "German Settlements
in the Carolinas"; Winsor, "Narrative and
Critical History of America,"
v, p. 304; Colonial Records of North Carolina,
iv, p. xx; Weston,
"Documents Connected with the History of South
Carolina," p. 82; Ellis
and Evans, "History of Lancaster County, Pa.,"
chs. iii, xxvi.
[5:3] Parkman, "Pontiac," ii; Griffis, "Sir
William Johnson," p. 6;
Simms's "Frontiersmen of New York."
[5:4] Monette, "Mississippi Valley," i, p.
311.
[5:5] Wis. Hist. Cols., xi, p. 50; Hinsdale,
"Old Northwest," p. 121;
Burke, "Oration on Conciliation," Works (1872
ed.), i, p. 473.
[5:6] Roosevelt, "Winning of the West," and
citations there given;
Cutler's "Life of Cutler."
[6:1] Scribner's Statistical Atlas, xxxviii,
pl. 13; McMaster, "Hist. of
People of U. S.," i, pp. 4, 60, 61; Imlay
and Filson, "Western Territory
of America" (London, 1793); Rochefoucault-Liancourt,
"Travels Through
the United States of North America" (London,
1799); Michaux's "Journal,"
in _Proceedings American Philosophical Society_,
xxvi, No. 129; Forman,
"Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and
Mississippi in 1780-'90"
(Cincinnati, 1888); Bartram, "Travels Through
North Carolina," etc.
(London, 1792); Pope, "Tour Through the Southern
and Western
Territories," etc. (Richmond, 1792); Weld,
"Travels Through the States
of North America" (London, 1799); Baily, "Journal
of a Tour in the
Unsettled States of North America, 1796-'97"
(London, 1856);
Pennsylvania Magazine of History, July, 1886;
Winsor, "Narrative and
Critical History of America," vii, pp. 491,
492, citations.
[6:2] Scribner's Statistical Atlas, xxxix.
[6:3] Turner, "Character and Influence of
the Indian Trade in Wisconsin"
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series
ix), pp. 61 ff.
[7:1] Monette, "History of the Mississippi
Valley," ii; Flint, "Travels
and Residence in Mississippi," Flint, "Geography
and History of the
Western States," "Abridgment of Debates of
Congress," vii, pp. 397, 398,
404; Holmes, "Account of the U. S."; Kingdom,
"America and the British
Colonies" (London, 1820); Grund, "Americans,"
ii, chs. i, iii, vi
(although writing in 1836, he treats of conditions
that grew out of
western advance from the era of 1820 to that
time); Peck, "Guide for
Emigrants" (Boston, 1831); Darby, "Emigrants'
Guide to Western and
Southwestern States and Territories"; Dana,
"Geographical Sketches in
the Western Country"; Kinzie, "Waubun"; Keating,
"Narrative of Long's
Expedition"; Schoolcraft, "Discovery of the
Sources of the Mississippi
River," "Travels in the Central Portions of
the Mississippi Valley," and
"Lead Mines of the Missouri"; Andreas, "History
of Illinois," i, 86-99;
Hurlbut, "Chicago Antiquities"; McKenney,
"Tour to the Lakes"; Thomas,
"Travels Through the Western Country," etc.
(Auburn, N. Y., 1819).
[7:2] Darby, "Emigrants' Guide," pp. 272 ff;
Benton, "Abridgment of
Debates," vii, p. 397.
[7:3] De Bow's _Review_, iv, p. 254; xvii,
p. 428.
[7:4] Grund, "Americans," ii, p. 8.
[8:1] Peck, "New Guide to the West" (Cincinnati,
1848), ch. iv; Parkman,
"Oregon Trail"; Hall, "The West" (Cincinnati,
1848); Pierce, "Incidents
of Western Travel"; Murray, "Travels in North
America"; Lloyd,
"Steamboat Directory" (Cincinnati, 1856);
"Forty Days in a Western
Hotel" (Chicago), in _Putnam's Magazine_,
December, 1894; Mackay, "The
Western World," ii, ch. ii, iii; Meeker, "Life
in the West"; Bogen,
"German in America" (Boston, 1851); Olmstead,
"Texas Journey"; Greeley,
"Recollections of a Busy Life"; Schouler,
"History of the United
States," v, 261-267; Peyton, "Over the Alleghanies
and Across the
Prairies" (London, 1870); Loughborough, "The
Pacific Telegraph and
Railway" (St. Louis, 1849); Whitney, "Project
for a Railroad to the
Pacific" (New York, 1849); Peyton, "Suggestions
on Railroad
Communication with the Pacific, and the Trade
of China and the Indian
Islands"; Benton, "Highway to the Pacific"
(a speech delivered in the U.
S. Senate, December 16, 1850).
[8:2] A writer in _The Home Missionary_ (1850),
p. 239, reporting
Wisconsin conditions, exclaims: "Think of
this, people of the
enlightened East. What an example, to come
from the very frontier of
civilization!" But one of the missionaries
writes: "In a few years
Wisconsin will no longer be considered as
the West, or as an outpost of
civilization, any more than Western New York,
or the Western Reserve."
[8:3] Bancroft (H. H.), "History of California,"
"History of Oregon,"
and "Popular Tribunals"; Shinn, "Mining Camps."
[10:1] See the suggestive paper by Prof. Jesse
Macy, "The Institutional
Beginnings of a Western State."
[10:2] Shinn, "Mining Camps."
[10:3] Compare Thorpe, in _Annals American
Academy of Political and
Social Science_, September, 1891; Bryce, "American
Commonwealth" (1888),
ii, p. 689.
[11:1] Loria, Analisi della Proprieta Capitalista,
ii, p. 15.
[11:2] Compare "Observations on the North
American Land Company,"
London, 1796, pp. xv, 144; Logan, "History
of Upper South Carolina," i,
pp. 149-151; Turner, "Character and Influence
of Indian Trade in
Wisconsin," p. 18; Peck, "New Guide for Emigrants"
(Boston, 1837), ch.
iv; "Compendium Eleventh Census," i, p. xl.
[12:1] See _post_, for illustrations of the
political accompaniments of
changed industrial conditions.
[13:1] But Lewis and Clark were the first
to explore the route from the
Missouri to the Columbia.
[14:1] "Narrative and Critical History of
America," viii, p. 10; Sparks'
"Washington Works," ix, pp. 303, 327; Logan,
"History of Upper South
Carolina," i; McDonald, "Life of Kenton,"
p. 72; Cong. Record, xxiii, p.
57.
[15:1] On the effect of the fur trade in opening
the routes of
migration, see the author's "Character and
Influence of the Indian Trade
in Wisconsin."
[16:1] Lodge, "English Colonies," p. 152 and
citations; Logan, "Hist. of
Upper South Carolina," i, p. 151.
[16:2] Flint, "Recollections," p. 9.
[16:3] See Monette, "Mississippi Valley,"
i, p. 344.
[17:1] Coues', "Lewis and Clark's Expedition,"
i, pp. 2, 253-259;
Benton, in Cong. Record, xxiii, p. 57.
[17:2] Hehn, _Das Salz_ (Berlin, 1873).
[17:3] Col. Records of N. C., v, p. 3.
[17:4] Findley, "History of the Insurrection
in the Four Western
Counties of Pennsylvania in the Year 1794"
(Philadelphia, 1796), p. 35.
[19:1] Hale, "Daniel Boone" (pamphlet).
[21:1] Compare Baily, "Tour in the Unsettled
Parts of North America"
(London, 1856), pp. 217-219, where a similar
analysis is made for 1796.
See also Collot, "Journey in North America"
(Paris, 1826), p. 109;
"Observations on the North American Land Company"
(London, 1796), pp.
xv, 144; Logan, "History of Upper South Carolina."
[22:1] "Spotswood Papers," in Collections
of Virginia Historical
Society, i, ii.
[23:1] [Burke], "European Settlements" (1765
ed.), ii, p. 200.
[23:2] Everest, in "Wisconsin Historical Collections,"
xii, pp. 7 ff.
[23:3] Weston, "Documents connected with History
of South Carolina," p.
61.
[25:1] See, for example, the speech of Clay,
in the House of
Representatives, January 30, 1824.
[25:2] See the admirable monograph by Prof.
H. B. Adams, "Maryland's
Influence on the Land Cessions"; and also
President Welling, in Papers
American Historical Association, iii, p. 411.
[26:1] Adams' Memoirs, ix, pp. 247, 248.
[28:1] Author's article in _The Ægis_ (Madison,
Wis.), November 4, 1892.
[29:1] Compare Roosevelt, "Thomas Benton,"
ch. i.
[30:1] _Political Science Quarterly_, ii,
p. 457. Compare Sumner,
"Alexander Hamilton," chs. ii-vii.
[31:1] Compare Wilson, "Division and Reunion,"
pp. 15, 24.
[32:1] On the relation of frontier conditions
to Revolutionary taxation,
see Sumner, Alexander Hamilton, ch. iii.
[32:2] I have refrained from dwelling on the
lawless characteristics of
the frontier, because they are sufficiently
well known. The gambler and
desperado, the regulators of the Carolinas
and the vigilantes of
California, are types of that line of scum
that the waves of advancing
civilization bore before them, and of the
growth of spontaneous organs
of authority where legal authority was absent.
Compare Barrows, "United
States of Yesterday and To-morrow"; Shinn,
"Mining Camps"; and Bancroft,
"Popular Tribunals." The humor, bravery, and
rude strength, as well as
the vices of the frontier in its worst aspect,
have left traces on
American character, language, and literature,
not soon to be effaced.
[34:1] Debates in the Constitutional Convention,
1829-1830.
[34:2] [McCrady] Eminent and Representative
Men of the Carolinas, i, p.
43; Calhoun's Works, i, pp. 401-406.
[35:1] Speech in the Senate, March 1, 1825;
Register of Debates, i, 721.
[36:1] Plea for the West (Cincinnati, 1835),
pp. 11 ff.
[37:1] Colonial travelers agree in remarking
on the phlegmatic
characteristics of the colonists. It has frequently
been asked how such
a people could have developed that strained
nervous energy now
characteristic of them. Compare Sumner, "Alexander
Hamilton," p. 98, and
Adams, "History of the United States," i,
p. 60; ix, pp. 240, 241. The
transition appears to become marked at the
close of the War of 1812, a
period when interest centered upon the development
of the West, and the
West was noted for restless energy. Grund,
"Americans," ii, ch. i.
II
THE FIRST OFFICIAL FRONTIER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS
BAY[39:1]
In the Significance of the "Frontier in American
History," I took for my
text the following announcement of the Superintendent
of the Census of
1890:
Up to and including 1880 the country had a
frontier of
settlement but at present the unsettled area
has been so
broken into by isolated bodies of settlement
that there can
hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the
discussion of its
extent, the westward movement, etc., it cannot
therefore any
longer have a place in the census reports.
Two centuries prior to this announcement,
in 1690, a committee of the
General Court of Massachusetts recommended
the Court to order what shall
be the frontier and to maintain a committee
to settle garrisons on the
frontier with forty soldiers to each frontier
town as a main
guard.[39:2] In the two hundred years between
this official attempt to
locate the Massachusetts frontier line, and
the official announcement of
the ending of the national frontier line,
westward expansion was the
most important single process in American
history.
The designation "frontier town" was not, however,
a new one. As early as
1645 inhabitants of Concord, Sudbury, and
Dedham, "being inland townes
& but thinly peopled," were forbidden to remove
without authority;[40:1]
in 1669, certain towns had been the subject
of legislation as "frontier
towns;"[40:2] and in the period of King Philip's
War there were various
enactments regarding frontier towns.[40:3]
In the session of 1675-6 it
had been proposed to build a fence of stockades
or stone eight feet high
from the Charles "where it is navigable" to
the Concord at Billerica and
thence to the Merrimac and down the river
to the Bay, "by which meanes
that whole tract will [be] environed, for
the security & safty (vnder
God) of the people, their houses, goods & cattel;
from the rage & fury
of the enimy."[40:4] This project, however,
of a kind of Roman Wall did
not appeal to the frontiersmen of the time.
It was a part of the
antiquated ideas of defense which had been
illustrated by the impossible
equipment of the heavily armored soldier of
the early Puritan régime
whose corslets and head pieces, pikes, matchlocks,
fourquettes and
bandoleers, went out of use about the period
of King Philip's War. The
fifty-seven postures provided in the approved
manual of arms for loading
and firing the matchlock proved too great
a handicap in the chase of the
nimble savage. In this era the frontier fighter
adapted himself to a
more open order, and lighter equipment suggested
by the Indian warrior's
practice.[40:5]
The settler on the outskirts of Puritan civilization
took up the task of
bearing the brunt of attack and pushing forward
the line of advance
which year after year carried American settlements
into the wilderness.
In American thought and speech the term "frontier"
has come to mean the
edge of settlement, rather than, as in Europe,
the political boundary.
By 1690 it was already evident that the frontier
of settlement and the
frontier of military defense were coinciding.
As population advanced
into the wilderness and thus successively
brought new exposed areas
between the settlements on the one side and
the Indians with their
European backers on the other, the military
frontier ceased to be
thought of as the Atlantic coast, but rather
as a moving line bounding
the un-won wilderness. It could not be a fortified
boundary along the
charter limits, for those limits extended
to the South Sea, and
conflicted with the bounds of sister colonies.
The thing to be defended
was the outer edge of this expanding society,
a changing frontier, one
that needed designation and re-statement with
the changing location of
the "West."
It will help to illustrate the significance
of this new frontier when we
see that Virginia at about the same time as
Massachusetts underwent a
similar change and attempted to establish
frontier towns, or
"co-habitations," at the "heads," that is
the first falls, the vicinity
of Richmond, Petersburg, etc., of her rivers.[41:1]
The Virginia system of "particular plantations"
introduced along the
James at the close of the London Company's
activity had furnished a type
for the New England town. In recompense, at
this later day the New
England town may have furnished a model for
Virginia's efforts to create
frontier settlements by legislation.
An act of March 12, 1694-5, by the General
Court of Massachusetts
enumerated the "Frontier Towns" which the
inhabitants were forbidden to
desert on pain of loss of their lands (if
landholders) or of
imprisonment (if not landholders), unless
permission to remove were
first obtained.[42:1] These eleven frontier
towns included Wells, York,
and Kittery on the eastern frontier, and Amesbury,
Haverhill, Dunstable,
Chelmsford, Groton, Lancaster, Marlborough,[42:2]
and Deerfield. In
March, 1699-1700, the law was reënacted with
the addition of Brookfield,
Mendon, and Woodstock, together with seven
others, Salisbury,
Andover,[42:3] Billerica, Hatfield, Hadley,
Westfield, and Northampton,
which, "tho' they be not frontiers as those
towns first named, yet lye
more open than many others to an attack of
an Enemy."[42:4]
In the spring of 1704 the General Court of
Connecticut, following
closely the act of Massachusetts, named as
her frontier towns, not to
be deserted, Symsbury, Waterbury, Danbury,
Colchester, Windham,
Mansfield, and Plainfield.
Thus about the close of the seventeenth and
the beginning of the
eighteenth century there was an officially
designated frontier line for
New England. The line passing through these
enumerated towns represents:
(1) the outskirts of settlement along the
eastern coast and up the
Merrimac and its tributaries,--a region threatened
from the Indian
country by way of the Winnepesaukee Lake;
(2) the end of the ribbon of
settlement up the Connecticut Valley, menaced
by the Canadian Indians by
way of the Lake Champlain and Winooski River
route to the Connecticut;
(3) boundary towns which marked the edges
of that inferior agricultural
region, where the hard crystalline rocks furnished
a later foundation
for Shays' Rebellion, opposition to the adoption
of the Federal
Constitution, and the abandoned farm; and
(4) the isolated intervale of
Brookfield which lay intermediate between
these frontiers.
Besides this New England frontier there was
a belt of settlement in New
York, ascending the Hudson to where Albany
and Schenectady served as
outposts against the Five Nations, who menaced
the Mohawk, and against
the French and the Canadian Indians, who threatened
the Hudson by way of
Lake Champlain and Lake George.[43:1] The
sinister relations of leading
citizens of Albany engaged in the fur trade
with these Indians, even
during time of war, tended to protect the
Hudson River frontier at the
expense of the frontier towns of New England.
The common sequence of frontier types (fur
trader, cattle-raising
pioneer, small primitive farmer, and the farmer
engaged in intensive
varied agriculture to produce a surplus for
export) had appeared, though
confusedly, in New England. The traders and
their posts had prepared the
way for the frontier towns,[44:1] and the
cattle industry was most
important to the early farmers.[44:2] But
the stages succeeded rapidly
and intermingled. After King Philip's War,
while Albany was still in the
fur-trading stage, the New England frontier
towns were rather like mark
colonies, military-agricultural outposts against
the Indian enemy.
The story of the border warfare between Canada
and the frontier towns
furnishes ample material for studying frontier
life and institutions;
but I shall not attempt to deal with the narrative
of the wars. The
palisaded meeting-house square, the fortified
isolated garrison houses,
the massacres and captivities are familiar
features of New England's
history. The Indian was a very real influence
upon the mind and morals
as well as upon the institutions of frontier
New England. The occasional
instances of Puritans returning from captivity
to visit the frontier
towns, Catholic in religion, painted and garbed
as Indians and speaking
the Indian tongue,[44:3] and the half-breed
children of captive Puritan
mothers, tell a sensational part of the story;
but in the normal, as
well as in such exceptional relations of the
frontier townsmen to the
Indians, there are clear evidences of the
transforming influence of the
Indian frontier upon the Puritan type of English
colonist.
In 1703-4, for example, the General Court
of Massachusetts ordered five
hundred pairs of snowshoes and an equal number
of moccasins for use in
specified counties "lying Frontier next to
the Wilderness."[45:1]
Connecticut in 1704 after referring to her
frontier towns and garrisons
ordered that "said company of English and
Indians shall, from time to
time at the discretion of their chief co[=m]ander,
range the woods to
indevour the discovery of an approaching enemy,
and in especiall manner
from Westfield to Ousatunnuck.[45:2] . . . And
for the incouragement of
our forces gone or going against the enemy,
this Court will allow out of
the publick treasurie the su[=m]e of five
pounds for every mans scalp of
the enemy killed in this Colonie."[45:3] Massachusetts
offered bounties
for scalps, varying in amount according to
whether the scalp was of men,
or women and youths, and whether it was taken
by regular forces under
pay, volunteers in service, or volunteers
without pay.[45:4] One of the
most striking phases of frontier adjustment,
was the proposal of the
Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton in the
fall of 1703, urging the use
of dogs "to hunt Indians as they do Bears."
The argument was that the
dogs would catch many an Indian who would
be too light of foot for the
townsmen, nor was it to be thought of as inhuman;
for the Indians "act
like wolves and are to be dealt with as wolves."[45:5]
In fact
Massachusetts passed an act in 1706 for the
raising and increasing of
dogs for the better security of the frontiers,
and both Massachusetts
and Connecticut in 1708 paid money from their
treasury for the trailing
of dogs.[46:1]
Thus we come to familiar ground: the Massachusetts
frontiersman like his
western successor hated the Indians; the "tawney
serpents," of Cotton
Mather's phrase, were to be hunted down and
scalped in accord with law
and, in at least one instance by the chaplain
himself, a Harvard
graduate, the hero of the Ballad of Pigwacket,
who
many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalp'd when bullets round
him flew.[46:2]
Within the area bounded by the frontier line,
were the broken fragments
of Indians defeated in the era of King Philip's
War, restrained within
reservations, drunken and degenerate survivors,
among whom the
missionaries worked with small results, a
vexation to the border
towns,[46:3] as they were in the case of later
frontiers. Although, as
has been said, the frontier towns had scattered
garrison houses, and
palisaded enclosures similar to the neighborhood
forts, or stations, of
Kentucky in the Revolution, and of Indiana
and Illinois in the War of
1812, one difference is particularly noteworthy.
In the case of
frontiersmen who came down from Pennsylvania
into the Upland South along
the eastern edge of the Alleghanies, as well
as in the more obvious case
of the backwoodsmen of Kentucky and Tennessee,
the frontier towns were
too isolated from the main settled regions
to allow much military
protection by the older areas. On the New
England frontier, because it
was adjacent to the coast towns, this was
not the case, and here, as in
seventeenth century Virginia, great activity
in protecting the frontier
was evinced by the colonial authorities, and
the frontier towns
themselves called loudly for assistance. This
phase of frontier defense
needs a special study, but at present it is
sufficient to recall that
the colony sent garrisons to the frontier
besides using the militia of
the frontier towns; and that it employed rangers
to patrol from garrison
to garrison.[47:1]
These were prototypes of the regular army
post, and of rangers,
dragoons, cavalry and mounted police who have
carried the remoter
military frontier forward. It is possible
to trace this military cordon
from New England to the Carolinas early in
the eighteenth century, still
neighboring the coast; by 1840 it ran from
Fort Snelling on the upper
Mississippi through various posts to the Sabine
boundary of Texas, and
so it passed forward until to-day it lies
at the edge of Mexico and the
Pacific Ocean.
A few examples of frontier appeals for garrison
aid will help to an
understanding of the early form of the military
frontier. Wells asks,
June 30, 1689:
1 That yo{r} Hon{rs} will please to send us
speedily twenty
Eight good brisk men that may be serviceable
as a guard to us
whilest we get in our Harvest of Hay & Corn,
(we being unable
to Defend ourselves & to Do our work), & also
to Persue &
destroy the Enemy as occasion may require
2 That these men may be compleatly furnished
with Arms,
Amunition & Provision, and that upon the Countrys
account, it
being a Generall War.[48:1]
Dunstable, "still weak and unable both to
keep our Garrisons and to send
out men to get hay for our Cattle; without
doeing which wee cannot
subsist," petitioned July 23, 1689, for twenty
footmen for a month "to
scout about the towne while wee get our hay."
Otherwise, they say, they
must be forced to leave.[48:2] Still more
indicative of this temper is
the petition of Lancaster, March 11, 1675-6,
to the Governor and
Council: "As God has made you father over
us so you will have a father's
pity to us." They asked a guard of men and
aid, without which they must
leave.[48:3] Deerfield pled in 1678 to the
General Court, "unlest you
will be pleased to take us (out of your fatherlike
pitty) and Cherish us
in yo{r} Bosomes we are like Suddainly to
breathe out o{r} Last
Breath."[48:4]
The perils of the time, the hardships of the
frontier towns and
readiness of this particular frontier to ask
appropriations for losses
and wounds,[48:5] are abundantly illustrated
in similar petitions from
other towns. One is tempted at times to attribute
the very frank
self-pity and dependent attitude to a minister's
phrasing, and to the
desire to secure remission of taxes, the latter
a frontier trait more
often associated with riot than with religion
in other regions.
As an example of various petitions the following
from Groton in 1704 is
suggestive. Here the minister's hand is probably
absent:
1 That wharas by the all dessposing hand of
god who orders all
things in infinit wisdom it is our portion
to liue In such a
part of the land which by reson of the enemy
Is becom vary
dangras as by wofull experiants we haue falt
both formarly and
of late to our grat damidg & discoridgment
and espashaly this
last yere hauing lost so many parsons som
killed som
captauated and som remoued and allso much
corn & cattell and
horses & hay wharby wee ar gratly Impouerrished
and brought
uary low & in a uary pore capasity to subsist
any longer As
the barers her of can inform your honors
2 And more then all this our paster mr hobard
is & hath been
for aboue a yere uncapable of desspansing
the ordinances of
god amongst us & we haue advised with th Raurant
Elders of our
nayboring churches and they aduise to hyare
another minister
and to saport mr hobard and to make our adras
to your honours
we haue but litel laft to pay our deus with
being so pore and
few In numbr ather to town or cuntrey & we
being a frantere
town & lyable to dangor there being no safty
in going out nor
coming in but for a long time we haue got
our brad with the
parel of our liues & allso broght uery low
by so grat a charg
of bilding garisons & fortefycations by ordur
of athorety &
thar is saural of our Inhabitants ramoued
out of town & others
are prouiding to remoue, axcapt somthing be
don for our
Incoridgment for we are so few & so por that
we canot pay two
ministors nathar ar we wiling to liue without
any we spand so
much time in waching and warding that we can
doe but litel els
& truly we haue liued allmost 2 yers more
like soulders then
other wise & accapt your honars can find out
some bater way
for our safty and support we cannot uphold
as a town ather by
remitting our tax or tow alow pay for building
the sauarall
forts alowed and ordred by athority or alls
to alow the one
half of our own Inhabitants to be under pay
or to grant
liberty for our remufe Into our naiburing
towns to tak cer for
oursalfs all which if your honors shall se
meet to grant you
will hereby gratly incoridg your humble pateceners
to conflect
with th many trubls we are ensadant unto.[50:1]
Forced together into houses for protection,
getting in their crops at
the peril of their lives, the frontier townsmen
felt it a hardship to
contribute also to the taxes of the province
while they helped to
protect the exposed frontier. In addition
there were grievances of
absentee proprietors who paid no town taxes
and yet profited by the
exertions of the frontiersmen; of that I shall
speak later.
If we were to trust to these petitions asking
favors from the government
of the colony, we might impute to these early
frontiersmen a degree of
submission to authority unlike that of other
frontiersmen,[51:1] and
indeed not wholly warranted by the facts.
Reading carefully, we find
that, however prudently phrased, the petitions
are in fact complaints
against taxation; demands for expenditures
by the colony in their
behalf; criticisms of absentee proprietors;
intimations that they may be
forced to abandon the frontier position so
essential to the defense of
the settled eastern country.
The spirit of military insubordination characteristic
of the frontier is
evident in the accounts of these towns, such
as Pynchon's in 1694,
complaining of the decay of the fortifications
at Hatfield, Hadley, and
Springfield: "the people a little wilful.
Inclined to doe when and how
they please or not at all."[51:2] Saltonstall
writes from Haverhill
about the same time regarding his ill success
in recruiting: "I will
never plead for an Haverhill man more," and
he begs that some meet
person be sent "to tell us what we should,
may or must do. I have
laboured in vain: some go this, and that,
and the other way at pleasure,
and do what they list."[51:3] This has a familiar
ring to the student of
the frontier.
As in the case of the later frontier also,
the existence of a common
danger on the borders of settlement tended
to consolidate not only the
towns of Massachusetts into united action
for defense, but also the
various colonies. The frontier was an incentive
to sectional combination
then as it was to nationalism afterward. When
in 1692 Connecticut sent
soldiers from her own colony to aid the Massachusetts
towns on the
Connecticut River,[52:1] she showed a realization
that the Deerfield
people, who were "in a sense in the enemy's
Mouth almost," as Pynchon
wrote, constituted her own frontier[52:2]
and that the facts of
geography were more compelling than arbitrary
colonial boundaries.
Thereby she also took a step that helped to
break down provincial
antagonisms. When in 1689 Massachusetts and
Connecticut sent agents to
Albany to join with New York in making presents
to the Indians of that
colony in order to engage their aid against
the French,[52:3] they
recognized (as their leaders put it) that
Albany was "the hinge" of the
frontier in this exposed quarter. In thanking
Connecticut for the
assistance furnished in 1690 Livingston said:
"I hope your honors do not
look upon Albany as Albany, but as the frontier
of your honor's Colony
and of all their Majesties countries."[52:4]
The very essence of the American frontier
is that it is the graphic line
which records the expansive energies of the
people behind it, and which
by the law of its own being continually draws
that advance after it to
new conquests. This is one of the most significant
things about New
England's frontier in these years. That long
blood-stained line of the
eastern frontier which skirted the Maine coast
was of great importance,
for it imparted a western tone to the life
and characteristics of the
Maine people which endures to this day, and
it was one line of advance
for New England toward the mouth of the St.
Lawrence, leading again and
again to diplomatic negotiations with the
powers that held that river.
The line of the towns that occupied the waters
of the Merrimac, tempted
the province continually into the wilderness
of New Hampshire. The
Connecticut river towns pressed steadily up
that stream, along its
tributaries into the Hoosatonic valleys, and
into the valleys between
the Green Mountains of Vermont. By the end
of 1723, the General Court of
Massachusetts enacted,--
That It will be of Great Service to all the
Western Frontiers,
both in this and the Neighboring Government
of Conn., to Build
a Block House above Northfield, in the most
convenient Place
on the Lands called the Equivilant Lands,
& to post in it
forty Able Men, English & Western Indians,
to be employed in
Scouting at a Good Distance up Conn. River,
West River, Otter
Creek, and sometimes Eastwardly above the
Great Manadnuck, for
the Discovery of the Enemy Coming towards
anny of the frontier
Towns.[53:1]
The "frontier Towns" were preparing to swarm.
It was not long before
Fort Dummer replaced "the Block House," and
the Berkshires and Vermont
became new frontiers.
The Hudson River likewise was recognized as
another line of advance
pointing the way to Lake Champlain and Montreal,
calling out demands
that protection should be secured by means
of an aggressive advance of
the frontier. _Canada delenda est_ became
the rallying cry in New
England as well as in New York, and combined
diplomatic pressure and
military expeditions followed in the French
and Indian wars and in the
Revolution, in which the children of the Connecticut
and Massachusetts
frontier towns, acclimated to Indian fighting,
followed Ethan Allen and
his fellows to the north.[54:1]
Having touched upon some of the military and
expansive tendencies of
this first official frontier, let us next
turn to its social, economic,
and political aspects. How far was this first
frontier a field for the
investment of eastern capital and for political
control by it? Were
there evidences of antagonism between the
frontier and the settled,
property-holding classes of the coast? Restless
democracy, resentfulness
over taxation and control, and recriminations
between the Western
pioneer and the Eastern capitalist, have been
characteristic features of
other frontiers: were similar phenomena in
evidence here? Did
"Populistic" tendencies appear in this frontier,
and were there
grievances which explained these tendencies?[54:2]
In such colonies as New York and Virginia
the land grants were often
made to members of the Council and their influential
friends, even when
there were actual settlers already on the
grants. In the case of New
England the land system is usually so described
as to give the
impression that it was based on a non-commercial
policy, creating new
Puritan towns by free grants of land made
in advance to approved
settlers. This description does not completely
fit the case. That there
was an economic interest on the part of absentee
proprietors, and that
men of political influence with the government
were often among the
grantees seems also to be true. Melville Egleston
states the case thus:
"The court was careful not to authorize new
plantations unless they were
to be in a measure under the influence of
men in whom confidence could
be placed, and commonly acted upon their application."[55:1]
The
frontier, as we shall observe later, was not
always disposed to see the
practice in so favorable a light.
New towns seem to have been the result in
some cases of the aggregation
of settlers upon and about a large private
grant; more often they
resulted from settlers in older towns, where
the town limits were
extensive, spreading out to the good lands
of the outskirts, beyond easy
access to the meeting-house, and then asking
recognition as a separate
town. In some cases they may have been due
to squatting on unassigned
lands, or purchasing the Indian title and
then asking confirmation. In
others grants were made in advance of settlement.
As early as 1636 the General Court had ordered
that none go to new
plantations without leave of a majority of
the magistrates.[55:2] This
made the legal situation clear, but it would
be dangerous to conclude
that it represented the actual situation.
In any case there would be a
necessity for the settlers finally to secure
the assent of the Court.
This could be facilitated by a grant to leading
men having political
influence with the magistrates. The complaints
of absentee proprietors
which find expression in the frontier petitions
of the seventeenth and
early eighteenth century seems to indicate
that this happened. In the
succeeding years of the eighteenth century
the grants to leading men and
the economic and political motives in the
grants are increasingly
evident. This whole topic should be made the
subject of special study.
What is here offered is merely suggestive
of a problem.[56:1]
The frontier settlers criticized the absentee
proprietors, who profited
by the pioneers' expenditure of labor and
blood upon their farms, while
they themselves enjoyed security in an eastern
town. A few examples from
town historians will illustrate this. Among
the towns of the Merrimac
Valley, Salisbury was planted on the basis
of a grant to a dozen
proprietors including such men as Mr. Bradstreet
and the younger Dudley,
only two of whom actually lived and died in
Salisbury.[56:2] Amesbury
was set off from Salisbury by division, one
half of the signers of the
agreement signing by mark. Haverhill was first
seated in 1641, following
petitions from Mr. Ward, the Ipswich minister,
his son-in-law, Giles
Firmin, and others. Firmin's letter to Governor
Winthrop, in 1640,
complains that Ipswich had given him his ground
in that town on
condition that he should stay in the town
three years or else he could
not sell it, "whenas others have no business
but range from place to
place on purpose to live upon the countrey."[56:3]
Dunstable's large grant was brought about
by a combination of leading
men who had received grants after the survey
of 1652; among such grants
was one to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company and another to
Thomas Brattle of Boston. Apparently it was
settled chiefly by others
than the original grantees.[57:1] Groton voted
in 1685 to sue the
"non-Residenc" to assist in paying the rate,
and in 1679 the General
Court had ordered non-residents having land
at Groton to pay rates for
their lands as residents did.[57:2] Lancaster
(Nashaway) was granted to
proprietors including various craftsmen in
iron, indicating, perhaps, an
expectation of iron works, and few of the
original proprietors actually
settled in the town.[57:3] The grant of 1653-4
was made by the Court
after reciting: (1) that it had ordered in
1647 that the "ordering and
disposeing of the Plantation at Nashaway is
wholly in the Courts power";
(2) "Considering that there is allredy at
Nashaway about nine Families
and that severall both freemen and others
intend to goe and setle there,
some whereof are named in this Petition,"
etc.
Mendon, begun in 1660 by Braintree people,
is a particularly significant
example. In 1681 the inhabitants petitioned
that while they are not "of
the number of those who dwell in their ceiled
houses & yet say the time
is not come that the Lord's house should be
built," yet they have gone
outside of their strength "unless others who
are proprietors as well as
ourselves, (the price of whose lands is much
raysed by our carrying on
public work & will be nothing worth if we
are forced to quit the place)
doo beare an equal share in Town charges with
us. Those who are not yet
come up to us are a great and far yet abler
part of our
Proprietors . . ."[57:4] In 1684 the selectmen
inform the General Court
that one half of the proprietors, two only
excepted, are dwelling in
other places, "Our proprietors, abroad," say
they, "object that they see
no reason why they should pay as much for
thayer lands as we do for our
Land and stock, which we answer that if their
be not a noff of reason
for it, we are sure there is more than enough
of necessity to supply
that is wanting in reason."[58:1] This is
the authentic voice of the
frontier.
Deerfield furnishes another type, inasmuch
as a considerable part of its
land was first held by Dedham, to which the
grant was made as a
recompense for the location of the Natick
Indian reservation. Dedham
shares in the town often fell into the hands
of speculators, and
Sheldon, the careful historian of Deerfield,
declares that not a single
Dedham man became a permanent resident of
the grant. In 1678 Deerfield
petitioned the General Court as follows:
You may be pleased to know that the very principle
& best of
the land; the best for soile; the best for
situation; as lying
in y{e} centre & midle of the town: & as to
quantity, nere
half, belongs unto eight or 9 proprietors
each and every of
which, are never like to come to a settlement
amongst us,
which we have formerly found grievous & doe
Judge for the
future will be found intollerable if not altered.
O{r}
minister, Mr. Mather . . . & we ourselves
are much discouraged
as judging the Plantation will be spoiled
if thes proprietors
may not be begged, or will not be bought up
on very easy terms
outt of their Right . . . Butt as long as
the maine of the
plantation Lies in men's hands that can't
improve it
themselves, neither are ever like to putt
such tenants on to
it as shall be likely to advance the good
of y{e} place in
Civill or sacred Respects; he, ourselves,
and all others that
think of going to it, are much discouraged.[59:1]
Woodstock, later a Connecticut town, was settled
under a grant in the
Nipmuc country made to the town of Roxbury.
The settlers, who located
their farms near the trading post about which
the Indians still
collected, were called the "go-ers," while
the "stayers" were those who
remained in Roxbury, and retained half of
the new grant; but it should
be added that they paid the go-ers a sum of
money to facilitate the
settlement.
This absentee proprietorship and the commercial
attitude toward the
lands of new towns became more evident in
succeeding years of the
eighteenth century. Leicester, for example,
was confirmed by the General
Court in 1713. The twenty shares were divided
among twenty-two
proprietors, including Jeremiah Dummer, Paul
Dudley (Attorney-General),
William Dudley (like Paul a son of the Governor,
Joseph Dudley), Thomas
Hutchinson (father of the later Governor),
John Clark (the political
leader), and Samuel Sewall (son of the Chief
Justice). These were all
men of influence, and none of the proprietors
became inhabitants of
Leicester. The proprietors tried to induce
the fifty families, whose
settlement was one of the conditions on which
the grant was made, to
occupy the eastern half of the township reserving
the rest as their
absolute property.[59:2]
The author of a currency tract, in 1716, entitled
"Some Considerations
upon the Several Sorts of Banks," remarks
that formerly, when land was
easy to be obtained, good men came over as
indentured servants; but now,
he says, they are runaways, thieves, and disorderly
persons. The remedy
for this, in his opinion, would be to induce
servants to come over by
offering them homes when the terms of indenture
should expire.[60:1] He
therefore advocates that townships should
be laid out four or five miles
square in which grants of fifty or sixty acres
could be made to
servants.[60:2] Concern over the increase
of negro slaves in
Massachusetts seems to have been the reason
for this proposal. It
indicates that the current practice in disposing
of the lands did not
provide for the poorer people.
But Massachusetts did not follow this suggestion
of a homestead policy.
On the contrary, the desire to locate towns
to create continuous lines
of settlement along the roads between the
disconnected frontiers and to
protect boundary claims by granting tiers
of towns in the disputed
tract, as well, no doubt, as pressure from
financial interests, led the
General Court between 1715 and 1762 to dispose
of the remaining public
domain of Massachusetts under conditions that
made speculation and
colonization by capitalists important factors.[60:3]
When in 1762
Massachusetts sold a group of townships in
the Berkshires to the highest
bidders (by whole townships),[60:4] the transfer
from the
social-religious to the economic conception
was complete, and the
frontier was deeply influenced by the change
to "land mongering."
In one respect, however, there was an increasing
recognition of the
religious and social element in settling the
frontier, due in part, no
doubt, to a desire to provide for the preservation
of eastern ideals and
influences in the West. Provisions for reserving
lands within the
granted townships for the support of an approved
minister, and for
schools, appear in the seventeenth century
and become a common feature
of the grants for frontier towns in the eighteenth.[61:1]
This practice
with respect to the New England frontier became
the foundation for the
system of grants of land from the public domain
for the support of
common schools and state universities by the
federal government from its
beginning, and has been profoundly influential
in later Western States.
Another ground for discontent over land questions
was furnished by the
system of granting lands within the town by
the commoners. The principle
which in many, if not all, cases guided the
proprietors in distributing
the town lots is familiar and is well stated
in the Lancaster town
records (1653):
And, whereas Lotts are Now Laid out for the
most part Equally
to Rich and poore, Partly to keepe the Towne
from Scatering to
farr, and partly out of Charitie and Respect
to men of meaner
estate, yet that Equallitie (which is the
rule of God) may be
observed, we Covenant and Agree, That in a
second Devition and
so through all other Devitions of Land the
mater shall be
drawne as neere to _equallitie according to
mens estates_ as
wee are able to doe, That he which hath now
more then his
estate Deserveth in home Lotts and entervale
Lotts shall haue
so much Less: and he that hath Less then his
estate Deserveth
shall haue so much more.[62:1]
This peculiar doctrine of "equality" had early
in the history of the
colony created discontents. Winthrop explained
the principle which
governed himself and his colleagues in the
case of the Boston committee
of 1634 by saying that their divisions were
arranged "partly to prevent
the neglect of trades." This is a pregnant
idea; it underlay much of the
later opposition of New England as a manufacturing
section to the free
homestead or cheap land policy, demanded by
the West and by the labor
party, in the national public domain. The
migration of labor to free
lands meant that higher wages must be paid
to those who remained. The
use of the town lands by the established classes
to promote an approved
form of society naturally must have had some
effect on migration.
But a more effective source of disputes was
with respect to the relation
of the town proprietors to the public domain
of the town in contrast
with the non-proprietors as a class. The need
of keeping the town
meeting and the proprietors' meeting separate
in the old towns in
earlier years was not so great as it was when
the new-comers became
numerous. In an increasing degree these new-comers
were either not
granted lands at all, or were not admitted
to the body of proprietors
with rights in the possession of the undivided
town lands. Contentions
on the part of the town meeting that it had
the right of dealing with
the town lands occasionally appear, significantly,
in the frontier towns
of Haverhill, Massachusetts, Simsbury, Connecticut,
and in the towns of
the Connecticut Valley.[63:1] Jonathan Edwards,
in 1751, declared that
there had been in Northampton for forty or
fifty years "two parties
somewhat like the court and country parties
of England. . . . The first
party embraced the great proprietors of land,
and the parties concerned
about land and other matters."[63:2] The tendency
to divide up the
common lands among the proprietors in individual
possession did not
become marked until the eighteenth century;
but the exclusion of some
from possession of the town lands and the
"equality" in allotment
favoring men with already large estates must
have attracted ambitious
men who were not of the favored class to join
in the movement to new
towns. Religious dissensions would combine
to make frontier society as
it formed early in the eighteenth century
more and more democratic,
dissatisfied with the existing order, and
less respectful of authority.
We shall not understand the relative radicalism
of parts of the
Berkshires, Vermont and interior New Hampshire
without enquiry into the
degree in which the control over the lands
by a proprietary monopoly
affected the men who settled on the frontier.
The final aspect of this frontier to be examined,
is the attitude of the
conservatives of the older sections towards
this movement of westward
advance. President Dwight in the era of the
War of 1812 was very
critical of the "foresters," but saw in such
a movement a safety valve
to the institutions of New England by allowing
the escape of the
explosive advocates of "Innovation."[63:3]
Cotton Mather is perhaps not a typical representative
of the
conservative sentiment at the close of the
seventeenth century, but his
writings may partly reflect the attitude of
Boston Bay toward New
England's first Western frontier. Writing
in 1694 of "Wonderful Passages
which have Occurred, First in the Protections
and then in the
Afflictions of New England," he says:
One while the Enclosing of _Commons_ hath
made Neighbours,
that should have been like Sheep, to _Bite
and devour one
another_. . . . Again, Do our _Old_ People,
any of them _Go
Out_ from the Institutions of God, Swarming
into New
Settlements, where they and their Untaught
Families are like
to _Perish for Lack of Vision_? They that
have done so,
heretofore, have to their Cost found, that
they were got unto
the _Wrong side of the Hedge_, in their doing
so. Think, here
_Should this be done any more?_ We read of
Balaam, in Num. 22,
23. He was to his Damage, _driven to the_
Wall, when he would
needs make an unlawful Salley forth after
the _Gain_ of this
World. . . . Why, when men, for the Sake of
Earthly Gain,
would be _going out_ into the _Warm_ Sun,
they drive _Through
the Wall_, and the _Angel of the Lord_ becomes
their Enemy.
In his essay on "Frontiers Well-Defended"
(1707) Mather assures the
pioneers that they "dwell in a Hatsarmaneth,"
a place of "tawney
serpents," are "inhabitants of the Valley
of Achor," and are "the Poor
of this World." There may be significance
in his assertion: "It is
remarkable to see that when the Unchurched
Villages, have been so many
of them, _utterly broken up_, in the _War_,
that has been upon us, those
that have had _Churches_ regularly formed
in them, have generally been
under a more _sensible Protection_ of Heaven."
"Sirs," he says, "a
_Church-State_ well form'd may fortify you
wonderfully!" He recommends
abstention from profane swearing, furious
cursing, Sabbath breaking,
unchastity, dishonesty, robbing of God by
defrauding the ministers of
their dues, drunkenness, and revels and he
reminds them that even the
Indians have family prayers! Like his successors
who solicited
missionary contributions for the salvation
of the frontier in the
Mississippi Valley during the forties of the
nineteenth century, this
early spokesman for New England laid stress
upon teaching anti-popery,
particularly in view of the captivity that
might await them.
In summing up, we find many of the traits
of later frontiers in this
early prototype, the Massachusetts frontier.
It lies at the edge of the
Indian country and tends to advance. It calls
out militant qualities and
reveals the imprint of wilderness conditions
upon the psychology and
morals as well as upon the institutions of
the people. It demands common
defense and thus becomes a factor for consolidation.
It is built on the
basis of a preliminary fur trade, and is settled
by the combined and
sometimes antagonistic forces of eastern men
of property (the absentee
proprietors) and the democratic pioneers.
The East attempted to regulate
and control it. Individualistic and democratic
tendencies were
emphasized both by the wilderness conditions
and, probably, by the prior
contentions between the proprietors and non-proprietors
of the towns
from which settlers moved to the frontier.
Removal away from the control
of the customary usages of the older communities
and from the
conservative influence of the body of the
clergy, increased the
innovating tendency. Finally the towns were
regarded by at least one
prominent representative of the established
order in the East, as an
undesirable place for the re-location of the
pillars of society. The
temptation to look upon the frontier as a
field for investment was
viewed by the clergy as a danger to the "institutions
of God." The
frontier was "the Wrong side of the Hedge."
But to this "wrong side of the hedge" New
England men continued to
migrate. The frontier towns of 1695 were hardly
more than suburbs of
Boston. The frontier of a century later included
New England's colonies
in Vermont, Western New York, the Wyoming
Valley, the Connecticut
Reserve, and the Ohio Company's settlement
in the Old Northwest
Territory. By the time of the Civil War the
frontier towns of New
England had occupied the great prairie zone
of the Middle West and were
even planted in Mormon Utah and in parts of
the Pacific Coast. New
England's sons had become the organizers of
a Greater New England in the
West, captains of industry, political leaders,
founders of educational
systems, and prophets of religion, in a section
that was to influence
the ideals and shape the destiny of the nation
in ways to which the eyes
of men like Cotton Mather were sealed.[66:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[39:1] Publications of the Colonial Society
of Massachusetts, April,
1914, xvii, 250-271. Reprinted with permission
of the Society.
[39:2] Massachusetts Archives, xxxvi, p. 150.
[40:1] Massachusetts Colony Records, ii, p.
122.
[40:2] _Ibid._, vol. iv, pt. ii, p. 439; Massachusetts
Archives, cvii,
pp. 160-161.
[40:3] See, for example, Massachusetts Colony
Records, v, 79; Green,
"Groton During the Indian Wars," p. 39; L.
K. Mathews, "Expansion of New
England," p. 58.
[40:4] Massachusetts Archives, lxviii, pp.
174-176.
[40:5] Osgood, "American Colonies in the Seventeenth
Century," i, p.
501, and citations: cf. Publications of this
Society, xii, pp. 38-39.
[41:1] Hening, "Statutes at Large," iii, p.
204: cf. 1 Massachusetts
Historical Collections, v, p. 129, for influence
of the example of the
New England town. On Virginia frontier conditions
see Alvord and
Bidgood, "First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny
Region," pp. 23-34,
93-95. P. A. Bruce, "Institutional History
of Virginia," ii, p. 97,
discusses frontier defense in the seventeenth
century. [See chapter iii,
_post_.]
[42:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxx, 240; Massachusetts
Province Laws, i,
pp. 194, 293.
[42:2] In a petition (read March 3, 1692-3)
of settlers "in Sundry Farms
granted in those Remote Lands Scituate and
Lyeing between Sudbury,
Concord, Marlbury, Natick and Sherburne & Westerly
is the Wilderness,"
the petitioners ask easement of taxes and
extension into the Natick
region in order to have means to provide for
the worship of God, and
say:
"Wee are not Ignorant that by reason of the
present Distressed Condition
of those that dwell in these Frontier Towns,
divers are meditating to
remove themselves into such places where they
have not hitherto been
conserned in the present Warr and desolation
thereby made, as also that
thereby they may be freed from that great
burthen of public taxes
necessarily accruing thereby, Some haveing
already removed themselves.
Butt knowing for our parts that wee cannot
run from the hand of a
Jealous God, doe account it our duty to take
such Measures as may inable
us to the performance of that duty wee owe
to God, the King, & our
Familyes" (Massachusetts Archives, cxiii,
p. 1).
[42:3] In a petition of 1658 Andover speaks
of itself as "a remote
upland plantation" (Massachusetts Archives,
cxii, p. 99).
[42:4] Massachusetts Province Laws, i, p.
402.
[43:1] Convenient maps of settlement, 1660-1700,
are in E. Channing,
"History of the United States," i, pp. 510-511,
ii, end; Avery, "History
of the United States and its People," ii,
p. 398. A useful
contemporaneous map for conditions at the
close of King Philip's War is
Hubbard's map of New England in his "Narrative"
published in Boston,
1677. See also L. K. Mathews, "Expansion of
New England," pp. 56-57, 70.
[44:1] Weeden, "Economic and Social History
of New England," pp. 90, 95,
129-132; F. J. Turner, "Indian Trade in Wisconsin,"
p. 13; McIlwain,
"Wraxall's Abridgement," introduction; the
town histories abound in
evidence of the significance of the early
Indian traders' posts,
transition to Indian land cessions, and then
to town grants.
[44:2] Weeden, _loc. cit._, pp. 64-67; M.
Egleston, "New England Land
System," pp. 31-32; Sheldon, "Deerfield,"
i, pp. 37, 206, 267-268;
Connecticut Colonial Records, vii, p. 111,
illustrations of cattle
brands in 1727.
[44:3] Hutchinson, "History" (1795), ii, p.
129, note, relates such a
case of a Groton man; see also Parkman, "Half-Century,"
vol. i, ch. iv,
citing Maurault, "Histoire des Abenakis,"
p. 377.
[45:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp. 4,
84, 85, 87, 88.
[45:2] Hoosatonic.
[45:3] Connecticut Records, iv, pp. 463, 464.
[45:4] Massachusetts Colony Records, v, p.
72; Massachusetts Province
Laws, i, pp. 176, 211, 292, 558, 594, 600;
Massachusetts Archives, lxxi,
pp. 7, 89, 102. Cf. Publications of this Society,
vii, 275-278.
[45:5] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 290.
[46:1] Judd, "Hadley," p. 272; 4 Massachusetts
Historical Collections,
ii, p. 235.
[46:2] Farmer and Moore, "Collections," iii,
p. 64. The frontier woman
of the farther west found no more extreme
representative than Hannah
Dustan of Haverhill, with her trophy of ten
scalps, for which she
received a bounty of £50 (Parkman, "Frontenac,"
1898, p. 407, note).
[46:3] For illustrations of resentment against
those who protected the
Christian Indians, see F. W. Gookin, "Daniel
Gookin," pp. 145-155.
[47:1] For example, Massachusetts Archives,
lxx, p. 261; Bailey,
"Andover," p. 179; Metcalf, "Annals of Mendon,"
p. 63; Proceedings
Massachusetts Historical Society, xliii, pp.
504-519. Parkman,
"Frontenac" (Boston, 1898), p. 390, and "Half-Century
of Conflict"
(Boston, 1898), i, p. 55, sketches the frontier
defense.
[48:1] Massachusetts Archives, cvii, p. 155.
[48:2] _Ibid._, cvii, p. 230; cf. 230 a.
[48:3] Massachusetts Archives, lxviii, p.
156.
[48:4] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 189.
[48:5] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, 46-48,
131, 134, 135 _et passim_.
[50:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, p. 107:
cf. Metcalf, "Mendon," p.
130; Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 288. The
frontier of Virginia in 1755
and 1774 showed similar conditions: see, for
example, the citations to
Washington's Writings in Thwaites, "France
in America," pp. 193-195; and
frontier letters in Thwaites and Kellogg,
"Dunmore's War," pp. 227, 228
_et passim_. The following petition to Governor
Gooch of Virginia, dated
July 30, 1742, affords a basis for comparison
with a Scotch-Irish
frontier:
We your pettionours humbly sheweth that we
your Honours Loly and
Dutifull Subganckes hath ventred our Lives
& all that we have In
settling ye back parts of Virginia which was
a veri Great Hassirt &
Dengrous, for it is the Hathins [heathens]
Road to ware, which has
proved hortfull to severil of ous that were
ye first settlers of these
back woods & wee your Honibill pettionors
some time a goo petitioned
your Honnour for to have Commisioned men amungst
ous which we your
Honnours most Duttifull subjects thought properist
men & men that had
Hart and Curidg to hed us yn time of [war]
& to defend your Contray &
your poor Sogbacks Intrist from ye voilince
of ye Haithen--But yet agine
we Humbly persume to poot your Honnour yn
mind of our Great want of them
in hopes that your Honner will Grant a Captins'
Commission to John
McDowell, with follring ofishers, and your
Honnours' Complyence in this
will be Great settisfiction to your most Duttifull
and Humbil
pettioners--and we as in Duty bond shall Ever
pray . . . (Calendar of
Virginia State Papers, i, p. 235).
[51:1] But there is a note of deference in
Southern frontier petitions
to the Continental Congress--to be discounted,
however, by the
remoteness of that body. See F. J. Turner,
"Western State-Making in the
Revolutionary Era" (_American Historical Review_,
i, pp. 70, 251). The
demand for remission of taxes is a common
feature of the petitions there
quoted.
[51:2] Proceedings Massachusetts Historical
Society, xliii, pp. 506 ff.
[51:3] _Ibid._, xliii, p. 518.
[52:1] Connecticut Colonial Records, iv, p.
67.
[52:2] In a petition of February 22, 1693-4,
Deerfield calls itself the
"most Utmost Frontere Town in the County of
West Hampshire"
(Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, p. 57 a).
[52:3] Judd, "Hadley," p. 249.
[52:4] W. D. Schuyler-Lighthall, "Glorious
Enterprise," p. 16.
[53:1] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 405.
[54:1] "I want to have your warriours come
and see me," wrote Allen to
the Indians of Canada in 1775, "and help me
fight the King's Regular
Troops. You know they stand all close together,
rank and file, and my
men fight so as Indians do, and I want your
warriours to join with me
and my warriours, like brothers, and ambush
the Regulars: if you will, I
will give you money, blankets, tomahawks,
knives, paint, and any thing
that there is in the army, just like brothers;
and I will go with you
into the woods to scout; and my men and your
men will sleep together,
and eat and drink together, and fight Regulars,
because they first
killed our brothers" (American Archives, 4th
Series, ii, p. 714).
[54:2] Compare A. McF. Davis, "The Shays Rebellion
a Political
Aftermath" (Proceedings American Antiquarian
Society, xxi, pp. 58, 62,
75-79).
[55:1] "Land System of the New England Colonies,"
p. 30.
[55:2] Massachusetts Colony Records, i, p.
167.
[56:1] Compare Weeden, "Economic and Social
History of New England," i,
pp. 270-271; Gookin, "Daniel Gookin," pp.
106-161; and the histories of
Worcester for illustrations of how the various
factors noted could be
combined in a single town.
[56:2] F. Merrill, "Amesbury," pp. 5, 50.
[56:3] B. L. Mirick, "Haverhill," pp. 9, 10.
[57:1] Green, "Early Records of Groton," pp.
49, 70, 90.
[57:2] _Ibid._
[57:3] Worcester County History, i, pp. 2,
3.
[57:4] J. G. Metcalf, "Annals of Mendon,"
p. 85.
[58:1] P. 96. Compare the Kentucky petition
of 1780 given in Roosevelt,
"Winning of the West," ii, p. 398, and the
letter from that frontier
cited in Turner, "Western State-Making" (_American
Historical Review_,
i, p. 262), attacking the Virginia "Nabobs,"
who hold absentee land
titles. "Let the _great men_," say they, "whom
the land belongs to come
and defend it."
[59:1] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, pp. 188-189.
[59:2] These facts are stated on the authority
of E. Washburn,
"Leicester," pp. 5-15: compare Major Stephen
Sewall to Jeremiah Dummer,
1717, quoted in Weeden, "Economic and Social
History of New England,"
ii, p. 505, note 4.
[60:1] Compare the Virginia system, Bruce,
"Economic History of Virginia
in the Seventeenth Century," ii, pp. 42, 43.
[60:2] For this item I am indebted to our
associate, Mr. Andrew McF.
Davis: see his "Colonial Currency Reprints,"
i, pp. 335-349.
[60:3] Hutchinson, "History of Massachusetts"
(1768), ii, pp. 331, 332,
has an instructive comment. A. C. Ford, "Colonial
Precedents of Our
National Land System," p. 84; L. K. Mathews,
"Expansion of New England,"
pp. 82 ff.
[60:4] J. G. Holland, "Western Massachusetts,"
p. 197.
[61:1] Jos. Schafer, "Origin of the System
of Land Grants for
Education," pp. 25-33.
[62:1] H. D. Hurd (ed.), "History of Worcester
County," i, p. 6. The
italics are mine.
[63:1] Egleston, "Land System of the New England
Colonies," pp. 39-41.
[63:2] _Ibid._, p. 41.
[63:3] T. Dwight, "Travels" (1821), ii, pp.
459-463.
[66:1] [See F. J. Turner, "Greater New England
in the Middle of the
Nineteenth Century," in American Antiquarian
Society "Proceedings,"
1920.]
III
THE OLD WEST[67:1]
It is not the oldest West with which this
chapter deals. The oldest West
was the Atlantic coast. Roughly speaking,
it took a century of Indian
fighting and forest felling for the colonial
settlements to expand into
the interior to a distance of about a hundred
miles from the coast.
Indeed, some stretches were hardly touched
in that period. This conquest
of the nearest wilderness in the course of
the seventeenth century and
in the early years of the eighteenth, gave
control of the maritime
section of the nation and made way for the
new movement of westward
expansion which I propose to discuss.
In his "Winning of the West," Roosevelt dealt
chiefly with the region
beyond the Alleghanies, and with the period
of the later eighteenth
century, although he prefaced his account
with an excellent chapter
describing the backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies
and their social
conditions from 1769 to 1774. It is important
to notice, however, that
he is concerned with a backwoods society already
formed; that he ignores
the New England frontier and its part in the
winning of the West, and
does not recognize that there was a West to
be won between New England
and the Great Lakes. In short, he is interested
in the winning of the
West beyond the Alleghanies by the southern
half of the frontier folk.
There is, then, a western area intermediate
between the coastal
colonial settlements of the seventeenth century
and the trans-Alleghany
settlements of the latter portion of the eighteenth
century. This
section I propose to isolate and discuss under
the name of the Old West,
and in the period from about 1676 to 1763.
It includes the back country
of New England, the Mohawk Valley, the Great
Valley of Pennsylvania, the
Shenandoah Valley, and the Piedmont--that
is, the interior or upland
portion of the South, lying between the Alleghanies
and the head of
navigation of the Atlantic rivers marked by
the "fall line."[68:1]
In this region, and in these years, are to
be found the beginnings of
much that is characteristic in Western society,
for the Atlantic coast
was in such close touch with Europe that its
frontier experience was
soon counteracted, and it developed along
other lines. It is unfortunate
that the colonial back country appealed so
long to historians solely in
connection with the colonial wars, for the
development of its society,
its institutions and mental attitude all need
study. Its history has
been dealt with in separate fragments, by
states, or towns, or in
discussions of special phases, such as German
and Scotch-Irish
immigration. The Old West as a whole can be
appreciated only by
obliterating the state boundaries which conceal
its unity, by
correlating the special and fragmentary studies,
and by filling the gaps
in the material for understanding the formation
of its society. The
present paper is rather a reconnaissance than
a conquest of the field, a
program for study of the Old West rather than
an exposition of it.
The end of the period proposed may be placed
about 1763, and the
beginning between 1676 and 1700. The termination
of the period is marked
by the Peace of Paris in 1763, and the royal
proclamation of that year
forbidding settlement beyond the Alleghanies.
By this time the
settlement of the Old West was fairly accomplished,
and new advances
were soon made into the "Western Waters" beyond
the mountains and into
the interior of Vermont and New Hampshire.
The isolation of the
transmontane settlements, and the special
conditions and doctrines of
the Revolutionary era during which they were
formed, make a natural
distinction between the period of which I
am to speak and the later
extension of the West.
The beginning of the period is necessarily
an indeterminate date, owing
to the different times of colonizing the coastal
areas which served as
bases of operations in the westward advance.
The most active movements
into the Old West occurred after 1730. But
in 1676 New England, having
closed the exhausting struggle with the Indians,
known as King Philip's
War, could regard her established settlements
as secure, and go on to
complete her possession of the interior. This
she did in the midst of
conflicts with the exterior Indian tribes
which invaded her frontiers
from New York and Canada during the French
and Indian wars from 1690 to
1760, and under frontier conditions different
from the conditions of the
earlier Puritan colonization. In 1676, Virginia
was passing through
Indian fighting--keenest along the fall line,
where the frontier
lay--and also experiencing a social revolt
which resulted in the defeat
of the democratic forces that sought to stay
the progress of
aristocratic control in the colony.[70:1]
The date marks the end of the
period when the Virginia tidewater could itself
be regarded as a
frontier region, and consequently the beginning
of a more special
interest in the interior.
Let us first examine the northern part of
the movement into the back
country. The expansion of New England into
the vacant spaces of its own
section, in the period we have chosen for
discussion, resulted in the
formation of an interior society which contrasted
in many ways with that
of the coast, and which has a special significance
in Western history,
in that it was this interior New England people
who settled the Greater
New England in central and western New York,
the Wyoming Valley, the
Connecticut Reserve of Ohio, and much of the
prairie areas of the Old
Northwest. It is important to realize that
the Old West included
interior New England.
The situation in New England at the close
of the seventeenth century is
indicated by the Massachusetts act of 1694
enumerating eleven towns,
then on the frontier and exposed to raids,
none of which might be
voluntarily deserted without leave of the
governor and council, on
penalty of loss of their freeholds by the
landowners, or fine of other
inhabitants.[70:2]
Thus these frontier settlers were made substantially
garrisons, or "mark
colonies." Crowded into the palisades of the
town, and obliged in spite
of their poverty to bear the brunt of Indian
attack, their hardships are
illustrated in the manly but pathetic letters
of Deerfield's minister,
Mr. Williams,[70:3] in 1704. Parkman succinctly
describes the general
conditions in these words:[70:4]
The exposed frontier of New England was between
two and three
hundred miles long, and consisted of farms
and hamlets loosely
scattered through an almost impervious forest.
. . . Even in
so-called villages the houses were far apart,
because, except
on the seashore, the people lived by farming.
Such as were
able to do so fenced their dwellings with
palisades, or built
them of solid timber, with loopholes, a projecting
upper story
like a block house, and sometimes a flanker
at one or more of
the corners. In the more considerable settlements
the largest
of these fortified houses was occupied in
time of danger by
armed men and served as a place of refuge
for the neighbors.
Into these places, in days of alarm, were
crowded the outlying settlers,
just as was the case in later times in the
Kentucky "stations."
In spite of such frontier conditions, the
outlying towns continued to
multiply. Between 1720 and the middle of the
century, settlement crept
up the Housatonic and its lateral valley into
the Berkshires. About 1720
Litchfield was established; in 1725, Sheffield;
in 1730, Great
Barrington; and in 1735 a road was cut and
towns soon established
between Westfield and these Housatonic settlements,
thus uniting them
with the older extensions along the Connecticut
and its tributaries.
In this period, scattered and sometimes unwelcome
Scotch-Irish
settlements were established, such as that
at Londonderry, New
Hampshire, and in the Berkshires, as well
as in the region won in King
Philip's War from the Nipmucks, whither there
came also Huguenots.[72:1]
In King George's War, the Connecticut River
settlers found their
frontier protection in such rude stockades
as those at the sites of
Keene, of Charlestown, New Hampshire (Number
Four), Fort Shirley at the
head of Deerfield River (Heath), and Fort
Pelham (Rowe); while Fort
Massachusetts (Adams) guarded the Hoosac gateway
to the Hoosatonic
Valley. These frontier garrisons and the self-defense
of the
backwoodsmen of New England are well portrayed
in the pages of
Parkman.[72:2] At the close of the war, settlement
again expanded into
the Berkshires, where Lennox, West Hoosac
(Williamstown), and Pittsfield
were established in the middle of the century.
Checked by the fighting
in the last French and Indian War, the frontier
went forward after the
Peace of Paris (1763) at an exceptional rate,
especially into Vermont
and interior New Hampshire. An anonymous writer
gives a contemporary
view of the situation on the eve of the Revolution:[72:3]
The richest parts remaining to be granted
are on the northern
branches of the Connecticut river, towards
Crown Point where
are great districts of fertile soil still
unsettled. The North
part of New Hampshire, the province of Maine,
and the
territory of Sagadahock have but few settlements
in them
compared with the tracts yet unsettled. . . .
I should further observe that these tracts
have since the
peace [_i. e._, 1763], been settling pretty
fast: farms on the
river Connecticut are every day extending
beyond the old fort
Dummer, for near thirty miles; and will in
a few years reach
to Kohasser which is nearly two hundred miles;
not that such
an extent will be one-tenth settled, but the
new-comers do not
fix near their neighbors, and go on regularly,
but take spots
that please them best, though twenty or thirty
miles beyond
any others. This to people of a sociable disposition
in Europe
would appear very strange, but the Americans
do not regard the
near neighborhood of other farmers; twenty
or thirty miles by
water they esteem no distance in matters of
this sort; besides
in a country that promises well the intermediate
space is not
long in filling up. Between Connecticut river
and Lake
Champlain upon Otter Creek, and all along
Lake Sacrament
[George] and the rivers that fall into it,
and the whole
length of Wood Creek, are numerous settlements
made since the
peace.[73:1]
For nearly a hundred years, therefore, New
England communities had been
pushed out to new frontiers in the intervals
between the almost
continuous wars with the French and Indians.
Probably the most
distinctive feature in this frontier was the
importance of the community
type of settlement; in other words, of the
towns, with their Puritan
ideals in education, morals, and religion.
This has always been a matter
of pride to the statesmen and annalists of
New England, as is
illustrated by these words of Holland in his
"Western Massachusetts,"
commenting on the settlement of the Connecticut
Valley in villages,
whereby in his judgment morality, education,
and urbanity were
preserved:
The influence of this policy can only be fully
appreciated
when standing by the side of the solitary
settler's hut in the
West, where even an Eastern man has degenerated
to a boor in
manners, where his children have grown up
uneducated, and
where the Sabbath has become an unknown day,
and religion and
its obligations have ceased to exercise control
upon the heart
and life.
Whatever may be the real value of the community
type of settlement, its
establishment in New England was intimately
connected both with the
Congregational religious organization and
with the land system of the
colonies of that section, under which the
colonial governments made
grants--not in tracts to individuals, but
in townships to groups of
proprietors who in turn assigned lands to
the inhabitants without cost.
The typical form of establishing a town was
as follows: On application
of an approved body of men, desiring to establish
a new settlement, the
colonial General Court would appoint a committee
to view the desired
land and report on its fitness; an order for
the grant would then issue,
in varying areas, not far from the equivalent
of six miles square. In
the eighteenth century especially, it was
common to reserve certain lots
of the town for the support of schools and
the ministry. This was the
origin of that very important feature of Western
society, federal land
grants for schools and colleges.[74:1] The
General Courts also made
regulations regarding the common lands, the
terms for admitting
inhabitants, etc., and thus kept a firm hand
upon the social structure
of the new settlements as they formed on the
frontier.
This practice, seen in its purity in the seventeenth
century
especially, was markedly different from the
practices of other colonies
in the settlement of their back lands. For
during most of the period New
England did not use her wild lands, or public
domain, as a source of
revenue by sale to individuals or to companies,
with the reservation of
quit-rents; nor attract individual settlers
by "head rights," or
fifty-acre grants, after the Virginia type;
nor did the colonies of the
New England group often make extensive grants
to individuals, on the
ground of special services, or because of
influence with the government,
or on the theory that the grantee would introduce
settlers on his grant.
They donated their lands to groups of men
who became town proprietors
for the purpose of establishing communities.
These proprietors were
supposed to hold the lands in trust, to be
assigned to inhabitants under
restraints to ensure the persistence of Puritan
ideals.
During most of the seventeenth century the
proprietors awarded lands to
the new-comers in accordance with this theory.
But as density of
settlement increased, and lands grew scarce
in the older towns, the
proprietors began to assert their legal right
to the unoccupied lands
and to refuse to share them with inhabitants
who were not of the body of
proprietors. The distinction resulted in class
conflicts in the towns,
especially in the eighteenth century,[75:1]
over the ownership and
disposal of the common lands.
The new settlements, by a process of natural
selection, would afford
opportunity to the least contented, whether
because of grievances, or
ambitions, to establish themselves. This tended
to produce a Western
flavor in the towns on the frontier. But it
was not until the original
ideals of the land system began to change,
that the opportunity to make
new settlements for such reasons became common.
As the economic and
political ideal replaced the religious and
social ideal, in the
conditions under which new towns could be
established, this became more
possible.
Such a change was in progress in the latter
part of the seventeenth
century and during the eighteenth. In 1713,
1715, and 1727,
Massachusetts determined upon a policy of
locating towns in advance of
settlement, to protect her boundary claims.
In 1736 she laid out five
towns near the New Hampshire border, and a
year earlier opened four
contiguous towns to connect her Housatonic
and Connecticut Valley
settlements.[76:1] Grants in non-adjacent
regions were sometimes made to
old towns, the proprietors of which sold them
to those who wished to
move.
The history of the town of Litchfield illustrates
the increasing
importance of the economic factor. At a time
when Connecticut feared
that Andros might dispose of the public lands
to the disadvantage of the
colony, the legislature granted a large part
of Western Connecticut to
the towns of Hartford and Windsor, _pro forma_,
as a means of
withdrawing the lands from his hands. But
these towns refused to give up
the lands after the danger had passed, and
proceeded to sell part of
them.[76:2] Riots occurred when the colonial
authorities attempted to
assert possession, and the matter was at length
compromised in 1719 by
allowing Litchfield to be settled in accordance
with the town grants,
while the colony reserved the larger part
of northwestern Connecticut.
In 1737 the colony disposed of its last unlocated
lands by sale in lots.
In 1762 Massachusetts sold a group of entire
townships in the Berkshires
to the highest bidders.[77:1]
But the most striking illustration of the
tendency, is afforded by the
"New Hampshire grants" of Governor Wentworth,
who, chiefly in the years
about 1760, made grants of a hundred and thirty
towns west of the
Connecticut, in what is now the State of Vermont,
but which was then in
dispute between New Hampshire and New York.
These grants, while in form
much like other town grants, were disposed
of for cash, chiefly to
speculators who hastened to sell their rights
to the throngs of
land-seekers who, after the peace, began to
pour into the Green Mountain
region.
It is needless to point out how this would
affect the movement of
Western settlement in respect to individualistic
speculation in public
lands; how it would open a career to the land
jobbers, as well as to the
natural leaders in the competitive movement
for acquiring the best
lands, for laying out town sites and building
up new communities under
"boom" conditions. The migratory tendency
of New Englanders was
increased by this gradual change in its land
policy; the attachment to a
locality was diminished. The later years showed
increasing emphasis by
New England upon individual success, greater
respect for the self-made
man who, in the midst of opportunities under
competitive conditions,
achieved superiority. The old dominance of
town settlement, village
moral police, and traditional class control
gave way slowly. Settlement
in communities and rooted Puritan habits and
ideals had enduring
influences in the regions settled by New Englanders;
but it was in this
Old West, in the years just before the Revolution,
that individualism
began to play an important rôle, along with
the traditional habit of
expanding in organized communities.
The opening of the Vermont towns revealed
more fully than before, the
capability of New Englanders to become democratic
pioneers, under
characteristic frontier conditions. Their
economic life was simple and
self-sufficing. They readily adopted lynch
law (the use of the "birch
seal" is familiar to readers of Vermont history)
to protect their land
titles in the troubled times when these "Green
Mountain Boys" resisted
New York's assertion of authority. They later
became an independent
Revolutionary state with frontier directness,
and in very many respects
their history in the Revolutionary epoch is
similar to that of settlers
in Kentucky and Tennessee, both in assertion
of the right to independent
self government and in a frontier separatism.[78:1]
Vermont may be
regarded as the culmination of the frontier
movement which I have been
describing in New England.
By this time two distinct New Englands existed--the
one coastal, and
dominated by commercial interests and the
established congregational
churches; the other a primitive agricultural
area, democratic in
principle, and with various sects increasingly
indifferent to the fear
of "innovation" which the dominant classes
of the old communities felt.
Already speculative land companies had begun
New England settlements in
the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, as well
as on the lower Mississippi;
and New England missions among the Indians,
such as that at Stockbridge,
were beginning the noteworthy religious and
educational expansion of the
section to the west.
That this movement of expansion had been chiefly
from south to north,
along the river valleys, should not conceal
from us the fact that it was
in essential characteristics a Western movement,
especially in the
social traits that were developing. Even the
men who lived in the long
line of settlements on the Maine coast, under
frontier conditions, and
remote from the older centers of New England,
developed traits and a
democratic spirit that relate them closely
to the Westerners, in spite
of the fact that Maine is "down east" by preëminence.[79:1]
The frontier of the Middle region in this
period of the formation of the
Old West, was divided into two parts, which
happen to coincide with the
colonies of New York and Pennsylvania. In
the latter colony the trend of
settlement was into the Great Valley, and
so on to the Southern uplands;
while the advance of settlement in New York
was like that of New
England, chiefly northward, following the
line of Hudson River.
The Hudson and the Mohawk constituted the
area of the Old West in this
part of the eighteenth century. With them
were associated the Wallkill,
tributary to the Hudson, and Cherry Valley
near the Mohawk, along the
sources of the Susquehanna. The Berkshires
walled the Hudson in to the
east; the Adirondacks and the Catskills to
the west. Where the Mohawk
Valley penetrated between the mountainous
areas, the Iroquois Indians
were too formidable for advance on such a
slender line. Nothing but
dense settlement along the narrow strip of
the Hudson, if even that,
could have furnished the necessary momentum
for overcoming the Indian
barrier; and this pressure was lacking, for
the population was
comparatively sparse in contrast with the
task to be performed. What
most needs discussion in the case of New York,
therefore, is not the
history of expansion as in other sections,
but the absence of expansive
power.
The fur-trade had led the way up the Hudson,
and made beginnings of
settlements at strategic points near the confluence
of the Mohawk. But
the fur-trader was not followed by a tide
of pioneers. One of the most
important factors in restraining density of
population in New York, in
retarding the settlement of its frontier,
and in determining the
conditions there, was the land system of that
colony.
From the time of the patroon grants along
the lower Hudson, great
estates had been the common form of land tenure.
Rensselaerswyck reached
at one time over seven hundred thousand acres.
These great patroon
estates were confirmed by the English governors,
who in their turn
followed a similar policy. By 1732 two and
one-half million acres were
engrossed in manorial grants.[80:1] In 1764,
Governor Colden wrote[80:2]
that three of the extravagant grants contain,
as the proprietors claim, above a million
acres each, several
others above 200,000. * * * Although these
grants contain a
great part of the province, they are made
in trifling
acknowledgements. The far greater part of
them still remain
uncultivated, without any benefit to the community,
and are
likewise a discouragement to the settling
and improving the
lands in the neighborhood of them, for from
the uncertainty of
their boundaries, the patentees of these great
tracts are
daily enlarging their pretensions, and by
tedious and most
expensive law suits, distress and ruin poor
families who have
taken out grants near them.
He adds that "the proprietors of the great
tracts are not only freed
from the quit-rents, which the other landholders
in the province pay,
but by their influence in the assembly are
freed from every other public
tax on their lands."
In 1769 it was estimated that at least five-sixths
of the inhabitants of
Westchester County lived within the bounds
of the great manors
there.[81:1] In Albany County the Livingston
manor spread over seven
modern townships, and the great Van Rensselaer
manor stretched
twenty-four by twenty-eight miles along the
Hudson; while still farther,
on the Mohawk, were the vast possessions of
Sir William Johnson.[81:2]
It was not simply that the grants were extensive,
but that the policy
of the proprietors favored the leasing rather
than the sale of the
lands--frequently also of the stock, and taking
payment in shares. It
followed that settlers preferred to go to
frontiers where a more liberal
land policy prevailed. At one time it seemed
possible that the tide of
German settlement, which finally sought Pennsylvania
and the up-country
of the South, might flow into New York. In
1710, Governor Hunter
purchased a tract in Livingston's manor and
located nearly fifteen
hundred Palatines on it to produce naval stores.[82:1]
But the attempt
soon failed; the Germans applied to the Indians
on Schoharie Creek, a
branch of the Mohawk, for a grant of land
and migrated there, only to
find that the governor had already granted
the land. Again were the
villages broken up, some remaining and some
moving farther up the
Mohawk, where they and accessions to their
number established the
frontier settlements about Palatine Bridge,
in the region where, in the
Revolution, Herkimer led these German frontiersmen
to stem the British
attack in the battle of Oriskany. They constituted
the most effective
military defense of Mohawk Valley. Still another
portion took their way
across to the waters of the Susquehanna, and
at Tulpehockon Creek began
an important center of German settlement in
the Great Valley of
Pennsylvania.[82:2]
The most important aspect of the history of
the movement into the
frontier of New York at this period, therefore,
was the evidence which
it afforded that in the competition for settlement
between colonies
possessing a vast area of vacant land, those
which imposed feudal
tenures and undemocratic restraints, and which
exploited settlers, were
certain to lose.
The manorial practice gave a bad name to New
York as a region for
settlement, which not even the actual opportunities
in certain parts of
the colony could counteract. The diplomacy
of New York governors during
this period of the Old West, in securing a
protectorate over the Six
Nations and a consequent claim to their territory,
and in holding them
aloof from France, constituted the most effective
contribution of that
colony to the movement of American expansion.
When lands of these tribes
were obtained after Sullivan's expedition
in the Revolution (in which
New England soldiers played a prominent part),
it was by the New England
inundation into this interior that they were
colonized. And it was under
conditions like those prevailing in the later
years of the expansion of
settlements in New England itself, that this
settlement of interior and
western New York was effected.
The result was, that New York became divided
into two distinct peoples:
the dwellers along Hudson Valley, and the
Yankee pioneers of the
interior. But the settlement of central and
western New York, like the
settlement of Vermont, is a story that belongs
to the era in which the
trans-Alleghany West was occupied.
We can best consider the settlement of the
share of the Old West which
is located in Pennsylvania as a part of the
migration which occupied the
Southern Uplands, and before entering upon
this it will be advantageous
to survey that part of the movement toward
the interior which proceeded
westward from the coast. First let us observe
the conditions at the
eastern edge of these uplands, along the fall
line in Virginia, in the
latter part of the seventeenth century, in
order that the process and
the significance of the movement may be better
understood.
About the time of Bacon's Rebellion, in Virginia,
strenuous efforts
were made to protect the frontier line which
ran along the falls of the
river, against the attacks of Indians. This
"fall line," as the
geographers call it, marking the head of navigation,
and thus the
boundary of the maritime or lowland South,
runs from the site of
Washington, through Richmond, and on to Raleigh,
North Carolina, and
Columbia, South Carolina. Virginia having
earliest advanced thus far to
the interior, found it necessary in the closing
years of the seventeenth
century to draw a military frontier along
this line. As early as 1675 a
statute was enacted,[84:1] providing that
paid troops of five hundred
men should be drawn from the midland and most
secure parts of the
country and placed on the "heads of the rivers"
and other places
fronting upon the Indians. What was meant
by the "heads of the rivers,"
is shown by the fact that several of these
forts were located either at
the falls of the rivers or just above tidewater,
as follows: one on the
lower Potomac in Stafford County; one near
the falls of the
Rappahannock; one on the Mattapony; one on
the Pamunky; one at the falls
of the James (near the site of Richmond);
one near the falls of the
Appomattox, and others on the Blackwater,
the Nansemond, and the Accomac
peninsula, all in the eastern part of Virginia.
Again, in 1679, similar provision was made,[84:2]
and an especially
interesting act was passed, making _quasi_
manorial grants to Major
Lawrence Smith and Captain William Byrd, "to
seate certain lands at the
head [falls] of Rappahannock and James river"
respectively. This scheme
failed for lack of approval by the authorities
in England.[84:3] But
Byrd at the falls of the James near the present
site of Richmond,
Robert Beverley on the Rappahannock, and other
frontier commanders on
the York and Potomac, continued to undertake
colonial defense. The
system of mounted rangers was established
in 1691, by which a
lieutenant, eleven soldiers, and two Indians
at the "heads" or falls of
each great river were to scout for enemy,[85:1]
and the Indian boundary
line was strictly defined.
By the opening years of the eighteenth century
(1701), the assembly of
Virginia had reached the conclusion that settlement
would be the best
means of protecting the frontiers, and that
the best way of "settling in
co-habitations upon the said land frontiers
within this government will
be by encouragements to induce societies of
men to undertake the
same."[85:2] It was declared to be inexpedient
to have less than twenty
fighting men in each "society," and provision
was made for a land grant
to be given to these societies (or towns)
not less than 10,000 nor more
than 30,000 acres upon any of the frontiers,
to be held in common by the
society. The power of ordering and managing
these lands, and the
settling and planting of them, was to remain
in the society. Virginia
was to pay the cost of survey, also quit-rents
for the first twenty
years for the two-hundred-acre tract as the
site of the "co-habitation."
Within this two hundred acres each member
was to have a half-acre lot
for living upon, and a right to two hundred
acres next adjacent, until
the thirty thousand acres were taken up. The
members of the society
were exempt from taxes for twenty years, and
from the requirements of
military duty except such as they imposed
upon themselves. The
resemblance to the New England town is obvious.
"Provided alwayes," ran the quaint statute,
"and it is the true intent
and meaning of this act that for every five
hundred acres of land to be
granted in pursuance of this act there shall
be and shall be continually
kept upon the said land one christian man
between sixteen and sixty
years of age perfect of limb, able and fitt
for service who shall alsoe
be continually provided with a well fixed
musquett or fuzee, a good
pistoll, sharp simeter, tomahawk and five
pounds of good clean pistoll
powder and twenty pounds of sizable leaden
bulletts or swan or goose
shott to be kept within the fort directed
by this act besides the powder
and shott for his necessary or useful shooting
at game. Provided also
that the said warlike christian man shall
have his dwelling and
continual abode within the space of two hundred
acres of land to be laid
out in a geometricall square or as near that
figure as conveniency will
admit," etc. Within two years the society
was required to cause a half
acre in the middle of the "co-habitation"
to be palisaded "with good
sound pallisadoes at least thirteen foot long
and six inches diameter in
the middle of the length thereof, and set
double and at least three foot
within the ground."
Such in 1701 was the idea of the Virginia
tidewater assembly of a
frontiersman, and of the frontier towns by
which the Old Dominion should
spread her population into the upland South.
But the "warlike Christian
man" who actually came to furnish the firing
line for Virginia, was
destined to be the Scotch-Irishman and the
German with long rifle in
place of "fuzee" and "simeter," and altogether
too restless to have his
continual abode within the space of two hundred
acres. Nevertheless
there are points of resemblance between this
idea of societies settled
about a fortified town and the later "stations"
of Kentucky.[87:1]
By the beginning of the eighteenth century
the engrossing of the lands
of lowland Virginia had progressed so far,
the practice of holding large
tracts of wasteland for reserves in the great
plantations had become so
common, that the authorities of Virginia reported
to the home government
that the best lands were all taken up,[87:2]
and settlers were passing
into North Carolina seeking cheap lands near
navigable rivers. Attention
was directed also to the Piedmont portions
of Virginia, for by this time
the Indians were conquered in this region.
It was now possible to
acquire land by purchase[87:3] at five shillings
sterling for fifty
acres, as well as by head-rights for importation
or settlement, and land
speculation soon turned to the new area.
Already the Piedmont had been somewhat explored.[87:4]
Even by the
middle of the seventeenth century, fur-traders
had followed the trail
southwest from the James more than four hundred
miles to the Catawbas
and later to the Cherokees. Col. William Byrd
had, as we have seen, not
only been absorbing good lands in the lowlands,
and defending his post
at the falls of the James, like a Count of
the Border, but he also
engaged in this fur-trade and sent his pack
trains along this trail
through the Piedmont of the Carolinas,[87:5]
and took note of the rich
savannas of that region. Charleston traders
engaged in rivalry for this
trade.
It was not long before cattle raisers from
the older settlements,
learning from the traders of the fertile plains
and peavine pastures of
this land, followed the fur-traders and erected
scattered "cow-pens" or
ranches beyond the line of plantations in
the Piedmont. Even at the
close of the seventeenth century, herds of
wild horses and cattle ranged
at the outskirts of the Virginia settlements,
and were hunted by the
planters, driven into pens, and branded somewhat
after the manner of the
later ranching on the Great Plains.[88:1]
Now the cow-drovers and the
cow-pens[88:2] began to enter the uplands.
The Indians had by this time
been reduced to submission in most of the
Virginia Piedmont--as Governor
Spotswood[88:3] reported in 1712, living "quietly
on our frontiers,
trafficking with the Inhabitants."
After the defeat of the Tuscaroras and Yemassees
about this time in the
Carolinas, similar opportunities for expansion
existed there. The cattle
drovers sometimes took their herds from range
to range; sometimes they
were gathered permanently near the pens, finding
the range sufficient
throughout the year. They were driven to Charleston,
or later sometimes
even to Philadelphia and Baltimore markets.
By the middle of the
century, disease worked havoc with them in
South Carolina[89:1] and
destroyed seven-eighths of those in North
Carolina; Virginia made
regulations governing the driving of cattle
through her frontier
counties to avoid the disease, just as in
our own time the northern
cattlemen attempted to protect their herds
against the Texas fever.
Thus cattle raisers from the coast followed
the fur-traders toward the
uplands, and already pioneer farmers were
straggling into the same
region, soon to be outnumbered by the tide
of settlement that flowed
into the region from Pennsylvania.
The descriptions of the uplands by contemporaneous
writers are in
glowing terms. Makemie, in his "Plain and
Friendly Persuasion" (1705),
declared "The best, richest, and most healthy
part of your Country is
yet to be inhabited, above the falls of every
River, to the Mountains."
Jones, in his "Present State of Virginia"
(1724), comments on the
convenience of tidewater transportation, etc.,
but declares that section
"not nearly so healthy as the uplands and
Barrens which serve for Ranges
for Stock," although he speaks less enthusiastically
of the savannas and
marshes which lay in the midst of the forest
areas. In fact, the
Piedmont was by no means the unbroken forest
that might have been
imagined, for in addition to natural meadows,
the Indians had burned
over large tracts.[89:2] It was a rare combination
of woodland and
pasture, with clear running streams and mild
climate.[89:3]
The occupation of the Virginia Piedmont received
a special impetus from
the interest which Governor Spotswood took
in the frontier. In 1710 he
proposed a plan for intercepting the French
in their occupation of the
interior, by inducing Virginia settlement
to proceed along one side of
James River only, until this column of advancing
pioneers should strike
the attenuated line of French posts in the
center. In the same year he
sent a body of horsemen to the top of the
Blue Ridge, where they could
overlook the Valley of Virginia.[90:1] By
1714 he became active as a
colonizer himself. Thirty miles above the
falls of the Rappahannock, on
the Rapidan at Germanna,[90:2] he settled
a little village of German
redemptioners (who in return for having the
passage paid agreed to serve
without wages for a term of years), to engage
in his iron works, also to
act as rangers on the frontier. From here,
in 1716, with two companies
of rangers and four Indians, Governor Spotswood
and a band of Virginia
gentlemen made a summer picnic excursion of
two weeks across the Blue
Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley. _Sic juvat
transcendere montes_ was
the motto of these Knights of the Golden Horse
Shoe, as the governor
dubbed them. But they were not the "warlike
christian men" destined to
occupy the frontier.
Spotswood's interest in the advance along
the Rappahannock, probably
accounts for the fact that in 1720 Spotsylvania
and Brunswick were
organized as frontier counties of Virginia.[91:1]
Five hundred dollars
were contributed by the colony to the church,
and a thousand dollars for
arms and ammunition for the settlers in these
counties. The fears of the
French and Indians beyond the high mountains,
were alleged as reasons
for this advance. To attract settlers to these
new counties, they were
(1723) exempt from purchasing the lands under
the system of head rights,
and from payment of quit-rents for seven years
after 1721. The free
grants so obtained were not to exceed a thousand
acres. This was soon
extended to six thousand acres, but with provision
requiring the
settlement of a certain number of families
upon the grant within a
certain time. In 1729 Spotswood was ordered
by the Council to produce
"rights" and pay the quit-rents for the 59,786
acres which he claimed in
this county.
Other similar actions by the Council show
that large holdings were
developing there, also that the difficulty
of establishing a frontier
democracy in contact with the area of expanding
plantations, was very
real.[91:2] By the time of the occupation
of the Shenandoah Valley,
therefore, the custom was established in this
part of Virginia,[91:3] of
making grants of a thousand acres for each
family settled. Speculative
planters, influential with the Governor and
Council secured grants of
many thousand acres, conditioned upon seating
a certain number of
families, and satisfying the requirements
of planting. Thus what had
originally been intended as direct grants
to the actual settler,
frequently became grants to great planters
like Beverley, who promoted
the coming of Scotch-Irish and German settlers,
or took advantage of
the natural drift into the Valley, to sell
lands in their grants, as a
rule, reserving quit-rents. The liberal grants
per family enabled these
speculative planters, while satisfying the
terms of settlement, to hold
large portions of the grant for themselves.
Under the lax requirements,
and probably still more lax enforcement, of
the provisions for actual
cultivation or cattle-raising,[92:1] it was
not difficult to hold such
wild land. These conditions rendered possible
the extension of a measure
of aristocratic planter life in the course
of time to the Piedmont and
Valley lands of Virginia. It must be added,
however, that some of the
newcomers, both Germans and Scotch-Irish,
like the Van Meters, Stover,
and Lewis, also showed an ability to act as
promoters in locating
settlers and securing grants to themselves.
In the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley,
lay part of the estate of
Lord Fairfax, some six million acres in extent,
which came to the family
by dower from the old Culpeper and Arlington
grant of Northern Neck. In
1748, the youthful Washington was surveying
this estate along the upper
waters of the Potomac, finding a bed under
the stars and learning the
life of the frontier.
Lord Fairfax established his own Greenway
manor,[92:2] and divided his
domain into other manors, giving ninety-nine-year
leases to settlers
already on the ground at twenty shillings
annually per hundred acres;
while of the new-comers he exacted two shillings
annual quit-rent for
this amount of land in fee simple. Litigation
kept land titles uncertain
here, for many years. Similarly, Beverley's
manor, about Staunton,
represented a grant of 118,000 acres to Beverley
and his associates on
condition of placing the proper number of
families on the tract.[93:1]
Thus speculative planters on this frontier
shared in the movement of
occupation and made an aristocratic element
in the up-country; but the
increasing proportion of Scotch-Irish immigrants,
as well as German
settlers, together with the contrast in natural
conditions, made the
interior a different Virginia from that of
the tidewater.
As settlement ascended the Rappahannock, and
emigrants began to enter
the Valley from the north, so, contemporaneously,
settlement ascended
the James above the falls, succeeding to the
posts of the
fur-traders.[93:2] Goochland County was set
off in 1728, and the growth
of population led, as early as 1729, to proposals
for establishing a
city (Richmond) at the falls. Along the upper
James, as on the
Rappahannock, speculative planters bought
headrights and located
settlers and tenants to hold their grants.[93:3]
Into this region came
natives of Virginia, emigrants from the British
isles, and scattered
representatives of other lands, some of them
coming up the James, others
up the York, and still others arriving with
the southward-moving current
along both sides of the Blue Ridge.
Before 1730 few settlers lived above the mouth
of the Rivanna. In 1732
Peter Jefferson patented a thousand acres
at the eastern opening of its
mountain gap, and here, under frontier conditions,
Thomas Jefferson was
born in 1743 near his later estate of Monticello.
About him were pioneer
farmers, as well as foresighted engrossers
of the land. In the main his
country was that of a democratic frontier
people--Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, and other
sects,[94:1] out of
sympathy with the established church and the
landed gentry of the
lowlands. This society in which he was born,
was to find in Jefferson a
powerful exponent of its ideals.[94:2] Patrick
Henry was born in 1736
above the falls, not far from Richmond, and
he also was a mouthpiece of
interior Virginia in the Revolutionary era.
In short, a society was
already forming in the Virginia Piedmont which
was composed of many
sects, of independent yeomen as well as their
great planter leaders--a
society naturally expansive, seeing its opportunity
to deal in
unoccupied lands along the frontier which
continually moved toward the
West, and in this era of the eighteenth century
dominated by the
democratic ideals of pioneers rather than
by the aristocratic tendencies
of slaveholding planters. As there were two
New Englands, so there were
by this time two Virginias, and the uplands
belonged with the Old West.
The advance across the fall line from the
coast was, in North Carolina,
much slower than in Virginia. After the Tuscarora
War (1712-13) an
extensive region west from Pamlico Sound was
opened (1724). The region
to the north, about the Roanoke, had before
this begun to receive
frontier settlers, largely from Virginia.
Their traits are interestingly
portrayed in Byrd's "Dividing Line." By 1728
the farthest inhabitants
along the Virginia boundary were frontiersmen
about Great Creek, a
branch of the Roanoke.[94:3] The North Carolina
commissioners desired to
stop running the line after going a hundred
and seventy miles, on the
plea that they were already fifty miles beyond
the outermost inhabitant,
and there would be no need for an age or two
to carry the line farther;
but the Virginia surveyors pointed out that
already speculators were
taking up the land. A line from Weldon to
Fayetteville would roughly
mark the western boundary of North Carolina's
sparse population of forty
thousand souls.[95:1]
The slower advance is explained, partly because
of the later settlement
of the Carolinas, partly because the Indians
continued to be troublesome
on the flanks of the advancing population,
as seen in the Tuscarora and
Yemassee wars, and partly because the pine
barrens running parallel with
the fall line made a zone of infertile land
not attractive to settlers.
The North Carolina low country, indeed, had
from the end of the
seventeenth century been a kind of southern
frontier for overflow from
Virginia; and in many ways was assimilated
to the type of the up-country
in its turbulent democracy, its variety of
sects and peoples, and its
primitive conditions. But under the lax management
of the public lands,
the use of "blank patents" and other evasions
made possible the
development of large landholding, side by
side with headrights to
settlers. Here, as in Virginia, a great proprietary
grant extended
across the colony--Lord Granville's proprietary
was a zone embracing the
northern half of North Carolina. Within the
area, sales and quit-rents
were administered by the agents of the owner,
with the result that
uncertainty and disorder of an agrarian nature
extended down to the
Revolution. There were likewise great speculative
holdings, conditioned
on seating a certain proportion of settlers,
into which the frontiersmen
were drifting.[95:2] But this system also
made it possible for agents of
later migrating congregations to establish
colonies like that of the
Moravians at Wachovia.[95:3] Thus, by the
time settlers came into the
uplands from the north, a land system existed
similar to that of
Virginia. A common holding was a square mile
(640 acres), but in
practice this did not prevent the accumulation
of great estates.[96:1]
Whereas Virginia's Piedmont area was to a
large extent entered by
extensions from the coast, that of North Carolina
remained almost
untouched by 1730.[96:2]
The same is true of South Carolina. By 1730,
settlement had progressed
hardly eighty miles from the coast, even in
the settled area of the
lowlands. The tendency to engross the lowlands
for large plantations was
clear, here as elsewhere.[96:3] The surveyor-general
reports in 1732
that not as many as a thousand acres within
a hundred miles of
Charleston, or within twenty miles of a river
or navigable creek, were
unpossessed. In 1729 the crown ordered eleven
townships of twenty
thousand acres each to be laid out in rectangles,
divided into fifty
acres for each actual settler under a quit-rent
of four shillings a year
for every hundred acres, or proportionally,
to be paid after the first
ten years.[96:4] By 1732 these townships,
designed to attract foreign
Protestants, were laid out on the great rivers
of the colony. As they
were located in the middle region, east of
the fall line, among pine
barrens, or in malarial lands in the southern
corner of the colony, they
all proved abortive as towns, except Orangeburg[96:5]
on the North
Edisto, where German redemptioners made a
settlement. The Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians who came to Williamsburg, on
Black River, suffered
hardships; as did the Swiss who, under the
visionary leadership of
Purry, settled in the deadly climate of Purrysburg,
on the lower
Savannah. To Welsh colonists from Pennsylvania
there was made a
grant--known as the "Welsh tract," embracing
over 173,000 acres on the
Great Pedee (Marion County)[97:1] under headrights
of fifty acres, also
a bounty in provisions, tools, and livestock.
These attempts, east of the fall line, are
interesting as showing
the colonial policy of marking out towns (which
were to be
politically-organized parishes, with representation
in the legislature),
and attracting foreigners thereto, prior to
the coming of settlers from
the North.
The settlement of Georgia, in 1732, completed
the southern line of
colonization toward the Piedmont. Among the
objects of the colony, as
specified in the charters, were the relief
of the poor and the
protection of the frontiers. To guard against
the tendency to engross
the lands in great estates, already so clearly
revealed in the older
colonies, the Georgia trustees provided that
the grants of fifty acres
should not be alienated or divided, but should
pass to the male heirs
and revert to the trustees in case heirs were
lacking. No grant greater
than five hundred acres was permitted, and
even this was made
conditionally upon the holder settling ten
colonists. However, under
local conditions and the competition and example
of neighboring
colonies, this attempt to restrict land tenure
in the interest of
democracy broke down by 1750, and Georgia's
land system became not
unlike that of the other Southern colonies.[97:2]
In 1734, Salzburgers had been located above
Savannah, and within seven
years some twelve hundred German Protestants
were dwelling on the
Georgia frontier; while a settlement of Scotch
Highlanders at Darien,
near the mouth of the Altamaha, protected
the southern frontier. At
Augusta, an Indian trading fort (1735), whence
the dealers in peltry
visited the Cherokee, completed the familiar
picture of frontier
advance.[98:1]
We have now hastily surveyed the movement
of the frontier of settlement
westward from the lowlands, in the later years
of the seventeenth and
early part of the eighteenth century. There
is much that is common in
the whole line of advance. The original settlers
engross the desirable
lands of the older area. Indented servants
and new-comers pass to the
frontier seeking a place to locate their headrights,
or plant new towns.
Adventurous and speculative wealthy planters
acquire large holdings in
the new areas, and bring over settlers to
satisfy the requirements of
seating and cultivating their extensive grants,
thus building up a
yeomanry of small landholders side by side
with the holders of large
estates. The most far-sighted of the new-comers
follow the example of
the planters, and petition for increasing
extensive grants. Meanwhile,
pioneers like Abraham Wood, himself once an
indented servant, and
gentlemen like Col. William Byrd--prosecuting
the Indian trade from
their posts at the "heads" of the rivers,
and combining frontier
protection, exploring, and surveying--make
known the more distant
fertile soils of the Piedmont. Already in
the first part of the
eighteenth century, the frontier population
tended to be a rude
democracy, with a large representation of
Scotch-Irish, Germans, Welsh,
and Huguenot French settlers, holding religious
faiths unlike that of
the followers of the established church in
the lowlands. The movement of
slaves into the region was unimportant, but
not unknown.
The Virginia Valley was practically unsettled
in 1730, as was much of
Virginia's Piedmont area and all the Piedmont
area of the Carolinas. The
significance of the movement of settlers from
the North into this vacant
Valley and Piedmont, behind the area occupied
by expansion from the
coast is, that it was geographically separated
from the westward
movement from the coast, and that it was sufficient
in volume to recruit
the democratic forces and postpone for a long
time the process of social
assimilation to the type of the lowlands.
As has been pointed out, especially in the
Carolinas a belt of pine
barrens, roughly eighty miles in breadth,
ran parallel with the fall
line and thus discouraged western advance
across this belt, even before
the head of navigation was reached. In Virginia,
the Blue Ridge made an
almost equally effective barrier, walling
off the Shenandoah Valley from
the westward advance. At the same time this
valley was but a
continuation of the Great Valley, that ran
along the eastern edge of the
Alleghanies in southeastern Pennsylvania,
and included in its mountain
trough the Cumberland and Hagerstown valleys.
In short, a broad
limestone band of fertile soil was stretched
within mountain walls,
southerly from Pennsylvania to southwestern
Virginia; and here the
watergaps opened the way to descend to the
Carolina Piedmont. This whole
area, a kind of peninsula thrust down from
Pennsylvania, was rendered
comparatively inaccessible to the westward
movement from the lowlands,
and was equally accessible to the population
which was entering
Pennsylvania.[99:1]
Thus it happened that from about 1730 to 1760
a generation of settlers
poured along this mountain trough into the
southern uplands, or
Piedmont, creating a new continuous social
and economic area, which cut
across the artificial colonial boundary lines,
disarranged the regular
extension of local government from the coast
westward, and built up a
new Pennsylvania in contrast with the old
Quaker colonies, and a new
South in contrast with the tidewater South.
This New South composed the
southern half of the Old West.
From its beginning, Pennsylvania was advertised
as a home for dissenting
sects seeking freedom in the wilderness. But
it was not until the exodus
of German redemptioners,[100:1] from about
1717, that the Palatinate and
neighboring areas sent the great tide of Germans
which by the time of
the Revolution made them nearly a third of
the total population of
Pennsylvania. It has been carefully estimated
that in 1775 over 200,000
Germans lived in the thirteen colonies, chiefly
along the frontier zone
of 
the Old West. Of these, a hundred thousand
had their home in
Pennsylvania, mainly in the Great Valley,
in the region which is still
so notably the abode of the "Pennsylvania
Dutch."[100:2]
Space does not permit us to describe this
movement of
colonization.[100:3] The entrance to the fertile
limestone soils of the
Great Valley of Pennsylvania was easy, in
view of the low elevation of
the South Mountain ridge, and the watergaps
thereto. The continuation
along the similar valley to the south, in
Maryland and Virginia, was a
natural one, especially as the increasing
tide of emigrants raised the
price of lands.[100:4] In 1719 the proprietor's
price for Pennsylvania
lands was ten pounds per hundred acres, and
two shillings quit-rents. In
1732 this became fifteen and one-half pounds,
with a quit-rent of a half
penny per acre.[101:1] During the period 1718
to 1732, when the Germans
were coming in great numbers, the management
of the lands fell into
confusion, and many seated themselves as squatters,
without
title.[101:2] This was a fortunate possibility
for the poor
redemptioners, who had sold their service
for a term of years in order
to secure their transportation to America.
By 1726 it was estimated that there were 100,000
squatters;[101:3] and
of the 670,000 acres occupied between 1732
and 1740, it is estimated
that 400,000 acres were settled without grants.[101:4]
Nevertheless
these must ultimately be paid for, with interest,
and the concession of
the right of preëmption to squatters made
this easier. But it was not
until 1755 that the governor offered land
free from purchase, and this
was to be taken only west of the Alleghanies.[101:5]
Although the credit system relieved the difficulty
in Pennsylvania, the
lands of that colony were in competition with
the Maryland lands,
offered between 1717 and 1738 at forty shillings
sterling per hundred
acres, which in 1738 was raised to five pounds
sterling.[101:6] At the
same time, in the Virginia Valley, as will
be recalled, free grants were
being made of a thousand acres per family.
Although large tracts of the
Shenandoah Valley had been granted to speculators
like Beverley,
Borden, and the Carters, as well as to Lord
Fairfax, the owners sold
six or seven pounds cheaper per hundred acres
than did the Pennsylvania
land office.[102:1] Between 1726 and 1734,
therefore, the Germans began
to enter this valley,[102:2] and before long
they extended their
settlements into the Piedmont of the Carolinas,[102:3]
being recruited
in South Carolina by emigrants coming by way
of Charleston--especially
after Governor Glenn's purchase from the Cherokee
in 1755, of the
extreme western portion of the colony. Between
1750 and the Revolution,
these settlers in the Carolinas greatly increased
in numbers.
Thus a zone of almost continuous German settlements
had been
established, running from the head of the
Mohawk in New York to the
Savannah in Georgia. They had found the best
soils, and they knew how to
till them intensively and thriftily, as attested
by their large,
well-filled barns, good stock, and big canvas-covered
Conestoga wagons.
They preferred to dwell in groups, often of
the same religious
denomination--Lutherans, Reformed, Moravians,
Mennonites, and many
lesser sects. The diaries of Moravian missionaries
from Pennsylvania,
who visited them, show how the parent congregations
kept in touch with
their colonies[102:4] and how intimate, in
general, was the bond of
connection between this whole German frontier
zone and that of
Pennsylvania.
Side by side with this German occupation of
Valley and Piedmont, went
the migration of the Scotch-Irish.[103:1]
These lowland Scots had been
planted in Ulster early in the seventeenth
century. Followers of John
Knox, they had the contentious individualism
and revolutionary temper
that seem natural to Scotch Presbyterianism.
They were brought up on the
Old Testament, and in the doctrine of government
by covenant or compact.
In Ireland their fighting qualities had been
revealed in the siege of
Londonderry, where their stubborn resistance
balked the hopes of James
II. However, religious and political disabilities
were imposed upon
these Ulstermen, which made them discontented,
and hard times
contributed to detach them from their homes.
Their movement to America
was contemporaneous with the heavy German
migration. By the Revolution,
it is believed that a third of the population
of Pennsylvania was
Scotch-Irish; and it has been estimated, probably
too liberally, that a
half million came to the United States between
1730 and 1770.[103:2]
Especially after the Rebellion of 1745, large
numbers of Highlanders
came to increase the Scotch blood in the nation.[103:3]
Some of the
Scotch-Irish went to New England.[103:4] Given
the cold shoulder by
congregational Puritans, they passed to unsettled
lands about Worcester,
to the frontier in the Berkshires, and in
southern New Hampshire at
Londonderry--whence came John Stark, a frontier
leader in the French
and Indian War, and the hero of Bennington
in the Revolution, as well as
the ancestors of Horace Greeley and S. P.
Chase. In New York, a
Scotch-Irish settlement was planted on the
frontier at Cherry
Valley.[104:1] Scotch Highlanders came to
the Mohawk,[104:2] where they
followed Sir William Johnson and became Tory
raiders in the Revolution.
But it was in Pennsylvania that the center
of Scotch-Irish power lay.
"These bold and indigent strangers, saying
as their excuse when
challenged for titles that we had solicited
for colonists and they had
come accordingly,"[104:3] and asserting that
"it was against the laws of
God and nature that so much land should be
idle while so many christians
wanted it to work on and to raise their bread,"
squatted on the vacant
lands, especially in the region disputed between
Pennsylvania and
Maryland, and remained in spite of efforts
to drive them off. Finding
the Great Valley in the hands of the Germans,
they planted their own
outposts along the line of the Indian trading
path from Lancaster to
Bedford; they occupied Cumberland Valley,
and before 1760 pressed up the
Juniata somewhat beyond the narrows, spreading
out along its
tributaries, and by 1768 had to be warned
off from the Redstone country
to avoid Indian trouble. By the time of the
Revolution, their
settlements made Pittsburgh a center from
which was to come a new era in
Pennsylvania history. It was the Scotch-Irish
and German
fur-traders[104:4] whose pack trains pioneered
into the Ohio Valley in
the days before the French and Indian wars.
The messengers between
civilization and savagery were such men,[105:1]
as the Irish Croghan,
and the Germans Conrad Weiser and Christian
Post.
Like the Germans, the Scotch-Irish passed
into the Shenandoah
Valley,[105:2] and on to the uplands of the
South. In 1738 a delegation
of the Philadelphia Presbyterian synod was
sent to the Virginia governor
and received assurances of security of religious
freedom; the same
policy was followed by the Carolinas. By 1760
a zone of Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian churches extended from the frontiers
of New England to the
frontiers of South Carolina. This zone combined
in part with the German
zone, but in general Scotch-Irishmen tended
to follow the valleys
farther toward the mountains, to be the outer
edge of this frontier.
Along with this combined frontier stream were
English, Welsh and Irish
Quakers, and French Huguenots.[105:3]
Among this moving mass, as it passed along
the Valley into the Piedmont,
in the middle of the eighteenth century, were
Daniel Boone, John Sevier,
James Robertson, and the ancestors of John
C. Calhoun, Abraham Lincoln,
Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, James
K. Polk, Sam Houston, and Davy
Crockett, while the father of Andrew Jackson
came to the Carolina
Piedmont at the same time from the coast.
Recalling that Thomas
Jefferson's home was on the frontier, at the
edge of the Blue Ridge, we
perceive that these names represent the militant
expansive movement in
American life. They foretell the settlement
across the Alleghanies in
Kentucky and Tennessee; the Louisiana Purchase,
and Lewis and Clark's
transcontinental exploration; the conquest
of the Gulf Plains in the
War of 1812-15; the annexation of Texas; the
acquisition of California
and the Spanish Southwest. They represent,
too, frontier democracy in
its two aspects personified in Andrew Jackson
and Abraham Lincoln. It
was a democracy responsive to leadership,
susceptible to waves of
emotion, of a "high religeous voltage"--quick
and direct in action.
The volume of this Northern movement into
the Southern uplands is
illustrated by the statement of Governor Tryon,
of North Carolina, that
in the summer and winter of 1765 more than
a thousand immigrant wagons
passed through Salisbury, in that colony.[106:1]
Coming by families, or
groups of families or congregations, they
often drove their herds with
them. Whereas in 1746 scarce a hundred fighting
men were found in Orange
and the western counties of North Carolina,
there were in 1753 fully
three thousand, in addition to over a thousand
Scotch in the Cumberland;
and they covered the province more or less
thickly, from Hillsboro and
Fayetteville to the mountains.[106:2] Bassett
remarks that the
Presbyterians received their first ministers
from the synod of New York
and Pennsylvania, and later on sent their
ministerial students to
Princeton College. "Indeed it is likely that
the inhabitants of this
region knew more about Philadelphia at that
time than about Newbern or
Edenton."[106:3]
We are now in a position to note briefly,
in conclusion, some of the
results of the occupation of this new frontier
during the first half of
the eighteenth century--some of the consequences
of this formation of
the Old West.
I. A fighting frontier had been created all
along the line from New
England to Georgia, which bore the brunt of
French and Indian attacks
and gave indispensable service during the
Revolution. The significance
of this fact could only be developed by an
extended survey of the
scattered border warfare of this era. We should
have to see Rogers
leading his New England Rangers, and Washington
defending interior
Virginia with his frontiersmen in their hunting
shirts, in the French
and Indian War. When all of the campaigns
about the region of Canada,
Lake Champlain, and the Hudson, central New
York (Oriskany, Cherry
Valley, Sullivan's expedition against the
Iroquois), Wyoming Valley,
western Pennsylvania, the Virginia Valley,
and the back country of the
South are considered as a whole from this
point of view, the meaning of
the Old West will become more apparent.
II. A new society had been established, differing
in essentials from the
colonial society of the coast. It was a democratic
self-sufficing,
primitive agricultural society, in which individualism
was more
pronounced than the community life of the
lowlands. The indented servant
and the slave were not a normal part of its
labor system. It was engaged
in grain and cattle raising, not in producing
staples, and it found a
partial means of supplying its scarcity of
specie by the peltries which
it shipped to the coast. But the hunter folk
were already pushing
farther on; the cow-pens and the range were
giving place to the small
farm, as in our own day they have done in
the cattle country. It was a
region of hard work and poverty, not of wealth
and leisure. Schools and
churches were secured under serious difficulty,[107:1]
if at all; but in
spite of the natural tendencies of a frontier
life, a large portion of
the interior showed a distinctly religious
atmosphere.
III. The Old West began the movement of internal
trade which developed
home markets and diminished that colonial
dependence on Europe in
industrial matters shown by the maritime and
staple-raising sections.
Not only did Boston and other New England
towns increase as trading
centers when the back country settled up,
but an even more significant
interchange occurred along the Valley and
Piedmont. The German farmers
of the Great Valley brought their woven linen,
knitted stockings,
firkins of butter, dried apples, grain, etc.,
to Philadelphia and
especially to Baltimore, which was laid out
in 1730. To this city also
came trade from the Shenandoah Valley, and
even from the Piedmont came
peltry trains and droves of cattle and hogs
to the same market.[108:1]
The increase of settlement on the upper James
resulted in the
establishment of the city of Richmond at the
falls of the river in 1737.
Already the tobacco-planting aristocracy of
the lowlands were finding
rivals in the grain-raising area of interior
Virginia and Maryland.
Charleston prospered as the up-country of
the Carolinas grew. Writing in
the middle of the eighteenth century, Governor
Glenn, of South Carolina,
explained the apparent diminution of the colony's
shipping thus:[108:2]
Our trade with New York and Philadelphia was
of this sort,
draining us of all the little money and bills
that we could
gather from other places, for their bread,
flour, beer, hams,
bacon, and other things of their produce,
all which, except
beer, our new townships begin to supply us
with which are
settled with very industrious and consequently
thriving
Germans.
It was not long before this interior trade
produced those rivalries for
commercial ascendancy, between the coastwise
cities, which still
continue. The problem of internal improvements
became a pressing one,
and the statutes show increasing provision
for roads, ferries, bridges,
river improvements, etc.[109:1] The basis
was being laid for a national
economy, and at the same time a new source
for foreign export was
created.
IV. The Old West raised the issues of nativism
and a lower standard of
comfort. In New England, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians
had been frowned
upon and pushed away by the Puritan townsmen.[109:2]
In Pennsylvania,
the coming of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish
in such numbers caused
grave anxiety. Indeed, a bill was passed to
limit the importation of the
Palatines, but it was vetoed.[109:3] Such
astute observers as Franklin
feared in 1753 that Pennsylvania would be
unable to preserve its
language and that even its government would
become precarious.[109:4] "I
remember," he declares, "when they modestly
declined intermeddling in
our elections, but now they come in droves
and carry all before them,
except in one or two counties;" and he lamented
that the English could
not remove their prejudices by addressing
them in German.[109:5] Dr.
Douglas[109:6] apprehended that Pennsylvania
would "degenerate into a
foreign colony" and endanger the quiet of
the adjacent provinces. Edmund
Burke, regretting that the Germans adhered
to their own schools,
literature, and language, and that they possessed
great tracts without
admixture of English, feared that they would
not blend and become one
people with the British colonists, and that
the colony was threatened
with the danger of being wholly foreign. He
also noted that "these
foreigners by their industry, frugality, and
a hard way of living, in
which they greatly exceed our people, have
in a manner thrust them out
in several places."[110:1] This is a phenomenon
with which a succession
of later frontiers has familiarized us. In
point of fact the
"Pennsylvania Dutch" remained through our
history a very stubborn area
to assimilate, with corresponding effect upon
Pennsylvania politics.
It should be noted also that this coming of
non-English stock to the
frontier raised in all the colonies affected,
questions of
naturalization and land tenure by aliens.[110:2]
V. The creation of this frontier society--of
which so large a portion
differed from that of the coast in language
and religion as well as in
economic life, social structure, and ideals--produced
an antagonism
between interior and coast, which worked itself
out in interesting
fashion. In general this took these forms:
contests between the
property-holding class of the coast and the
debtor class of the
interior, where specie was lacking, and where
paper money and a
readjustment of the basis of taxation were
demanded; contests over
defective or unjust local government in the
administration of taxes,
fees, lands, and the courts; contests over
apportionment in the
legislature, whereby the coast was able to
dominate, even when its white
population was in the minority; contests to
secure the complete
separation of church and state; and, later,
contests over slavery,
internal improvements, and party politics
in general. These contests are
also intimately connected with the political
philosophy of the
Revolution and with the development of American
democracy. In nearly
every colony prior to the Revolution, struggles
had been in progress
between the party of privilege, chiefly the
Eastern men of property
allied with the English authorities, and the
democratic classes,
strongest in the West and the cities.
This theme deserves more space than can here
be allotted to it; but a
rapid survey of conditions in this respect,
along the whole frontier,
will at least serve to bring out the point.
In New England as a whole, the contest is
less in evidence. That part of
the friction elsewhere seen as the result
of defective local government
in the back country, was met by the efficiency
of the town system; but
between the interior and the coast there were
struggles over
apportionment and religious freedom. The former
is illustrated by the
convention that met in Dracut, Massachusetts,
in 1776, to petition the
States of Massachusetts and New Hampshire
to relieve the financial
distress and unfair legislative representation.
Sixteen of the border
towns of New Hampshire sent delegates to this
convention. Two years
later, these New Hampshire towns attempted
to join Vermont.[111:1] As a
Revolutionary State, Vermont itself was an
illustration of the same
tendency of the interior to break away from
the coast. Massachusetts in
this period witnessed a campaign between the
paper money party which was
entrenched in the more recently and thinly-settled
areas of the interior
and west, and the property-holding classes
of the coast.[111:2] The
opposition to the constitutions of 1778 and
1780 is tinctured with the
same antagonism between the ideas of the newer
part of the interior and
of the coast.[112:1] Shays' Rebellion and
the anti-federal opposition of
1787-88 found its stronghold in the same interior
areas.[112:2]
The religious struggles continued until the
democratic interior, where
dissenting sects were strong, and where there
was antagonism to the
privileges of the congregational church, finally
secured complete
disestablishment in New Hampshire, Connecticut,
and Massachusetts. But
this belongs to a later period.[112:3]
Pennsylvania affords a clear illustration
of these sectional
antagonisms. The memorial of the frontier
"Paxton Boys," in 1764,
demanded a right to share in political privileges
with the older part of
the colony, and protested against the apportionment
by which the
counties of Chester, Bucks, and Philadelphia,
together with the city of
Philadelphia, elected twenty-six delegates,
while the five frontier
counties had but ten.[112:4] The frontier
complained against the failure
of the dominant Quaker party of the coast
to protect the interior
against the Indians.[112:5] The three old
wealthy counties under Quaker
rule feared the growth of the West, therefore
made few new counties, and
carefully restricted the representation in
each to preserve the majority
in the old section. At the same time, by a
property qualification they
met the danger of the democratic city population.
Among the points of
grievance in this colony, in addition to apportionment
and
representation, was the difficulty of access
to the county seat, owing
to the size of the back counties. Dr. Lincoln
has well set forth the
struggle of the back country, culminating
in its triumph in the
constitutional convention of 1776, which was
chiefly the work of the
Presbyterian counties.[113:1] Indeed, there
were two revolutions in
Pennsylvania, which went on side by side:
one a revolt against the
coastal property-holding classes, the old
dominant Quaker party, and the
other a revolt against Great Britain, which
was in this colony made
possible only by the triumph of the interior.
In Virginia, as early as 1710, Governor Spotswood
had complained that
the old counties remained small while the
new ones were sometimes ninety
miles long, the inhabitants being obliged
to travel thirty or forty
miles to their own court-house. Some of the
counties had 1,700
tithables, while others only a dozen miles
square had 500. Justices of
the peace disliked to ride forty or fifty
miles to their monthly courts.
Likewise there was disparity in the size of
parishes--for example, that
of Varina, on the upper James, had nine hundred
tithables, many of whom
lived fifty miles from their church. But the
vestry refused to allow the
remote parishioners to separate, because it
would increase the parish
levy of those that remained. He feared lest
this would afford
"opportunity to Sectarys to establish their
opinions among 'em, and
thereby shake that happy establishment of
the Church of England which
this colony enjoys with less mixture of Dissenters
than any other of her
Maj'tie's plantations, and when once Schism
has crept into the Church,
it will soon create faction in the Civil Government."
That Spotswood's fears were well founded,
we have already seen. As the
sectaries of the back country increased, dissatisfaction
with the
established church grew. After the Revolution
came, Jefferson, with the
back country behind him, was able finally
to destroy the establishment,
and to break down the system of entails and
primogeniture behind which
the tobacco-planting aristocracy of the coast
was entrenched. The desire
of Jefferson to see slavery gradually abolished
and popular education
provided, is a further illustration of the
attitude of the interior. In
short, Jeffersonian democracy, with its idea
of separation of church and
state, its wish to popularize education, and
its dislike for special
privilege, was deeply affected by the Western
society of the Old
Dominion.
The Virginian reform movement, however, was
unable to redress the
grievance of unequal apportionment. In 1780
Jefferson pointed out that
the practice of allowing each county an equal
representation in the
legislature gave control to the numerous small
counties of the
tidewater, while the large populous counties
of the up-country suffered.
"Thus," he wrote, "the 19,000 men below the
falls give law to more than
30,000 living in other parts of the state,
and appoint all their chief
officers, executive and judiciary."[114:1]
This led to a long struggle
between coast and interior, terminated only
when the slave population
passed across the fall line, and more nearly
assimilated coast and
up-country. In the mountain areas which did
not undergo this change, the
independent state of West Virginia remains
as a monument of the contest.
In the convention of 1829-30, the whole philosophy
of representation was
discussed, and the coast defended its control
as necessary to protect
property from the assaults of a numerical
majority. They feared that
the interior would tax their slaves in order
to secure funds for
internal improvements.
As Doddridge put the case:[115:1]
The principle is that the owners of slave
property must be
possessed of all the powers of government,
however small their
own numbers may be, to secure that property
from the rapacity
of an overgrown majority of white men. This
principle admits
of no relaxation, because the weaker the minority
becomes, the
greater will their need for power be according
to their own
doctrines.
Leigh of Chesterfield county declared:[115:2]
It is remarkable--I mention it for the curiosity
of the
fact--that if any evil, physical or moral,
arise in any of the
states south of us, it never takes a northerly
direction, or
taints the Southern breeze; whereas, if any
plague originate
in the North, it is sure to spread to the
South and to invade
us sooner or later; the influenza--the smallpox--the
varioloid--the Hessian fly--the Circuit Court
system--Universal Suffrage--all come from
the North, _and they
always cross above the falls of the great
rivers_; below, it
seems, the broad expanse of waters interposing,
effectually
arrests their progress.
Nothing could more clearly bring out the sense
of contrast between
upland and lowland Virginia, and the continued
intimacy of the bond of
connection between the North and its Valley
and Piedmont colonies, than
this unconscious testimony.
In North and South Carolina the upland South,
beyond the pine barrens
and the fall line, had similar grievances
against the coast; but as the
zone of separation was more strongly marked,
the grievances were more
acute. The tide of backwoods settlement flowing
down the Piedmont from
the north, had cut across the lines of local
government and disarranged
the regular course of development of the colonies
from the
seacoast.[116:1] Under the common practice,
large counties in North
Carolina and parishes in South Carolina had
been projected into the
unoccupied interior from the older settlements
along their eastern edge.
But the Piedmont settlers brought their own
social order, and could not
be well governed by the older planters living
far away toward the
seaboard. This may be illustrated by conditions
in South Carolina. The
general court in Charleston had absorbed county
and precinct courts,
except the minor jurisdiction of justices
of the peace. This was well
enough for the great planters who made their
regular residence there for
a part of each year; but it was a source of
oppression to the up-country
settlers, remote from the court. The difficulty
of bringing witnesses,
the delay of the law, and the costs all resulted
in the escape of
criminals as well as in the immunity of reckless
debtors. The extortions
of officials, and their occasional collusion
with horse and cattle
thieves, and the lack of regular administration
of the law, led the
South Carolina up-country men to take affairs
in their own hands, and in
1764 to establish associations to administer
lynch law under the name of
"Regulators." The "Scovillites," or government
party, and the
Regulators met in arms on the Saluda in 1769,
but hostilities were
averted and remedial measures passed, which
alleviated the difficulty
until the Revolution.[117:1] There still remained,
however, the
grievance of unjust legislative representation.[117:2]
Calhoun stated
the condition in these words:
The upper country had no representation in
the government and
no political existence as a constituent portion
of the state
until a period near the commencement of the
revolution.
Indeed, during the revolution, and until the
formation of the
present constitution, in 1790, its political
weight was
scarcely felt in the government. Even then
although it had
become the most populous section, power was
so distributed
under the constitution as to leave it in a
minority in every
department of government.
Even in 1794 it was claimed by the up-country
leaders that four-fifths
of the people were governed by one-fifth.
Nor was the difficulty met
until the constitutional amendment of 1808,
the effect of which was to
give the control of the senate to the lower
section and of the house of
representatives to the upper section, thus
providing a mutual
veto.[117:3] This South Carolina experience
furnished the historical
basis for Calhoun's argument for nullification,
and for the political
philosophy underlying his theory of the "concurrent
majority."[118:1]
This adjustment was effected, however, only
after the advance of the
black belt toward the interior had assimilated
portions of the Piedmont
to lowland ideals.
When we turn to North Carolina's upper country
we find the familiar
story, but with a more tragic ending. The
local officials owed their
selection to the governor and the council
whom he appointed. Thus power
was all concentrated in the official "ring"
of the lowland area. The men
of the interior resented the extortionate
fees and the poll tax, which
bore with unequal weight upon the poor settlers
of the back country.
This tax had been continued after sufficient
funds had been collected to
extinguish the debt for which it was originally
levied, but venal
sheriffs had failed to pay it into the treasury.
A report of 1770 showed
at least one defaulting sheriff in every county
of the province.[118:2]
This tax, which was almost the sole tax of
the colony, was to be
collected in specie, for the warehouse system,
by which staples might be
accepted, while familiar on the coast, did
not apply to the interior.
The specie was exceedingly difficult to obtain;
in lack of it, the
farmer saw the sheriff, who owed his appointment
to the dominant lowland
planters, sell the lands of the delinquent
to his speculative friends.
Lawyers and court fees followed.
In short, the interior felt that it was being
exploited,[118:3] and it
had no redress, for the legislature was so
apportioned that all power
rested in the old lowland region. Efforts
to secure paper money failed
by reason of the governor's opposition under
instructions from the
crown, and the currency was contracting at
the very time when population
was rapidly increasing in the interior.[119:1]
As in New England, in the
days of Shays' Rebellion, violent prejudice
existed against the
judiciary and the lawyers, and it must, of
course, be understood that
the movement was not free from frontier dislike
of taxation and the
restraints of law and order in general. In
1766 and 1768, meetings were
held in the upper counties to organize the
opposition, and an
"association"[119:2] was formed, the members
of which pledged themselves
to pay no more taxes or fees until they satisfied
themselves that these
were agreeable to law.
The Regulators, as they called themselves,
assembled in the autumn of
1768 to the number of nearly four thousand,
and tried to secure terms of
adjustment. In 1770 the court-house at Hillsboro
was broken into by a
mob. The assembly passed some measures designed
to conciliate the back
country; but before they became operative,
Governor Tryon's militia,
about twelve hundred men, largely from the
lowlands, and led by the
gentry whose privileges were involved, met
the motley army of the
Regulators, who numbered about two thousand,
in the battle of the
Alamance (May, 1771). Many were killed and
wounded, the Regulators
dispersed, and over six thousand men came
into camp and took the oath of
submission to the colonial authorities. The
battle was not the first
battle of the Revolution, as it has been sometimes
called, for it had
little or no relation to the stamp act; and
many of the frontiersmen
involved, later refused to fight against England
because of the very
hatred which had been inspired for the lowland
Revolutionary leaders in
this battle of the Alamance. The interior
of the Carolinas was a region
where neighbors, during the Revolution, engaged
in internecine conflicts
of Tories against Whigs.
But in the sense that the battle of Alamance
was a conflict against
privilege, and for equality of political rights
and power, it was indeed
a preliminary battle of the Revolution, although
fought against many of
the very men who later professed Revolutionary
doctrines in North
Carolina. The need of recognizing the importance
of the interior led to
concessions in the convention of 1776 in that
state. "Of the forty-four
sections of the constitution, thirteen are
embodiments of reforms sought
by the Regulators."[120:1] But it was in this
period that hundreds of
North Carolina backwoodsmen crossed the mountains
to Tennessee and
Kentucky, many of them coming from the heart
of the Regulator region.
They used the device of "associations" to
provide for government in
their communities.[120:2]
In the matter of apportionment, North Carolina
showed the same lodgment
of power in the hands of the coast, even after
population preponderated
in the Piedmont.[120:3]
It is needless to comment on the uniformity
of the evidence which has
been adduced, to show that the Old West, the
interior region from New
England to Georgia, had a common grievance
against the coast; that it
was deprived throughout most of the region
of its due share of
representation, and neglected and oppressed
in local government in large
portions of the section. The familiar struggle
of West against East, of
democracy against privileged classes, was
exhibited along the entire
line. The phenomenon must be considered as
a unit, not in the fragments
of state histories. It was a struggle of interior
against coast.
VI. Perhaps the most noteworthy Western activity
in the Revolutionary
era, aside from the aspects already mentioned,
was in the part which the
multitude of sects in the Old West played
in securing the great
contribution which the United States made
to civilization by providing
for complete religious liberty, a secular
state with free churches.
Particularly the Revolutionary constitutions
of Pennsylvania and
Virginia, under the influence of the back
country, insured religious
freedom. The effects of the North Carolina
upland area to secure a
similar result were noteworthy, though for
the time ineffective.[121:1]
VII. As population increased in these years,
the coast gradually yielded
to the up-country's demands. This may be illustrated
by the transfer of
the capitals from the lowlands to the fall
line and Valley. In 1779,
Virginia changed her seat of government from
Williamsburg to Richmond;
in 1790, South Carolina, from Charleston to
Columbia; in 1791, North
Carolina, from Edenton to Raleigh; in 1797,
New York, from New York City
to Albany; in 1799, Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia
to Lancaster.
VIII. The democratic aspect of the new constitutions
was also influenced
by the frontier as well as by the prevalent
Revolutionary philosophy;
and the demands for paper money, stay and
tender laws, etc., of this
period were strongest in the interior. It
was this region that supported
Shays' Rebellion; it was (with some important
exceptions) the same area
that resisted the ratification of the federal
constitution, fearful of a
stronger government and of the loss of paper
money.
IX. The interior later showed its opposition
to the coast by the
persistent contest against slavery, carried
on in the up-country of
Virginia, and North and South Carolina. Until
the decade 1830-40, it was
not certain that both Virginia and North Carolina
would not find some
means of gradual abolition. The same influence
accounts for much of the
exodus of the Piedmont pioneers into Indiana
and Illinois, in the first
half of the nineteenth century.[122:1]
X. These were the regions, also, in which
were developed the desire of
the pioneers who crossed the mountains, and
settled on the "Western
waters," to establish new States free from
control by the lowlands,
owning their own lands, able to determine
their own currency, and in
general to govern themselves in accordance
with the ideals of the Old
West. They were ready also, if need be, to
become independent of the Old
Thirteen. Vermont must be considered in this
aspect, as well as Kentucky
and Tennessee.[122:2]
XI. The land system of the Old West furnished
precedents which developed
into the land system of the trans-Alleghany
West.[122:3] The squatters
of Pennsylvania and the Carolinas found it
easy to repeat the operation
on another frontier. Preëmption laws became
established features. The
Revolution gave opportunity to confiscate
the claims of Lord Fairfax,
Lord Granville, and McCulloh to their vast
estates, as well as the
remaining lands of the Pennsylvania proprietors.
The 640 acre (or one
square mile) unit of North Carolina for preëmptions,
and frontier land
bounties, became the area awarded to frontier
stations by Virginia in
1779, and the "section" of the later federal
land system. The Virginia
preëmption right of four hundred acres on
the Western waters, or a
thousand for those who came prior to 1778,
was, in substance, the
continuation of a system familiar in the Old
West.
The grants to Beverley, of over a hundred
thousand acres in the Valley,
conditioned on seating a family for every
thousand acres, and the
similar grants to Borden, Carter, and Lewis,
were followed by the great
grant to the Ohio Company. This company, including
leading Virginia
planters and some frontiersmen, asked in 1749
for two hundred thousand
acres on the upper Ohio, conditioned on seating
a hundred families in
seven years, and for an additional grant of
three hundred thousand acres
after this should be accomplished. It was
proposed to settle Germans on
these lands.
The Loyal Land Company, by order of the Virginia
council (1749), was
authorized to take up eight hundred thousand
acres west and north of the
southern boundary of Virginia, on condition
of purchasing "rights" for
the amount within four years. The company
sold many tracts for £3 per
hundred acres to settlers, but finally lost
its claim. The Mississippi
Company, including in its membership the Lees,
Washingtons, and other
great Virginia planters, applied for two and
one-half million acres in
the West in 1769. Similar land companies of
New England origin, like
the Susquehanna Company and Lyman's Mississippi
Company, exhibit the
same tendency of the Old West on the northern
side. New England's Ohio
Company of Associates, which settled Marietta,
had striking resemblances
to town proprietors.
These were only the most noteworthy of many
companies of this period,
and it is evident that they were a natural
outgrowth of speculations in
the Old West. Washington, securing military
bounty land claims of
soldiers of the French and Indian War, and
selecting lands in West
Virginia until he controlled over seventy
thousand acres for
speculation, is an excellent illustration
of the tendency. He also
thought of colonizing German Palatines upon
his lands. The formation of
the Transylvania and Vandalia companies were
natural developments on a
still vaster scale.[124:1]
XII. The final phase of the Old West, which
I wish merely to mention, in
conclusion, is its colonization of areas beyond
the mountains. The
essential unity of the movement is brought
out by a study of how New
England's Old West settled northern Maine,
New Hampshire and Vermont,
the Adirondacks, central and Western New York,
the Wyoming Valley (once
organized as a part of Litchfield, Connecticut),
the Ohio Company's
region about Marietta, and Connecticut's Western
Reserve on the shores
of Lake Erie; and how the pioneers of the
Great Valley and the Piedmont
region of the South crossed the Alleghanies
and settled on the Western
Waters. Daniel Boone, going from his Pennsylvania
home to the Yadkin,
and from the Yadkin to Tennessee and Kentucky,
took part in the whole
process, and later in its continuation into
Missouri.[124:2] The social
conditions and ideals of the Old West powerfully
shaped those of the
trans-Alleghany West.
The important contrast between the spirit
of individual colonization,
resentful of control, which the Southern frontiersmen
showed, and the
spirit of community colonization and control
to which the New England
pioneers inclined, left deep traces on the
later history of the
West.[125:1] The Old West diminished the importance
of the town as a
colonizing unit, even in New England. In the
Southern area, efforts to
legislate towns into existence, as in Virginia,
South Carolina, and
Georgia, failed. They faded away before wilderness
conditions. But in
general, the Northern stream of migration
was communal, and the Southern
individual. The difference which existed between
that portion of the Old
West which was formed by the northward colonization,
chiefly of the New
England Plateau (including New York), and
that portion formed by the
southward colonization of the Virginia Valley
and the Southern Piedmont
was reflected in the history of the Middle
West and the Mississippi
Valley.[125:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[67:1] _Proceedings of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin for
1908._ Reprinted with the permission of the
Society.
[68:1] For the settled area in 1660, see the
map by Lois Mathews in
Channing, "United Stales" (N. Y., 1905), i,
p. 510; and by Albert Cook
Myers in Avery, "United States" (Cleveland,
1905), ii, following p. 398.
In Channing, ii, following p. 603, is Marion
F. Lansing's map of
settlement in 1760, which is on a rather conservative
basis, especially
the part showing the interior of the Carolinas.
Contemporaneous maps of the middle of the
eighteenth century, useful in
studying the progress of settlement, are:
Mitchell, "Map of the British
Colonies" (1755); Evans, "Middle British Colonies"
(1758); Jefferson and
Frye, "Map of Virginia" (1751 and 1755).
On the geographical conditions, see maps and
text in Powell,
"Physiographic Regions" (N. Y., 1896), and
Willis, "Northern
Appalachians," in "Physiography of the United
States" (N. Y., 1896), pp.
73-82, 169-176, 196-201.
[70:1] See Osgood, "American Colonies" (N.
Y., 1907), iii, chap. iii.
[70:2] See chapter ii, _ante_.
[70:3] Sheldon, "Deerfield" (Deerfield, Mass.,
1895), i, p. 288.
[70:4] Parkman, "Frontenac" (Boston, 1898),
p. 390; compare his
description of Deerfield in 1704, in "Half
Century of Conflict" (Boston,
1898), i, p. 55.
[72:1] Hanna, "Scotch Irish" (N. Y. and London,
1902), ii, pp. 17-24.
[72:2] "Half Century of Conflict," ii, pp.
214-234.
[72:3] "American Husbandry" (London, 1775),
i, p. 47.
[73:1] For the extent of New England settlements
in 1760, compared with
1700, see the map in Channing, "United States,"
ii, at end of volume.
[74:1] Schafer, "Land Grants for Education,"
Univ. of Wis. _Bulletin_
(Madison, 1902), chap. iv.
[75:1] On New England's land system see Osgood,
"American Colonies" (N.
Y., 1904), i, chap. xi; and Egleston, "Land
System of the New England
Colonies," Johns Hopkins Univ. _Studies_ (Baltimore,
1886), iv. Compare
the account of Virginia, about 1696, in "Mass.
Hist. Colls." (Boston,
1835), 1st series, v, p. 129, for a favorable
view of the New England
town system; and note the probable influence
of New England's system
upon Virginia's legislation about 1700. See
chapter ii, _ante_.
[76:1] Amelia C. Ford, "Colonial Precedents
of our National Land
System," citing Massachusetts Bay, House of
Rep. "Journal," 1715, pp. 5,
22, 46; Hutchinson, "History of Massachusetts
Bay" (London, 1768), ii,
p. 331; Holland, "Western Massachusetts" (Springfield,
1855), pp. 66,
169.
[76:2] "Conn. Colon. Records" (Hartford, 1874),
viii, p. 134.
[77:1] Holland, "Western Massachusetts," p.
197. See the comments of
Hutchinson in his "History of Massachusetts
Bay," ii, pp. 331, 332.
Compare the steps of Connecticut men in 1753
and 1755 to secure a land
grant in Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, for
the Susquehanna Company, and
the Connecticut governor's remark that there
was no unappropriated land
in the latter colony--"Pa. Colon. Records"
(Harrisburg, 1851), v, p.
771; "Pa. Archives," 2d series, xviii, contains
the important documents,
with much valuable information on the land
system of the Wyoming Valley
region. See also General Lyman's projects
for a Mississippi colony in
the Yazoo delta area--all indicative of the
pressure for land and the
speculative spirit.
[78:1] Compare Vermont's dealings with the
British, and the negotiations
of Kentucky and Tennessee leaders with Spaniards
and British. See _Amer.
Hist. Review_, i, p. 252, note 2, for references
on Vermont's
Revolutionary philosophy and influence.
[79:1] See H. C. Emery, "Artemas Jean Haynes"
(New Haven, 1908), pp.
8-10.
[80:1] Ballagh, in Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1897, p. 110.
[80:2] "N. Y. Colon. Docs," vii, pp. 654,
795.
[81:1] Becker, in _Amer. Hist. Review_, vi,
p. 261.
[81:2] Becker, _loc. cit._ For maps of grants
in New York, see
O'Callaghan, "Doc. Hist. of N. Y." (Albany,
1850), i, pp. 421, 774;
especially Southier, "Chorographical Map of
New York"; Winsor,
"America," v, p. 236. In general on these
grants, consult also "Doc.
Hist. of N. Y.," i, pp. 249-257; "N. Y. Colon.
Docs.," iv, pp. 397, 791,
874; v, pp. 459, 651, 805; vi, pp. 486, 549,
743, 876, 950; Kip, "Olden
Time" (N. Y., 1872), p. 12; Scharf, "History
of Westchester County"
(Phila., 1886), i, p. 91; Libby, "Distribution
of Vote on Ratification
of Constitution" (Madison, 1894), pp. 21-25.
For the region of the Wallkill, including
New Paltz, etc., see Eager,
"Outline History of Orange County, New York"
(Newburgh, 1846-47); and
Ruttenber and Clark, "History of Orange County"
(Phila., 1881), pp.
11-20. On Cherry Valley and upper Susquehanna
settlements, in general,
in New York, see Halsey, "Old New York Frontier,"
pp. 5, 119, and the
maps by De Witt and Southier in O'Callaghan,
"Doc. Hist. of N. Y.," i,
pp. 421, 774.
Note the French Huguenots and Scotch-Irish
in Orange County, and the
Scotch-Irish settlers of Cherry Valley and
their relation to
Londonderry, N. H., as well as the missionary
visits from Stockbridge,
Mass., to the upper Susquehanna.
[82:1] Lord, "Industrial Experiments" (Baltimore,
1898), p. 45;
Diffenderfer, "German Exodus" (Lancaster,
Pa., 1897).
[82:2] See _post_.
[84:1] Hening, "Va. Statutes at Large" (N.
Y., 1823), ii, p. 326.
[84:2] _Ibid._, p. 433.
[84:3] Bassett, "Writings of William Byrd"
(N. Y., 1901), p. xxi.
[85:1] Hening, iii, p. 82. Similar acts were
passed almost annually in
successive years of the seventeenth century;
cf. _loc. cit._, _pp._ 98,
115, 119, 126, 164; the system was discontinued
in 1722--see Beverley,
"Virginia and its Government" (London, 1722),
p. 234.
It is interesting to compare the recommendation
of Governor Dodge for
Wisconsin Territory in 1836--see Wis. Terr.
House of Reps. "Journal,"
1836, pp. 11 _et seq._
[85:2] Hening, iii, pp. 204-209.
[87:1] Compare the law of 1779 in "Va. Revised
Code" (1819), ii, p. 357;
Ranck's "Boonesborough" (Louisville, 1901).
[87:2] Bassett, "Writings of Byrd," p. xii;
"Calendar of British State
Papers, Am. and W. I.," 1677-80 (London, 1896),
p. 168.
[87:3] Bassett, _loc. cit._, p. x, and Hening,
iii, p. 304 (1705).
[87:4] [See Alvord and Bidgood, "First Explorations
of the
Trans-Allegheny Region."]
[87:5] Bassett, "Writings of Byrd," pp. xvii,
xviii, quotes Byrd's
description of the trail; Logan, "Upper South
Carolina" (Columbia,
1859), i, p. 167; Adair describes the trade
somewhat later; cf. Bartram,
"Travels" (London, 1792), _passim_, and Monette,
"Mississippi Valley"
(N. Y., 1846), ii, p. 13.
[88:1] Bruce, "Economic Hist. of Va." (N.
Y., 1896), i, pp. 473, 475,
477.
[88:2] See descriptions of cow-pens in Logan,
"History of Upper S. C.,"
i, p. 151; Bartram, "Travels," p. 308. On
cattle raising generally in
the Piedmont, see: Gregg, "Old Cheraws" (N.
Y., 1867), pp. 68, 108-110;
Salley, "Orangeburg" (Orangeburg, 1898), pp.
219-221; Lawson, "New
Voyage to Carolina" (Raleigh, 1860), p. 135;
Ramsay, "South Carolina"
(Charleston, 1809), i, p. 207; J. F. D. Smyth,
"Tour" (London, 1784), i,
p. 143, ii, pp. 78, 97; Foote, "Sketches of
N. C." (N. Y., 1846), p. 77;
"N. C. Colon. Records" (Raleigh, 1887), v,
pp. xli, 1193, 1223;
"American Husbandry" (London, 1775), i, pp.
336, 350, 384; Hening, v.
pp. 176, 245.
[88:3] Spotswood, "Letters" (Richmond, 1882),
i, p. 167; compare _Va.
Magazine_, iii, pp. 120, 189.
[89:1] "N. C. Colon. Records," v, p. xli.
[89:2] Lawson, "Carolina" (Raleigh, 1860),
gives a description early in
the eighteenth century; his map is reproduced
in Avery, "United States"
(Cleveland, 1907), iii, p. 224.
[89:3] The advantages and disadvantages of
the Piedmont region of the
Carolinas in the middle of the eighteenth
century are illustrated in
Spangenburg's diary, in "N. C. Colon. Records,"
v, pp. 6, 7, 13, 14.
Compare "American Husbandry," i, pp. 220,
332, 357, 388.
[90:1] Spotswood, "Letters," i, p. 40.
[90:2] On Germanna see Spotswood, "Letters"
(index); Fontaine's journal
in A. Maury, "Huguenot Family" (1853), p.
268; Jones, "Present State of
Virginia" (N. Y., 1865), p. 59; Bassett, "Writings
of Byrd," p. 356;
_Va. Magazine_, xiii, pp. 362, 365; vi, p.
385; xii, pp. 342, 350; xiv,
p. 136.
Spotswood's interest in the Indian trade on
the southern frontier of
Virginia is illustrated in his fort Christanna,
on which the above
references afford information.
The contemporaneous account of Spotswood's
expedition into Shenandoah
Valley is Fontaine's journey, cited above.
[91:1] See the excellent paper by C. E. Kemper,
in _Va. Magazine_, xii,
on "Early Westward Movement in Virginia."
[91:2] Compare Phillips, "Origin and Growth
of the Southern Black
Belts," in _Amer. Hist. Review_, xi, p. 799.
[91:3] _Va. Magazine_, xiii, p. 113.
[92:1] "Revised Code of Virginia" (Richmond,
1819), ii, p. 339.
[92:2] _Mag. Amer. Hist._, xiii, pp. 217,
230; Winsor, "Narr. and Crit.
Hist. of America," v, p. 268; Kercheval, "The
Valley" (Winchester, Va.,
1833), pp. 67, 209; _Va. Magazine_, xiii,
p. 115.
[93:1] "William and Mary College Quarterly"
(Williamsburg, 1895), iii,
p. 226. See Jefferson and Frye, "Map of Virginia,
1751," for location of
this and Borden's manor.
[93:2] Brown, "The Cabells" (Boston, 1895),
p. 53.
[93:3] _Loc. cit._, pp. 57, 66.
[94:1] Meade, "Old Churches" (Phila., 1861),
2 vols.; Foote, "Sketches"
(Phila., 1855); Brown, "The Cabells," p. 68.
[94:2] _Atlantic Monthly_, vol. xci, pp. 83
_et seq._; Ford, "Writing of
Thomas Jefferson" (N. Y., 1892), i, pp. xix
_et seq._
[94:3] Byrd, "Dividing Line" (Richmond, 1866),
pp. 85, 271.
[95:1] "N. C. Colon. Records," iii, p. xiii.
Compare Hawks, "Hist. of
North Carolina" (Fayetteville, 1859), map
of precincts, 1663-1729.
[95:2] Raper, "North Carolina" (N. Y., 1904),
chap. v; W. R. Smith,
"South Carolina" (N. Y., 1903), pp. 48, 57.
[95:3] Clewell, "Wachovia" (N. Y., 1902).
[96:1] Ballagh, in Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1897, pp. 120, 121,
citing Bassett, in "Law Quarterly Review,"
April, 1895, pp. 159-161.
[96:2] See map in Hawks, "North Carolina."
[96:3] McCrady, "South Carolina," 1719-1776
(N. Y., 1899), pp. 149, 151;
Smith, "South Carolina," p. 40; Ballagh, in
Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1897, pp. 117-119; Brevard, "Digest of S.
C. Laws" (Charleston, 1857),
i, p. xi.
[96:4] McCrady, "South Carolina," pp. 121
_et seq._; Phillips,
"Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt"
(N. Y., 1908), p. 51.
[96:5] This was not originally provided for
among the eleven towns. For
its history see Salley, "Orangeburg"--frontier
conditions about 1769 are
described on pp. 219 _et seq._; see map opposite
p. 9.
[97:1] Gregg, "Old Cheraws," p. 44.
[97:2] Ballagh, _loc. cit._, pp. 119, 120.
[98:1] Compare the description of Georgia
frontier traders, cattle
raisers, and land speculators, about 1773,
in Bartram, "Travels," pp.
18, 36, 308.
[99:1] See Willis, "Northern Appalachians,"
in "Physiography of the U.
S." in National Geog. Soc. "Monographs" (N.
Y., 1895), no. 6.
[100:1] Diffenderfer, "German Immigration
into Pennsylvania," in Pa.
German Soc. "Proc.," v, p. 10; "Redemptioners"
(Lancaster, Pa., 1900).
[100:2] A. B. Faust, "German Element in the
United States."
[100:3] See the bibliographies in Kuhns, "German
and Swiss Settlements
of Pennsylvania" (N. Y., 1901); Wayland, "German
Element of the
Shenandoah Valley" (N. Y., 1908); Channing,
"United States," ii, p. 421;
Griffin, "List of Works Relating to the Germans
in the U. S." (Library
of Congress, Wash., 1904).
[100:4] See in illustration, the letter in
Myers, "Irish Quakers"
(Swarthmore, Pa., 1902), p. 70.
[101:1] Shepherd, "Proprietary Government
in Pennsylvania" (N. Y.,
1896), p. 34.
[101:2] Gordon, "Pennsylvania" (Phila., 1829),
p. 225.
[101:3] Shepherd, _loc. cit._, pp. 49-51.
[101:4] Ballagh, Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1897, pp. 112, 113.
Compare Smith, "St. Clair Papers" (Cincinnati,
1882), ii, p. 101.
[101:5] Shepherd, _loc. cit._, p. 50.
[101:6] Mereness, "Maryland" (N. Y., 1901),
p. 77.
[102:1] "Calendar Va. State Papers" (Richmond,
1875), i, p. 217; on
these grants see Kemper, "Early Westward Movement
in Virginia" in _Va.
Mag._, xii and xiii; Wayland, "German Element
of the Shenandoah Valley,"
_William and Mary College Quarterly_, iii.
The speculators, both
planters and new-comers, soon made application
for lands beyond the
Alleghanies.
[102:2] In 1794 the Virginia House of Delegates
resolved to publish the
most important laws of the state in German.
[102:3] See Bernheim, "German Settlements
in the Carolinas" (Phila.,
1872); Clewell, "Wachovia"; Allen, "German
Palatines in N. C." (Raleigh,
1905).
[102:4] See Wayland, _loc. cit._, bibliography,
for references; and
especially _Va. Mag._, xi, pp. 113, 225, 370;
xii, pp. 55, 134, 271;
"German American Annals," N. S. iii, pp. 342,
369; iv, p. 16; Clewell,
"Wachovia; N. C. Colon. Records," v, pp. 1-14.
[103:1] On the Scotch-Irish, see the bibliography
in Green,
"Scotch-Irish in America," Amer. Antiquarian
Soc. "Proceedings," April,
1895; Hanna, "Scotch-Irish" (N. Y., 1902),
is a comprehensive
presentation of the subject; see also Myers,
"Irish Quakers."
[103:2] Fiske, "Old Virginia" (Boston, 1897),
ii, p. 394. Compare
Linehan, "The Irish Scots and the Scotch-Irish"
(Concord, N. H., 1902).
[103:3] See MacLean, "Scotch Highlanders in
America" (Cleveland, 1900).
[103:4] Hanna, "Scotch-Irish," ii, pp. 17-24.
[104:1] Halsey, "Old New York Frontier" (N.
Y., 1901).
[104:2] MacLean, pp. 196-230.
[104:3] The words of Logan, Penn's agent,
in 1724, in Hanna, ii, pp. 60,
63.
[104:4] Winsor, "Mississippi Basin" (Boston,
1895), pp. 238-243.
[105:1] See Thwaites, "Early Western Travels"
(Cleveland, 1904-06), i;
Walton, "Conrad Weiser" (Phila., 1900); Heckewelder,
"Narrative"
(Phila., 1820).
[105:2] Christian, "Scotch-Irish Settlers
in the Valley of Virginia"
(Richmond, 1860).
[105:3] Roosevelt gives an interesting picture
of this society in his
"Winning of the West" (N. Y., 1889-96), i,
chap. v; see also his
citations, especially Doddridge, "Settlements
and Indian Wars"
(Wellsburgh, W. Va., 1824).
[106:1] Bassett, in Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1894, p. 145.
[106:2] "N. C. Colon. Records," v, pp. xxxix,
xl; _cf._ p. xxi.
[106:3] _Loc. cit._, pp. 146, 147.
[107:1] See the interesting account of Rev.
Moses Waddell's school in
South Carolina, on the upper Savannah, where
the students, including
John C. Calhoun, McDuffe, Legaré, and Petigru,
were educated in the
wilderness. They lived in log huts in the
woods, furnished their own
supplies, or boarded near by, were called
to the log school-house by
horn for morning prayers, and then scattered
in groups to the woods for
study. Hunt, "Calhoun" (Phila., 1907), p.
13.
[108:1] Scharf, "Maryland" (Baltimore, 1879),
ii, p. 61, and chaps. i
and xviii; Kercheval, "The Valley."
[108:2] Weston, "Documents," p. 82.
[109:1] See, for example, Phillips, "Transportation
in the Eastern
Cotton Belt," pp. 21-53.
[109:2] Hanna, "Scotch-Irish," ii, pp. 19,
22-24.
[109:3] Cobb, "Story of the Palatines" (Wilkes-Barre,
Pa., 1897), p.
300, citing "Penn. Colon. Records," iv, pp.
225, 345.
[109:4] "Works" (Bigelow ed.), ii, pp. 296-299.
[109:5] _Ibid._, iii, p. 297; _cf._ p. 221.
[109:6] "Summary" (1755), ii, p. 326.
[110:1] "European Settlements" (London, 1793),
ii, p. 200 (1765); _cf._
Franklin, "Works" (N. Y., 1905-07), ii, p.
221, to the same effect.
[110:2] Proper, "Colonial Immigration Laws,"
in Columbia Univ.,
"Studies," xii.
[111:1] Libby, "Distribution of the Vote on
the Federal Constitution,"
Univ. of Wis. _Bulletin_, pp. 8, 9, and citations.
Note especially "New
Hampshire State Papers," x, pp. 228 _et seq._
[111:2] Libby, _loc. cit._, pp. 12-14, 46,
54-57.
[112:1] Farrand, in _Yale Review_, May, 1908,
p. 52 and citation.
[112:2] Libby, _loc. cit._
[112:3] See Turner, "Rise of the New West"
(Amer. Nation series, N. Y.,
1906), pp. 16-18.
[112:4] Parkman, "Pontiac" (Boston, 1851),
ii, p. 352.
[112:5] Shepherd, "Proprietary Government
in Pennsylvania," in Columbia
Univ. _Studies_, vi, pp. 546 _et seq._ Compare
Watson, "Annals," ii, p.
259; Green, "Provincial America" (Amer. Nation
series, N. Y., 1905), p.
234.
[113:1] Lincoln, "Revolutionary Movement in
Pennsylvania" (Boston,
1901); McMaster and Stone, "Pennsylvania and
the Federal Constitution"
(Lancaster, 1888).
[114:1] "Notes on Virginia." See his table
of apportionment in Ford,
"Writings of Thomas Jefferson," iii, p. 222.
[115:1] "Debates of the Virginia State Convention,
1829-1830" (Richmond,
1854), p. 87. These debates constitute a mine
of material on the
difficulty of reconciling the political philosophy
of the Revolution
with the protection of the property, including
slaves, of the lowland
planters.
[115:2] _Loc. cit._, p. 407. The italics are
mine.
[116:1] McCrady, "South Carolina, 1719-1776,"
p. 623.
[117:1] Brevard, "Digest of S. C. Laws," i,
pp. xxiv, 253; McCrady,
"South Carolina, 1719-1776," p. 637; Schaper,
"Sectionalism in South
Carolina," in Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1900, i, pp. 334-338.
[117:2] Schaper, _loc. cit._, pp. 338, 339;
Calhoun, "Works" (N. Y.,
1851-59), i, p. 402; _Columbia_ (S. C.) _Gazette_,
Aug. 1, 1794; Ramsay,
"South Carolina," pp. 64-66, 195, 217; Elliot,
"Debates," iv, pp. 288,
289, 296-299, 305, 309, 312.
[117:3] Schaper, _loc. cit._, pp. 440-447
_et seq._
[118:1] Turner, "Rise of the New West," pp.
50-52, 331; Calhoun,
"Works," i, pp. 400-405.
[118:2] "N. C. Colon. Records," vii, pp. xiv-xvii.
[118:3] See Bassett, "Regulators of N. C."
in Amer. Hist. Assoc.
"Report," 1894, pp. 141 (bibliog.) _et seq._;
"N. C. Colon. Records,"
pp. vii-x (Saunder's introductions are valuable);
Caruthers, "David
Caldwell" (Greensborough, N. C., 1842); Waddell,
"Colonial Officer"
(Raleigh, 1890); M. De L. Haywood, "Governor
William Tryon" (Raleigh, N.
C., 1903); Clewell, "Wachovia," chap. x; W.
E. Fitch, "Some Neglected
History of N. C." (N. Y., 1905); L. A. McCorkle
and F. Nash, in "N. C.
Booklet" (Raleigh, 1901-07), iii; Wheeler,
"North Carolina," ii, pp. 301
_et seq._; Cutter, "Lynch Law," chap. ii.
and iii.
[119:1] Bassett, _loc. cit._, p. 152.
[119:2] Wheeler, "North Carolina," ii, pp.
301-306; "N. C. Colon.
Records," vii, pp. 251, 699.
[120:1] "N. C. Colon. Records," viii, p. xix.
[120:2] Turner, in _Amer. Hist. Review_, i,
p. 76.
[120:3] "N. C. Colon. Records," vii, pp. xiv-xxiv.
[121:1] Weeks, "Church and State in North
Carolina" (Baltimore, 1893);
"N. C. Colon. Records," x, p. 870; Curry,
"Establishment and
Disestablishment" (Phila., 1889); C. F. James,
"Documentary History of
the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia"
(Lynchburg, Va., 1900);
Semple, "The Virginia Baptists" (Richmond,
1810); Amer. Hist. Assoc.
"Papers," ii, p. 21; iii, pp. 205, 213.
[122:1] See Ballagh, "Slavery in Virginia,"
Johns Hopkins Univ.
"Studies," extra, xxiv; Bassett, "Slavery
and Servitude in the Colony of
North Carolina," _Id._, xiv, pp. 169-254;
Bassett, "Slavery in the State
of North Carolina," _Id._, xvii; Bassett,
"Antislavery Leaders in North
Carolina," _Id._, xvi; Weeks, "Southern Quakers,"
_Id._, xv, extra;
Schaper, "Sectionalism in South Carolina,"
Amer. Hist. Assoc. "Report,"
1900; Turner, "Rise of the New West," pp.
54-56, 76-78, 80, 90, 150-152.
[122:2] See F. J. Turner, "State-Making in
the West During the
Revolutionary Era," in _American Historical
Review_, i, p. 70.
[122:3] Hening, x, p. 35; "Public Acts of
N. C.," i, pp. 204, 306;
"Revised Code of Va., 1819," ii, p. 357; Roosevelt,
"Winning of the
West," i, p. 261; ii, pp. 92, 220.
[124:1] Alden, "New Governments West of the
Alleghanies" (Madison,
1897), gives an account of these colonies.
[See the more recent work by
C. W. Alvord, "The Mississippi Valley in British
Politics, 1763-1774"
(1917).]
[124:2] Thwaites, "Daniel Boone" (N. Y., 1902);
[A. Henderson, "Conquest
of the Old Southwest" (N. Y., 1920), brings
out the important share of
up-country men of means in promoting colonization].
[125:1] Turner, in "Alumni Quarterly of the
University of Illinois," ii,
133-136.
[125:2] [It has seemed best in this volume
not to attempt to deal with
the French frontier or the Spanish-American
frontier. Besides the works
of Parkman, a multitude of monographs have
appeared in recent years
which set the French frontier in new light;
and for the Spanish frontier
in both the Southwest and California much
new information has been
secured, and illuminating interpretations
made by Professors H. E.
Bolton, I. J. Cox, Chapman, Father Engelhart,
and other California and
Texas investigators, although the works of
Hubert Howe Bancroft remain a
useful mine of material. There was, of course,
a contemporaneous Old
West on both the French and the Spanish frontiers.
The formation,
approach and ultimate collision and intermingling
of these contrasting
types of frontiers are worthy of a special
study.]
IV
THE MIDDLE WEST[126:1]
American sectional nomenclature is still confused.
Once "the West"
described the whole region beyond the Alleghanies;
but the term has
hopelessly lost its definiteness. The rapidity
of the spread of
settlement has broken down old usage, and
as yet no substitute has been
generally accepted. The "Middle West" is a
term variously used by the
public, but for the purpose of the present
paper, it will be applied to
that region of the United States included
in the census reports under
the name of the North Central division, comprising
the States of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin
(the old "Territory Northwest
of the River Ohio"), and their trans-Mississippi
sisters of the
Louisiana Purchase,--Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota,
Kansas, Nebraska, North
Dakota, and South Dakota. It is an imperial
domain. If the greater
countries of Central Europe,--France, Germany,
Italy, and
Austro-Hungary,--were laid down upon this
area, the Middle West would
still show a margin of spare territory. Pittsburgh,
Cleveland, and
Buffalo constitute its gateways to the Eastern
States; Kansas City,
Omaha, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Duluth-Superior
dominate its western
areas; Cincinnati and St. Louis stand on its
southern borders; and
Chicago reigns at the center. What Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore are to the Atlantic seaboard these
cities are to the Middle
West. The Great Lakes and the Mississippi,
with the Ohio and the
Missouri as laterals, constitute the vast
water system that binds the
Middle West together. It is the economic and
political center of the
Republic. At one edge is the Populism of the
prairies; at the other, the
capitalism that is typified in Pittsburgh.
Great as are the local
differences within the Middle West, it possesses,
in its physiography,
in the history of its settlement, and in its
economic and social life, a
unity and interdependence which warrant a
study of the area as an
entity. Within the limits of this article,
treatment of so vast a
region, however, can at best afford no more
than an outline sketch, in
which old and well-known facts must, if possible,
be so grouped as to
explain the position of the section in American
history.
In spite of the difficulties of the task,
there is a definite advantage
in so large a view. By fixing our attention
too exclusively upon the
artificial boundary lines of the States, we
have failed to perceive much
that is significant in the westward development
of the United States.
For instance, our colonial system did not
begin with the Spanish War;
the United States has had a colonial history
and policy from the
beginning of the Republic; but they have been
hidden under the
phraseology of "interstate migration" and
"territorial organization."
The American people have occupied a spacious
wilderness; vast
physiographic provinces, each with its own
peculiarities, have lain
across the path of this migration, and each
has furnished a special
environment for economic and social transformation.
It is possible to
underestimate the importance of State lines,
but if we direct our gaze
rather to the physiographic province than
to the State area, we shall be
able to see some facts in a new light. Then
it becomes clear that these
physiographic provinces of America are in
some respects comparable to
the countries of Europe, and that each has
its own history of occupation
and development. General Francis A. Walker
once remarked that "the
course of settlement has called upon our people
to occupy territory as
extensive as Switzerland, as England, as Italy,
and latterly, as France
or Germany, every ten years." It is this element
of vastness in the
achievements of American democracy that gives
a peculiar interest to the
conquest and development of the Middle West.
The effects of this
conquest and development upon the present
United States have been of
fundamental importance.
Geographically the Middle West is almost conterminous
with the Provinces
of the Lake and Prairie Plains; but the larger
share of Kansas and
Nebraska, and the western part of the two
Dakotas belong to the Great
Plains; the Ozark Mountains occupy a portion
of Missouri, and the
southern parts of Ohio and Indiana merge into
the Alleghany Plateau. The
relation of the Provinces of the Lake and
Prairie Plains to the rest of
the United States is an important element
in the significance of the
Middle West. On the north lies the similar
region of Canada: the Great
Lakes are in the center of the whole eastern
and more thickly settled
half of North America, and they bind the Canadian
and Middle Western
people together. On the south, the provinces
meet the apex of that of
the Gulf Plains, and the Mississippi unites
them. To the west, they
merge gradually into the Great Plains; the
Missouri and its tributaries
and the Pacific railroads make for them a
bond of union; another rather
effective bond is the interdependence of the
cattle of the plains and
the corn of the prairies. To the east, the
province meets the Alleghany
and New England Plateaus, and is connected
with them by the upper Ohio
and by the line of the Erie Canal. Here the
interaction of industrial
life and the historical facts of settlement
have produced a close
relationship. The intimate connection between
the larger part of the
North Central and the North Atlantic divisions
of the United States will
impress any one who examines the industrial
and social maps of the
census atlas. By reason of these interprovincial
relationships, the
Middle West is the mediator between Canada
and the United States, and
between the concentrated wealth and manufactures
of the North Atlantic
States and the sparsely settled Western mining,
cattle-raising, and
agricultural States. It has a connection with
the South that was once
still closer, and is likely before long to
reassert itself with new
power. Within the limits of the United States,
therefore, we have
problems of interprovincial trade and commerce
similar to those that
exist between the nations of the Old World.
Over most of the Province of the Lake and
Prairie Plains the Laurentide
glacier spread its drift, rich in limestone
and other rock powder, which
farmers in less favored sections must purchase
to replenish the soil.
The alluvial deposit from primeval lakes contributed
to fatten the soil
of other parts of the prairies. Taken as a
whole, the Prairie Plains
surpass in fertility any other region of America
or Europe, unless we
except some territory about the Black Sea.
It is a land marked out as
the granary of the nation; but it is more
than a granary. On the rocky
shores of Lake Superior were concealed copper
mines rivaled only by
those of Montana, and iron fields which now[129:1]
furnish the ore for
the production of eighty per cent of the pig
iron of the United States.
The Great Lakes afford a highway between these
iron fields and the coal
areas of the Ohio Valley. The gas and oil
deposits of the Ohio Valley,
the coal of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and
eastern Kansas, the lead and
zinc of the Ozark region and of the upper
Mississippi Valley, and the
gold of the black Hills,--all contribute underground
wealth to the
Middle West.
The primeval American forest once spread its
shade over vast portions
of the same province. Ohio, Indiana, southern
Michigan, and central
Wisconsin were almost covered with a growth
of noble deciduous trees. In
southern Illinois, along the broad bottom
lands of the Mississippi and
the Illinois, and in southern and southwestern
Missouri, similar forests
prevailed. To the north, in Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota, appeared
the somber white pine wilderness, interlaced
with hard woods, which
swept in ample zone along the Great Lakes,
till the deciduous forests
triumphed again, and, in their turn, faded
into the treeless expanse of
the prairies. In the remaining portions were
openings in the midst of
the forested area, and then the grassy ocean
of prairie that rolled to
west and northwest, until it passed beyond
the line of sufficient
rainfall for agriculture without irrigation,
into the semi-arid
stretches of the Great Plains.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, the
forested region of this
province was occupied by the wigwams of many
different tribes of the
Algonquin tongue, sparsely scattered in villages
along the water
courses, warring and trading through the vast
wilderness. The western
edge of the prairie and the Great Plains were
held by the Sioux, chasing
herds of bison across these far-stretching
expanses. These horsemen of
the plains and the canoemen of the Great Lakes
and the Ohio were factors
with which civilization had to reckon, for
they constituted important
portions of perhaps the fiercest native race
with which the white man
has ever battled for new lands.
The Frenchman had done but little fighting
for this region. He swore
brotherhood with its savages, traded with
them, intermarried with them,
and explored the Middle West; but he left
the wilderness much as he
found it. Some six or seven thousand French
people in all, about Detroit
and Vincennes, and in the Illinois country,
and scattered among the
Indian villages of the remote lakes and streams,
held possession when
George Washington reached the site of Pittsburgh,
bearing Virginia's
summons of eviction to France. In his person
fate knocked at the portals
of a "rising empire." France hurried her commanders
and garrisons, with
Indian allies, from the posts about the Great
Lakes and the upper
Mississippi; but it was in vain. In vain,
too, the aftermath of
Pontiac's widespread Indian uprising against
the English occupation.
When she came into possession of the lands
between the Ohio, the
Mississippi, and the Great Lakes, England
organized them as a part of
the Province of Quebec. The daring conquest
of George Rogers Clark left
Virginia in military possession of the Illinois
country at the
conclusion of the Revolutionary War; but over
all the remainder of the
Old Northwest, England was in control. Although
she ceded the region by
the treaty which closed the Revolution, she
remained for many years the
mistress of the Indians and the fur trade.
When Lord Shelburne was
upbraided in parliament for yielding the Northwest
to the United States,
the complaint was that he had clothed the
Americans "in the warm
covering of our fur trade," and his defense
was that the peltry trade of
the ceded tract was not sufficiently profitable
to warrant further war.
But the English government became convinced
that the Indian trade
demanded the retention of the Northwest, and
she did in fact hold her
posts there in spite of the treaty of peace.
Dundas, the English
secretary for the colonies, expressed the
policy, when he declared, in
1792, that the object was to interpose an
Indian barrier between Canada
and the United States; and in pursuance of
this policy of preserving the
Northwest as an Indian buffer State, the Canadian
authorities supported
the Indians in their resistance to American
settlement beyond the Ohio.
The conception of the Northwest as an Indian
reserve strikingly exhibits
England's inability to foresee the future
of the region, and to measure
the forces of American expansion.
By the cessions of Virginia, New York, Massachusetts,
and Connecticut,
the Old Congress had come into nominal possession
of an extensive public
domain, and a field for the exercise of national
authority. The
significance of this fact in the development
of national power is not
likely to be overestimated. The first result
was the completion of the
Ordinance of 1787, which provided a territorial
government for the Old
Northwest, with provisions for the admission
of States into the Union.
This federal colonial system guaranteed that
the new national
possessions should not be governed as dependent
provinces, but should
enter as a group of sister States into the
federation.[132:1] While the
importance of the article excluding slavery
has often been pointed out,
it is probable that the provisions for a federal
colonial organization
have been at least equally potential in our
actual development. The full
significance of this feature of the Ordinance
is only appreciated when
we consider its continuous influence upon
the American territorial and
State policy in the westward expansion to
the Pacific, and the political
preconceptions with which Americans approach
the problems of government
in the new insular possessions. The Land Ordinance
of 1785 is also
worthy of attention in this connection, for
under its provisions almost
all of the Middle West has been divided by
the government surveyor into
rectangles of sections and townships, by whose
lines the settler has
been able easily and certainly to locate his
farm, and the forester his
"forty." In the local organization of the
Middle West these lines have
played an important part.
It would be impossible within the limits of
this paper to detail the
history of the occupation of the Middle West;
but the larger aspects of
the flow of population into the region may
be sketched. Massachusetts
men had formed the Ohio Company, and had been
influential in shaping the
liberal provisions of the Ordinance. Their
land purchase, paid for in
soldiers' certificates, embraced an area larger
than the State of Rhode
Island. At Marietta in 1788, under the shelter
of Fort Harmar, their
bullet-proof barge landed the first New England
colony. A New Jersey
colony was planted soon after at Cincinnati
in the Symmes Purchase. Thus
American civilization crossed the Ohio. The
French settlements at
Detroit and in Indiana and Illinois belonged
to other times and had
their own ideals; but with the entrance of
the American pioneer into the
forest of the Middle West, a new era began.
The Indians, with the moral
support of England, resisted the invasion,
and an Indian war followed.
The conquest of Wayne, in 1795, pushed back
the Indians to the
Greenville line, extending irregularly across
the State of Ohio from the
site of Cleveland to Fort Recovery in the
middle point of her present
western boundary, and secured certain areas
in Indiana. In the same
period Jay's treaty provided for the withdrawal
of the British posts.
After this extension of the area open to the
pioneer, new settlements
were rapidly formed. Connecticut disposed
of her reserved land about
Lake Erie to companies, and in 1796 General
Moses Cleaveland led the way
to the site of the city that bears his name.
This was the beginning of
the occupation of the Western Reserve, a district
about as large as the
parent State of Connecticut, a New England
colony in the Middle West,
which has maintained, even to the present
time, the impress of New
England traits. Virginia and Kentucky settlers
sought the Virginia
Military Bounty Lands, and the foundation
of Chillicothe here, in 1796,
afforded a center for Southern settlement.
The region is a modified
extension of the limestone area of Kentucky,
and naturally attracted the
emigrants from the Blue Grass State. Ohio's
history is deeply marked by
the interaction of the New England, Middle,
and Southern colonies within
her borders.
By the opening of the nineteenth century,
when Napoleon's cession
brought to the United States the vast spaces
of the Louisiana Purchase
beyond the Mississippi, the pioneers had hardly
more than entered the
outskirts of the forest along the Ohio and
Lake Erie. But by 1810 the
government had extinguished the Indian title
to the unsecured portions
of the Western Reserve, and to great tracts
of Indiana, along the Ohio
and up the Wabash Valley; thus protecting
the Ohio highway from the
Indians, and opening new lands to settlement.
The embargo had destroyed
the trade of New England, and had weighted
down her citizens with debt
and taxation; caravans of Yankee emigrant
wagons, precursors of the
"prairie schooner," had already begun to cross
Pennsylvania on their way
to Ohio; and they now greatly increased in
number. North Carolina back
countrymen flocked to the Indiana settlements,
giving the peculiar
Hoosier flavor to the State, and other Southerners
followed,
outnumbering the Northern immigrants, who
sought the eastern edge of
Indiana.
Tecumthe, rendered desperate by the advance
into his hunting grounds,
took up the hatchet, made wide-reaching alliances
among the Indians, and
turned to England for protection. The Indian
war merged into the War of
1812, and the settlers strove in vain to add
Canadian lands to their
empire. In the diplomatic negotiations that
followed the war, England
made another attempt to erect the Old Northwest
beyond the Greenville
line into a permanent Indian barrier between
Canada and the United
States; but the demand was refused, and by
the treaties of 1818, the
Indians were pressed still farther north.
In the meantime, Indian
treaties had released additional land in southern
Illinois, and pioneers
were widening the bounds of the old French
settlements. Avoiding the
rich savannas of the prairie regions, as devoid
of wood, remote from
transportation facilities, and suited only
to grazing, they entered the
hard woods--and in the early twenties they
were advancing in a
wedge-shaped column up the Illinois Valley.
The Southern element constituted the main
portion of this phalanx of
ax-bearers. Abraham Lincoln's father joined
the throng of Kentuckians
that entered the Indiana woods in 1816, and
the boy, when he had learned
to hew out a forest home, betook himself,
in 1830, to Sangamon county,
Illinois. He represents the pioneer of the
period; but his ax sank
deeper than other men's, and the plaster cast
of his great sinewy hand,
at Washington, embodies the training of these
frontier railsplitters, in
the days when Fort Dearborn, on the site of
Chicago, was but a military
outpost in a desolate country. While the hard
woods of Illinois were
being entered, the pioneer movement passed
also into the Missouri
Valley. The French lead miners had already
opened the southeastern
section, and Southern mountaineers had pushed
up the Missouri; but now
the planters from the Ohio Valley and the
upper Tennessee followed,
seeking the alluvial soils for slave labor.
Moving across the southern
border of free Illinois, they had awakened
regrets in that State at the
loss of so large a body of settlers.
Looking at the Middle West, as a whole, in
the decade from 1810 to 1820,
we perceive that settlement extended from
the shores of Lake Erie in an
arc, following the banks of the Ohio till
it joined the Mississippi, and
thence along that river and up the Missouri
well into the center of the
State. The next decade was marked by the increased
use of the steamboat;
pioneers pressed farther up the streams, etching
out the hard wood
forests well up to the prairie lands, and
forming additional tracts of
settlement in the region tributary to Detroit
and in the southeastern
part of Michigan. In the area of the Galena
lead mines of northwestern
Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, and northeastern
Iowa, Southerners had
already begun operations; and if we except
Ohio and Michigan, the
dominant element in all this overflow of settlement
into the Middle West
was Southern, particularly from Kentucky,
Virginia, and North Carolina.
The settlements were still dependent on the
rivers for transportation,
and the areas between the rivers were but
lightly occupied. The
Mississippi constituted the principal outlet
for the products of the
Middle West; Pittsburgh furnished most of
the supplies for the region,
but New Orleans received its crops. The Old
National road was built
piecemeal, and too late, as a whole, to make
a great artery of trade
throughout the Middle West, in this early
period; but it marked the
northern borders of the Southern stream of
population, running, as this
did, through Columbus, Indianapolis, and Vandalia.
The twenty years from 1830 to 1850 saw great
changes in the composition
of the population of the Middle West. The
opening of the Erie Canal in
1825 was an epoch-making event. It furnished
a new outlet and inlet for
northwestern traffic; Buffalo began to grow,
and New York City changed
from a local market to a great commercial
center. But even more
important was the place which the canal occupied
as the highway for a
new migration.
In the march of the New England people from
the coast, three movements
are of especial importance: the advance from
the seaboard up the
Connecticut and Housatonic Valleys through
Massachusetts and into
Vermont; the advance thence to central and
western New York; and the
advance to the interior of the Old Northwest.
The second of these stages
occupied the generation from about 1790 to
1820; after that the second
generation was ready to seek new lands; and
these the Erie Canal and
lake navigation opened to them, and to the
Vermonters and other
adventurous spirits of New England. It was
this combined New York-New
England stream that in the thirties poured
in large volume into the zone
north of the settlements which have been described.
The newcomers filled
in the southern counties of Michigan and Wisconsin,
the northern
countries of Illinois, and parts of the northern
and central areas of
Indiana. Pennsylvania and Ohio sent a similar
type of people to the area
adjacent to those States. In Iowa a stream
combined of the Southern
element and of these settlers sought the wooded
tributaries of the
Mississippi in the southeastern part of the
State. In default of legal
authority, in this early period, they formed
squatter governments and
land associations, comparable to the action
of the Massachusetts men who
in the first quarter of the seventeenth century
"squatted" in the
Connecticut Valley.
A great forward movement had occurred, which
took possession of oak
openings and prairies, gave birth to the cities
of Chicago, Milwaukee,
St. Paul, and Minneapolis, as well as to a
multitude of lesser cities,
and replaced the dominance of the Southern
element by that of a modified
Puritan stock. The railroad system of the
early fifties bound the
Mississippi to the North Atlantic seaboard;
New Orleans gave way to New
York as the outlet for the Middle West, and
the day of river settlement
was succeeded by the era of inter-river settlement
and railway
transportation. The change in the political
and social ideals was at
least equal to the change in economic connections,
and together these
forces made an intimate organic union between
New England, New York, and
the newly settled West. In estimating the
New England influence in the
Middle West, it must not be forgotten that
the New York settlers were
mainly New Englanders of a later generation.
Combined with the streams from the East came
the German migration into
the Middle West. Over half a million, mainly
from the Palatinate,
Würtemberg, and the adjacent regions, sought
America between 1830 and
1850, and nearly a million more Germans came
in the next decade. The
larger portion of these went into the Middle
West; they became pioneers
in the newer parts of Ohio, especially along
the central ridge, and in
Cincinnati; they took up the hardwood lands
of the Wisconsin counties
along Lake Michigan; and they came in important
numbers to Missouri,
Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, and to the
river towns of Iowa. The
migration in the thirties and forties contained
an exceptionally large
proportion of educated and forceful leaders,
men who had struggled in
vain for the ideal of a liberal German nation,
and who contributed
important intellectual forces to the communities
in which they settled.
The Germans, as a whole, furnished a conservative
and thrifty
agricultural element to the Middle West. In
some of their social ideals
they came into collision with the Puritan
element from New England, and
the outcome of the steady contest has been
a compromise. Of all the
States, Wisconsin has been most deeply influenced
by the Germans.
By the later fifties, therefore, the control
of the Middle West had
passed to its Northern zone of population,
and this zone included
representatives of the Middle States, New
England, and Germany as its
principal elements. The Southern people, north
of the Ohio, differed in
important respects from the Southerners across
the river. They had
sprung largely from the humbler classes of
the South, although there
were important exceptions. The early pioneer
life, however, was
ill-suited to the great plantations, and slavery
was excluded under the
Ordinance. Thus this Southern zone of the
Middle West, particularly in
Indiana and Illinois, constituted a mediating
section between the South
and the North. The Mississippi still acted
as a bond of union, and up to
the close of the War of 1812 the Valley, north
and south, had been
fundamentally of the same social organization.
In order to understand
what follows, we must bear in mind the outlines
of the occupation of the
Gulf Plains. While settlement had been crossing
the Ohio to the
Northwest, the spread of cotton culture and
negro slavery into the
Southwest had been equally significant. What
the New England States and
New York were in the occupation of the Middle
West, Virginia, the
Carolinas, and Georgia were in the occupation
of the Gulf States. But,
as in the case of the Northwest, a modification
of the original stock
occurred in the new environment. A greater
energy and initiative
appeared in the new Southern lands; the pioneer's
devotion to exploiting
the territory in which he was placed transferred
slavery from the
patriarchal to the commercial basis. The same
expansive tendency seen in
the Northwest revealed itself, with a belligerent
seasoning, in the Gulf
States. They had a program of action. Abraham
Lincoln migrated from
Kentucky to Indiana and to Illinois. Jefferson
Davis moved from Kentucky
to Louisiana, and thence to Mississippi, in
the same period. Starting
from the same locality, each represented the
divergent flow of streams
of settlement into contrasted environments.
The result of these
antagonistic streams of migration to the West
was a struggle between the
Lake and Prairie plainsmen, on the one side,
and the Gulf plainsmen, on
the other, for the possession of the Mississippi
Valley. It was the
crucial part of the struggle between the Northern
and Southern sections
of the nation. What gave slavery and State
sovereignty their power as
issues was the fact that they involved the
question of dominance over
common territory in an expanding nation. The
place of the Middle West in
the origin and settlement of the great slavery
struggle is of the
highest significance.
In the early history of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois, a modified form of
slavery existed under a system of indenture
of the colored servant; and
the effort of Southern settlers in Indiana
and in Illinois to
reintroduce slavery are indicative of the
importance of the pro-slavery
element in the Northwest. But the most significant
early manifestation
of the rival currents of migration with respect
to slavery is seen in
the contest which culminated in the Missouri
Compromise. The historical
obstacle of the Ordinance, as well as natural
conditions, gave an
advantage to the anti-slavery settlers northwest
of the Ohio; but when
the Mississippi was crossed, and the rival
streams of settlement mingled
in the area of the Louisiana Purchase, the
struggle followed. It was an
Illinois man, with constituents in both currents
of settlement, who
introduced the Missouri Compromise, which
made a _modus vivendi_ for the
Middle West, until the Compromise of 1850
gave to Senator Douglas of
Illinois, in 1854, the opportunity to reopen
the issue by his
Kansas-Nebraska bill. In his doctrine of "squatter-sovereignty,"
or the
right of the territories to determine the
question of slavery within
their bounds, Douglas utilized a favorite
Western political idea, one
which Cass of Michigan had promulgated before.
Douglas set the love of
the Middle West for local self-government
against its preponderant
antipathy to the spread of slavery. At the
same time he brought to the
support of the doctrine the Democratic party,
which ever since the days
of Andrew Jackson had voiced the love of the
frontier for individualism
and for popular power. In his "Young America"
doctrines Douglas had also
made himself the spokesman of Western expansive
tendencies. He thus
found important sources of popular support
when he invoked the localism
of his section. Western appeals to Congress
for aid in internal
improvements, protective tariffs, and land
grants had been indications
of nationalism. The doctrine of squatter-sovereignty
itself catered to
the love of national union by presenting the
appearance of a
non-sectional compromise, which should allow
the new areas of the Middle
West to determine their own institutions.
But the Free Soil party,
strongest in the regions occupied by the New
York-New England colonists,
and having for its program national prohibition
of the spread of slavery
into the territories, had already found in
the Middle West an important
center of power. The strength of the movement
far surpassed the actual
voting power of the Free Soil party, for it
compelled both Whigs and
Democrats to propose fusion on the basis of
concession to Free Soil
doctrines. The New England settlers and the
western New York
settlers,--the children of New England,--were
keenly alive to the
importance of the issue. Indeed, Seward, in
an address at Madison,
Wisconsin, in 1860, declared that the Northwest,
in reality, extended to
the base of the Alleghanies, and that the
new States had "matured just
in the critical moment to rally the free States
of the Atlantic coast,
to call them back to their ancient principles."
These Free Soil forces and the nationalistic
tendencies of the Middle
West proved too strong for the opposing doctrines
when the real struggle
came. Calhoun and Taney shaped the issue so
logically that the Middle
West saw that the contest was not only a war
for the preservation of the
Union, but also a war for the possession of
the unoccupied West, a
struggle between the Middle West and the States
of the Gulf Plains. The
economic life of the Middle West had been
bound by the railroad to the
North Atlantic, and its interests, as well
as its love of national
unity, made it in every way hostile to secession.
When Dr. Cutler had
urged the desires of the Ohio Company upon
Congress, in 1787, he had
promised to plant in the Ohio Valley a colony
that would stand for the
Union. Vinton of Ohio, in arguing for the
admission of Iowa, urged the
position of the Middle West as the great unifying
section of the
country: "Disunion," he said, "is ruin to
them. They have no
alternative but to resist it whenever or wherever
attempted. . . .
Massachusetts and South Carolina might, for
aught I know, find a
dividing line that would be mutually satisfactory
to them; but, Sir,
they can find no such line to which the western
country can assent." But
it was Abraham Lincoln who stated the issue
with the greatest precision,
and who voiced most clearly the nationalism
of the Middle West, when he
declared, "A house divided against itself
cannot stand. I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half
slave and half free."
So it was that when the civil war in Kansas
grew into the Civil War in
the Union, after Lincoln's election to the
presidency, the Middle West,
dominated by its combined Puritan and German
population, ceased to
compromise, and turned the scale in favor
of the North. The Middle West
furnished more than one-third of the Union
troops. The names of Grant
and Sherman are sufficient testimony to her
leadership in the field. The
names of Lincoln and Chase show that the presidential,
the financial,
and the war powers were in the hands of the
Middle West. If we were to
accept Seward's own classification, the conduct
of foreign affairs as
well belonged to the same section; it was,
at least, in the hands of
representatives of the dominant forces of
the section. The Middle West,
led by Grant and Sherman, hewed its way down
the Mississippi and across
the Gulf States, and Lincoln could exult in
1863, "The Father of Waters
again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the
great Northwest for it, nor
yet wholly to them."
In thus outlining the relations of the Middle
West to the slavery
struggle, we have passed over important extensions
of settlement in the
decade before the war. In these years, not
only did the density of
settlement increase in the older portions
of the region, but new waves
of colonization passed into the remoter prairies.
Iowa's pioneers,
after Indian cessions had been secured, spread
well toward her western
limits. Minnesota, also, was recruited by
a column of pioneers. The
treaty of Traverse de Sioux, in 1851, opened
over twenty million acres
of arable land in that State, and Minnesota
increased her population
2730.7 per cent in the decade from 1850 to
1860.
Up to this decade the pine belt of the Middle
West, in northern
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had been
the field of operations of
Indian traders. At first under English companies,
and afterward under
Astor's American Fur Company, the traders
with their French and
half-breed boatmen skirted the Great Lakes
and followed the rivers into
the forests, where they stationed their posts
and spread goods and
whiskey among the Indians. Their posts were
centers of disintegration
among the savages. The new wants and the demoralization
which resulted
from the Indian trade facilitated the purchases
of their lands by the
federal government. The trader was followed
by the seeker for the best
pine land "forties"; and by the time of the
Civil War the exploitation
of the pine belt had fairly begun. The Irish
and Canadian choppers,
followed by the Scandinavians, joined the
forest men, and log drives
succeeded the trading canoe. Men from the
pine woods of Maine and
Vermont directed the industry, and became
magnates in the mill towns
that grew up in the forests,--millionaires,
and afterwards political
leaders. In the prairie country of the Middle
West, the Indian trade
that centered at St. Louis had been important
ever since 1820, with an
influence upon the Indians of the plains similar
to the influence of the
northern fur trade upon the Indians of the
forest. By 1840 the removal
policy had effected the transfer of most of
the eastern tribes to lands
across the Mississippi. Tribal names that
formerly belonged to Ohio and
the rest of the Old Northwest were found on
the map of the Kansas
Valley. The Platte country belonged to the
Pawnee and their neighbors,
and to the north along the Upper Missouri
were the Sioux, or Dakota,
Crow, Cheyenne, and other horse Indians, following
the vast herds of
buffalo that grazed on the Great Plains. The
discovery of California
gold and the opening of the Oregon country,
in the middle of the
century, made it necessary to secure a road
through the Indian lands for
the procession of pioneers that crossed the
prairies to the Pacific. The
organization of Kansas and Nebraska, in 1854,
was the first step in the
withdrawal of these territories from the Indians.
A period of almost
constant Indian hostility followed, for the
savage lords of the
boundless prairies instinctively felt the
significance of the entrance
of the farmer into their empire. In Minnesota
the Sioux took advantage
of the Civil War to rise; but the outcome
was the destruction of their
reservations in that State, and the opening
of great tracts to the
pioneers. When the Pacific railways were begun,
Red Cloud, the astute
Sioux chief, who, in some ways, stands as
the successor of Pontiac and
of Tecumthe, rallied the principal tribes
of the Great Plains to resist
the march of civilization. Their hostility
resulted in the peace measure
of 1867 and 1868, which assigned to the Sioux
and their allies
reservations embracing the major portion of
Dakota territory, west of
the Missouri River. The systematic slaughter
of millions of buffalo, in
the years between 1866 and 1873, for the sake
of their hides, put an end
to the vast herds of the Great Plains, and
destroyed the economic
foundation of the Indians. Henceforth they
were dependent on the whites
for their food supply, and the Great Plains
were open to the cattle
ranchers.
In a preface written in 1872 for a new edition
of "The Oregon Trail,"
which had appeared in 1847, Francis Parkman
said, "The wild cavalcade
that defiled with me down the gorges of the
Black Hills, with its paint
and war plumes, fluttering trophies and savage
embroidery, bows, arrows,
lances, and shields, will never be seen again."
The prairies were ready
for the final rush of occupation. The homestead
law of 1862, passed in
the midst of the war, did not reveal its full
importance as an element
in the settlement of the Middle West until
after peace. It began to
operate most actively, contemporaneously with
the development of the
several railways to the Pacific, in the two
decades from 1870 to 1890,
and in connection with the marketing of the
railroad land grants. The
outcome was an epoch-making extension of population.
Before 1870 the vast and fertile valley of
the Red River, once the level
bed of an ancient lake, occupying the region
where North Dakota and
Minnesota meet, was almost virgin soil. But
in 1875 the great Dalrymple
farm showed its advantages for wheat raising,
and a tide of farm seekers
turned to the region. The "Jim River" Valley
of South Dakota attracted
still other settlers. The Northern Pacific
and the Great Northern
Railway thrust out laterals into these Minnesota
and Dakota wheat areas
from which to draw the nourishment for their
daring passage to the
Pacific. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul,
the Chicago and
Northwestern Railway, Burlington, and other
roads, gridironed the
region; and the unoccupied lands of the Middle
West were taken up by a
migration that in its system and scale is
unprecedented. The railroads
sent their agents and their literature everywhere,
"booming" the "Golden
West"; the opportunity for economic and political
fortunes in such
rapidly growing communities attracted multitudes
of Americans whom the
cheap land alone would not have tempted. In
1870 the Dakotas had 14,000
settlers; in 1890 they had over 510,000. Nebraska's
population was
28,000 in 1860; 123,000 in 1870; 452,000 in
1880; and 1,059,000 in
1890. Kansas had 107,000 in 1860; 364,000
in 1870; 996,000 in 1880; and
1,427,000 in 1890. Wisconsin and New York
gave the largest fractions of
the native element to Minnesota; Illinois
and Ohio together sent perhaps
one-third of the native element of Kansas
and Nebraska, but the Missouri
and Southern settlers were strongly represented
in Kansas; Wisconsin,
New York, Minnesota, and Iowa gave North Dakota
the most of her native
settlers; and Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and
New York did the same for
South Dakota.
Railroads and steamships organized foreign
immigration on scale and
system never before equaled; a high-water
mark of American immigration
came in the early eighties. Germans and Scandinavians
were rushed by
emigrant trains out to the prairies, to fill
the remaining spaces in the
older States of the Middle West. The census
of 1890 showed in Minnesota
373,000 persons of Scandinavian parentage,
and out of the total million
and one-half persons of Scandinavian parentage
in the United States, the
Middle West received all but about three hundred
thousand. The persons
of German parentage in the Middle West numbered
over four millions out
of a total of less than seven millions in
the whole country. The
province had, in 1890, a smaller proportion
of persons of foreign
parentage than had the North Atlantic division,
but the proportions
varied greatly in the different States. Indiana
had the lowest
percentage, 20.38; and, rising in the scale,
Missouri had 24.94; Kansas
26.75; Ohio 33.93; Nebraska 42.45; Iowa 43.57;
Illinois 49.01; Michigan
54.58; Wisconsin 73.65; Minnesota 75.37; and
North Dakota 78.87.
What these statistics of settlement mean when
translated into the
pioneer life of the prairie, cannot be told
here. There were sharp
contrasts with the pioneer life of the Old
Northwest; for the forest
shade, there was substituted the boundless
prairie; the sod house for
the log hut; the continental railway for the
old National Turnpike and
the Erie Canal. Life moved faster, in larger
masses, and with greater
momentum in this pioneer movement. The horizon
line was more remote.
Things were done in the gross. The transcontinental
railroad, the
bonanza farm, the steam plow, harvester, and
thresher, the "league-long
furrow," and the vast cattle ranches, all
suggested spacious combination
and systematization of industry. The largest
hopes were excited by these
conquests of the prairie. The occupation of
western Kansas may
illustrate the movement which went on also
in the west of Nebraska and
the Dakotas. The pioneer farmer tried to push
into the region with the
old methods of settlement. Deceived by rainy
seasons and the railroad
advertisements, and recklessly optimistic,
hosts of settlers poured out
into the plains beyond the region of sufficient
rainfall for successful
agriculture without irrigation. Dry seasons
starved them back; but a
repetition of good rainfalls again aroused
the determination to occupy
the western plains. Boom towns flourished
like prairie weeds; Eastern
capital struggled for a chance to share in
the venture, and the Kansas
farmers eagerly mortgaged their possessions
to secure the capital so
freely offered for their attack on the arid
lands. By 1887 the tide of
the pioneer farmers had flowed across the
semi-arid plains to the
western boundary of the State. But it was
a hopeless effort to conquer a
new province by the forces that had won the
prairies. The wave of
settlement dashed itself in vain against the
conditions of the Great
Plains. The native American farmer had received
his first defeat; farm
products at the same period had depreciated,
and he turned to the
national government for reinforcements.
The Populistic movement of the western half
of the Middle West is a
complex of many forces. In some respects it
is the latest manifestation
of the same forces that brought on the crisis
of 1837 in the earlier
region of pioneer exploitation. That era of
over-confidence, reckless
internal improvements, and land purchases
by borrowed capital, brought a
reaction when it became apparent that the
future had been
over-discounted. But, in that time, there
were the farther free lands to
which the ruined pioneer could turn. The demand
for an expansion of the
currency has marked each area of Western advance.
The greenback movement
of Ohio and the eastern part of the Middle
West grew into the fiat
money, free silver, and land bank propositions
of the Populists across
the Mississippi. Efforts for cheaper transportation
also appear in each
stage of Western advance. When the pioneer
left the rivers and had to
haul his crops by wagon to a market, the transportation
factor
determined both his profits and the extension
of settlement. Demands for
national aid to roads and canals had marked
the pioneer advance of the
first third of the century. The "Granger"
attacks upon the railway
rates, and in favor of governmental regulation,
marked a second advance
of Western settlement. The Farmers' Alliance
and the Populist demand for
government ownership of the railroad is a
phase of the same effort of
the pioneer farmer, on his latest frontier.
The proposals have taken
increasing proportions in each region of Western
Advance. Taken as a
whole, Populism is a manifestation of the
old pioneer ideals of the
native American, with the added element of
increasing readiness to
utilize the national government to effect
its ends. This is not
unnatural in a section whose lands were originally
purchased by the
government and given away to its settlers
by the same authority, whose
railroads were built largely by federal land
grants, and whose
settlements were protected by the United States
army and governed by the
national authority until they were carved
into rectangular States and
admitted into the Union. Its native settlers
were drawn from many
States, many of them former soldiers of the
Civil War, who mingled in
new lands with foreign immigrants accustomed
to the vigorous authority
of European national governments.
But these old ideals of the American pioneer,
phrased in the new
language of national power, did not meet with
the assent of the East.
Even in the Middle West a change of deepest
import had been in progress
during these years of prairie settlement.
The agricultural preponderance
of the country has passed to the prairies,
and manufacturing has
developed in the areas once devoted to pioneer
farming. In the decade
prior to the Civil War, the area of greatest
wheat production passed
from Ohio and the States to the east, into
Illinois, Indiana, and
Wisconsin; after 1880, the center of wheat
growing moved across the
Mississippi; and in 1890 the new settlements
produced half the crop of
the United States. The corn area shows a similar
migration. In 1840 the
Southern States produced half the crop, and
the Middle West one-fifth;
by 1860 the situation was reversed and in
1890 nearly one-half the corn
of the Union came from beyond the Mississippi.
Thus the settlers of the
Old Northwest and their crops have moved together
across the
Mississippi, and in the regions whence they
migrated varied agriculture
and manufacture have sprung up.
As these movements in population and products
have passed across the
Middle West, and as the economic life of the
eastern border has been
intensified, a huge industrial organism has
been created in the
province,--an organism of tremendous power,
activity, and unity.
Fundamentally the Middle West is an agricultural
area unequaled for its
combination of space, variety, productiveness,
and freedom from
interruption by deserts or mountains. The
huge water system of the Great
Lakes has become the highway of a mighty commerce.
The Sault Ste. Marie
Canal, although open but two-thirds of the
year, is the channel of a
traffic of greater tonnage than that which
passes through the Suez
Canal, and nearly all this commerce moves
almost the whole length of the
Great Lakes system; the chief ports being
Duluth, Chicago, Detroit,
Cleveland, and Buffalo. The transportation
facilities of the Great Lakes
were revolutionized after 1886, to supply
the needs of commerce between
the East and the newly developed lands of
the Middle West; the tonnage
doubled; wooden ships gave way to steel; sailing
vessels yielded to
steam; and huge docks, derricks, and elevators,
triumphs of mechanical
skill, were constructed. A competent investigator
has lately declared
that "there is probably in the world to-day
no place at tide water where
ship plates can be laid down for a less price
than they can be
manufactured or purchased at the lake ports."
This rapid rise of the merchant marine of
our inland seas has led to the
demand for deep water canals to connect them
with the ocean road to
Europe. When the fleets of the Great Lakes
plow the Atlantic, and when
Duluth and Chicago become seaports, the water
transportation of the
Middle West will have completed its evolution.
The significance of the
development of the railway systems is not
inferior to that of the great
water way. Chicago has become the greatest
railroad center of the world,
nor is there another area of like size which
equals this in its railroad
facilities; all the forces of the nation intersect
here. Improved
terminals, steel rails, better rolling stock,
and consolidation of
railway systems have accompanied the advance
of the people of the Middle
West.
This unparalleled development of transportation
facilities measures the
magnitude of the material development of the
province. Its wheat and
corn surplus supplies the deficit of the rest
of the United States and
much of that of Europe. Such is the agricultural
condition of the
province of which Monroe wrote to Jefferson,
in 1786, in these words: "A
great part of the territory is miserably poor,
especially that near
Lakes Michigan and Erie, and that upon the
Mississippi and the Illinois
consists of extensive plains which have not
had, from appearances, and
will not have, a single bush on them for ages.
The districts, therefore,
within which these fall will never contain
a sufficient number of
inhabitants to entitle them to membership
in the confederacy."
Minneapolis and Duluth receive the spring
wheat of the northern
prairies, and after manufacturing great portions
of it into flour,
transmit it to Buffalo, the eastern cities,
and to Europe. Chicago is
still the great city of the corn belt, but
its power as a milling and
wheat center has been passing to the cities
that receive tribute from
the northern prairies. It lies in the region
of winter wheat, corn,
oats, and live stock. Kansas City, St. Louis,
and Cincinnati are the
sister cities of this zone, which reaches
into the grazing country of
the Great Plains. The meeting point of corn
and cattle has led to the
development of the packing industries,--large
business systems that send
the beef and pork of the region to supply
the East and parts of Europe.
The "feeding system" adopted in Kansas, Nebraska,
and Iowa, whereby the
stock is fattened from the surplus corn of
the region, constitutes a
species of varied farming that has saved these
States from the disasters
of the failure of a single industry, and has
been one solution of the
economic life of the transition belt between
the prairies and the Great
Plains. Under a more complex agriculture,
better adapted to the various
sections of the State, and with better crops,
Kansas has become more
prosperous and less a center of political
discontent.
While this development of the agricultural
interests of the Middle West
has been in progress, the exploitation of
the pine woods of the north
has furnished another contribution to the
commerce of the province. The
center of activity has migrated from Michigan
to Minnesota, and the
lumber traffic furnishes one of the principal
contributions to the
vessels that ply the Great Lakes and supply
the tributary mills. As the
white pine vanishes before the organized forces
of exploitation, the
remaining hard woods serve to establish factories
in the former mill
towns. The more fertile denuded lands of the
north are now receiving
settlers who repeat the old pioneer life among
the stumps.
But the most striking development in the industrial
history of the
Middle West in recent years has been due to
the opening up of the iron
mines of Lake Superior. Even in 1873 the Lake
Superior ores furnished a
quarter of the total production of American
blast furnaces. The opening
of the Gogebic mines in 1884, and the development
of the Vermillion and
Mesabi mines adjacent to the head of the lake,
in the early nineties,
completed the transfer of iron ore production
to the Lake Superior
region. Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
together now produce the ore
for eighty per cent of the pig iron of the
United States. Four-fifths of
this great product moves to the ports on Lake
Erie and the rest to the
manufactories at Chicago and Milwaukee. The
vast steel and iron industry
that centers at Pittsburgh and Cleveland,
with important outposts like
Chicago and Milwaukee, is the outcome of the
meeting of the coal of the
eastern and southern borders of the province
and of Pennsylvania, with
the iron ores of the north. The industry has
been systematized and
consolidated by a few captains of industry.
Steam shovels dig the ore
from many of the Mesabi mines; gravity roads
carry it to the docks and
to the ships, and huge hoisting and carrying
devices, built especially
for the traffic, unload it for the railroad
and the furnace. Iron and
coal mines, transportation fleets, railroad
systems, and iron
manufactories are concentrated in a few corporations,
principally the
United States Steel Corporation. The world
has never seen such a
consolidation of capital and so complete a
systematization of economic
processes.
Such is the economic appearance of the Middle
West a century after the
pioneers left the frontier village of Pittsburgh
and crossed the Ohio
into the forests. De Tocqueville exclaimed,
with reason, in 1833: "This
gradual and continuous progress of the European
race toward the Rocky
Mountains has the solemnity of a providential
event. It is like a deluge
of men, rising unabatedly, and driven daily
onward by the hand of God."
The ideals of the Middle West began in the
log huts set in the midst of
the forest a century ago. While his horizon
was still bounded by the
clearing that his ax had made, the pioneer
dreamed of continental
conquests. The vastness of the wilderness
kindled his imagination. His
vision saw beyond the dank swamp at the edge
of the great lake to the
lofty buildings and the jostling multitudes
of a mighty city; beyond the
rank, grass-clad prairie to the seas of golden
grain; beyond the harsh
life of the log hut and the sod house to the
home of his children, where
should dwell comfort and the higher things
of life, though they might
not be for him. The men and women who made
the Middle West were
idealists, and they had the power of will
to make their dreams come
true. Here, also, were the pioneer's traits,--individual
activity,
inventiveness, and competition for the prizes
of the rich province that
awaited exploitation under freedom and equality
of opportunity. He
honored the man whose eye was the quickest
and whose grasp was the
strongest in this contest: it was "every one
for himself."
The early society of the Middle West was not
a complex, highly
differentiated and organized society. Almost
every family was a
self-sufficing unit, and liberty and equality
flourished in the
frontier periods of the Middle West as perhaps
never before in history.
American democracy came from the forest, and
its destiny drove it to
material conquests; but the materialism of
the pioneer was not the dull
contented materialism of an old and fixed
society. Both native settler
and European immigrant saw in this free and
competitive movement of the
frontier the chance to break the bondage of
social rank, and to rise to
a higher plane of existence. The pioneer was
passionately desirous to
secure for himself and for his family a favorable
place in the midst of
these large and free but vanishing opportunities.
It took a century for
this society to fit itself into the conditions
of the whole province.
Little by little, nature pressed into her
mold the plastic pioneer life.
The Middle West, yesterday a pioneer province,
is to-day the field of
industrial resources and systematization so
vast that Europe, alarmed
for her industries in competition with this
new power, is discussing the
policy of forming protective alliances among
the nations of the
continent. Into this region flowed the great
forces of modern
capitalism. Indeed, the region itself furnished
favorable conditions for
the creation of these forces, and trained
many of the famous American
industrial leaders. The Prairies, the Great
Plains, and the Great Lakes
furnished new standards of industrial measurement.
From this society,
seated amidst a wealth of material advantages,
and breeding
individualism, energetic competition, inventiveness,
and spaciousness of
design, came the triumph of the strongest.
The captains of industry
arose and seized on nature's gifts. Struggling
with one another,
increasing the scope of their ambitions as
the largeness of the
resources and the extent of the fields of
activity revealed themselves,
they were forced to accept the natural conditions
of a province vast in
area but simple in structure. Competition
grew into consolidation. On
the Pittsburgh border of the Middle West the
completion of the process
is most clearly seen. On the prairies of Kansas
stands the Populist, a
survival of the pioneer, striving to adjust
present conditions to his
old ideals.
The ideals of equality, freedom of opportunity,
faith in the common man
are deep rooted in all the Middle West. The
frontier stage, through
which each portion passed, left abiding traces
on the older, as well as
on the newer, areas of the province. Nor were
these ideals limited to
the native American settlers: Germans and
Scandinavians who poured into
the Middle West sought the country with like
hopes and like faith. These
facts must be remembered in estimating the
effects of the economic
transformation of the province upon its democracy.
The peculiar
democracy of the frontier has passed away
with the conditions that
produced it; but the democratic aspirations
remain. They are held with
passionate determination.
The task of the Middle West is that of adapting
democracy to the vast
economic organization of the present. This
region which has so often
needed the reminder that bigness is not greatness,
may yet show that its
training has produced the power to reconcile
popular government and
culture with the huge industrial society of
the modern world. The
democracies of the past have been small communities,
under simple and
primitive economic conditions. At bottom the
problem is how to reconcile
real greatness with bigness.
It is important that the Middle West should
accomplish this; the future
of the Republic is with her. Politically she
is dominant, as is
illustrated by the fact that six out of seven
of the Presidents elected
since 1860 have come from her borders. Twenty-six
million people live in
the Middle West as against twenty-one million
in New England and the
Middle States together, and the Middle West
has indefinite capacity for
growth. The educational forces are more democratic
than in the East,
and the Middle West has twice as many students
(if we count together the
common school, secondary, and collegiate attendance),
as have New
England and the Middle States combined. Nor
is this educational system,
as a whole, inferior to that of the Eastern
States. State universities
crown the public school system in every one
of these States of the
Middle West, and rank with the universities
of the seaboard, while
private munificence has furnished others on
an unexampled scale. The
public and private art collections of Pittsburgh,
Chicago, St. Paul, and
other cities rival those of the seaboard.
"World's fairs," with their
important popular educational influences,
have been held at Chicago,
Omaha, and Buffalo; and the next of these
national gatherings is to be
at St. Louis. There is throughout the Middle
West a vigor and a mental
activity among the common people that bode
well for its future. If the
task of reducing the Province of the Lake
and Prairie Plains to the uses
of civilization should for a time overweigh
art and literature, and even
high political and social ideals, it would
not be surprising. But if the
ideals of the pioneers shall survive the inundation
of material success,
we may expect to see in the Middle West the
rise of a highly intelligent
society where culture shall be reconciled
with democracy in the large.
FOOTNOTES:
[126:1] With acknowledgments to the _International
Monthly_, December,
1901.
[129:1] 1901.
[132:1] See F. J. Turner, "Western State-Making
in the Revolutionary
Era," in _Am. Historical Review_, i, pp. 70
_et seq._
V
THE OHIO VALLEY IN AMERICAN HISTORY[157:1]
In a notable essay Professor Josiah Royce
has asserted the salutary
influence of a highly organized provincial
life in order to counteract
certain evils arising from the tremendous
development of nationalism in
our own day. Among these evils he enumerates:
first, the frequent
changes of dwelling place, whereby the community
is in danger of losing
the well-knit organization of a common life;
second, the tendency to
reduce variety in national civilization, to
assimilate all to a common
type and thus to discourage individuality,
and produce a "remorseless
mechanism--vast, irrational;" third, the evils
arising from the fact
that waves of emotion, the passion of the
mob, tend in our day to sweep
across the nation.
Against these surges of national feeling Professor
Royce would erect
dikes in the form of provincialism, the resistance
of separate sections
each with its own traditions, beliefs and
aspirations. "Our national
unities have grown so vast, our forces of
social consolidation so
paramount, the resulting problems, conflicts,
evils, have become so
intensified," he says, that we must seek in
the province renewed
strength, usefulness and beauty of American
life.
Whatever may be thought of this philosopher's
appeal for a revival of
sectionalism, on a higher level, in order
to check the tendencies to a
deadening uniformity of national consolidation
(and to me this appeal,
under the limitations which he gives it, seems
warranted by the
conditions)--it is certainly true that in
the history of the United
States sectionalism holds a place too little
recognized by the
historians.
By sectionalism I do not mean the struggle
between North and South which
culminated in the Civil War. That extreme
and tragic form of
sectionalism indeed has almost engrossed the
attention of historians,
and it is, no doubt, the most striking and
painful example of the
phenomenon in our history. But there are older,
and perhaps in the long
run more enduring examples of the play of
sectional forces than the
slavery struggle, and there are various sections
besides North and
South.
Indeed, the United States is, in size and
natural resources, an empire,
a collection of potential nations, rather
than a single nation. It is
comparable in area to Europe. If the coast
of California be placed along
the coast of Spain, Charleston, South Carolina,
would fall near
Constantinople; the northern shores of Lake
Superior would touch the
Baltic, and New Orleans would lie in southern
Italy. Within this vast
empire there are geographic provinces, separate
in physical conditions,
into which American colonization has flowed,
and in each of which a
special society has developed, with an economic,
political and social
life of its own. Each of these provinces,
or sections, has developed its
own leaders, who in the public life of the
nation have voiced the needs
of their section, contended with the representatives
of other sections,
and arranged compromises between sections
in national legislation and
policy, almost as ambassadors from separate
countries in a European
congress might make treaties.
Between these sections commercial relations
have sprung up, and economic
combinations and contests may be traced by
the student who looks beneath
the surface of our national life to the actual
grouping of States in
congressional votes on tariff, internal improvement,
currency and
banking, and all the varied legislation in
the field of commerce.
American industrial life is the outcome of
the combinations and contests
of groups of States in sections. And the intellectual,
the spiritual
life of the nation is the result of the interplay
of the sectional
ideals, fundamental assumptions and emotions.
In short, the real federal aspect of the nation,
if we penetrate beneath
constitutional forms to the deeper currents
of social, economic and
political life, will be found to lie in the
relation of sections and
nation, rather than in the relation of States
and nation. Recently
ex-secretary Root emphasized the danger that
the States, by neglecting
to fulfil their duties, might fall into decay,
while the national
government engrossed their former power. But
even if the States
disappeared altogether as effective factors
in our national life, the
sections might, in my opinion, gain from that
very disappearance a
strength and activity that would prove effective
limitations upon the
nationalizing process.
Without pursuing the interesting speculation,
I may note as evidence of
the development of sectionalism, the various
gatherings of business men,
religious denominations and educational organizations
in groups of
States. Among the signs of growth of a healthy
provincialism is the
formation of sectional historical societies.
While the American
Historical Association has been growing vigorously
and becoming a
genuine gathering of historical students from
all parts of the nation,
there have also arisen societies in various
sections to deal with the
particular history of the groups of States.
In part this is due to the
great distances which render attendance difficult
upon the meetings of
the national body to-day, but we would be
short-sighted, indeed, who
failed to perceive in the formation of the
Pacific Coast Historical
Association, the Mississippi Valley Historical
Association, and the
Ohio Valley Historical Association, for example,
genuine and spontaneous
manifestations of a sectional consciousness.
These associations spring in large part from
the recognition in each of
a common past, a common body of experiences,
traditions, institutions
and ideals. It is not necessary now to raise
the question whether all of
these associations are based on a real community
of historical interest,
whether there are overlapping areas, whether
new combinations may not be
made? They are at least substantial attempts
to find a common sectional
unity, and out of their interest in the past
of the section, increasing
tendencies to common sectional ideas and policies
are certain to follow.
I do not mean to prophesy any disruptive tendency
in American life by
the rejuvenation of sectional self-consciousness;
but I do mean to
assert that American life will be enriched
and safe-guarded by the
development of the greater variety of interest,
purposes and ideals
which seem to be arising. A measure of local
concentration seems
necessary to produce healthy, intellectual
and moral life. The spread of
social forces over too vast an area makes
for monotony and stagnation.
Let us, then, raise the question of how far
the Ohio Valley has had a
part of its own in the making of the nation.
I have not the temerity to
attempt a history of the Valley in the brief
compass of this address.
Nor am I confident of my ability even to pick
out the more important
features of its history in our common national
life. But I venture to
put the problem, to state some familiar facts
from the special point of
view, with the hope of arousing interest in
the theme among the many
students who are advancing the science of
history in this section.
To the physiographer the section is made up
of the province of the
Alleghany Plateaus and the southern portion
of the Prairie Plains. In
it are found rich mineral deposits which are
changing the life of the
section and of the nation. Although you reckon
in your membership only
the states that touch the Ohio River, parts
of those states are, from
the point of view of their social origins,
more closely connected with
the Northwest on the Lake Plains, than with
the Ohio Valley; and, on the
other hand, the Tennessee Valley, though it
sweeps far toward the Lower
South, and only joins the Ohio at the end
of its course, has been
through much of the history of the region
an essential part of this
society. Together these rivers made up the
"Western World" of the
pioneers of the Revolutionary era; the "Western
Waters" of the
backwoodsmen.
But, after all, the unity of the section and
its place in history were
determined by the "beautiful river," as the
French explorers called
it--the Ohio, which pours its flood for over
a thousand miles, a great
highway to the West; a historic artery of
commerce, a wedge of advance
between powerful Indian confederacies, and
rival European nations, to
the Mississippi Valley; a home for six mighty
States, now in the heart
of the nation, rich in material wealth, richer
in the history of
American democracy, a society that holds a
place midway between the
industrial sections of the seaboard and the
plains and prairies of the
agricultural West; between the society that
formed later along the
levels about the Great Lakes, and the society
that arose in the Lower
South on the plains of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Alleghanies bound it on
the east, the Mississippi on the west. At
the forks of the great river
lies Pittsburgh, the historic gateway to the
West, the present symbol
and embodiment of the age of steel, the type
of modern industrialism.
Near its western border is St. Louis, looking
toward the Prairies, the
Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, the
land into which the tide of
modern colonization turns.
Between these old cities, for whose sites
European nations contended,
stand the cities whose growth preëminently
represents the Ohio valley;
Cincinnati, the historic queen of the river;
Louisville, the warder of
the falls; the cities of the "Old National
Road," Columbus,
Indianapolis; the cities of the Blue Grass
lands, which made Kentucky
the goal of the pioneers; and the cities of
that young commonwealth,
whom the Ohio river by force of its attraction
tore away from an
uncongenial control by the Old Dominion, and
joined to the social
section where it belonged.
The Ohio Valley is, therefore, not only a
commercial highway, it is a
middle kingdom between the East and the West,
between the northern area,
which was occupied by a greater New England
and emigrants from northern
Europe, and the southern area of the "Cotton
Kingdom." As Pennsylvania
and New York constituted the Middle Region
in our earlier history,
between New England and the seaboard South,
so the Ohio Valley became
the Middle Region of a later time. In its
position as a highway and a
Middle Region are found the keys to its place
in American history.
From the beginning the Ohio Valley seems to
have been a highway for
migration, and the home of a culture of its
own. The sciences of
American archeology and ethnology are too
new to enable us to speak with
confidence upon the origins and earlier distribution
of the aborigines,
but it is at least clear that the Ohio river
played an important part in
the movements of the earlier men in America,
and that the mounds of the
valley indicate a special type of development
intermediate between that
of the northern hunter folk, and the pueblo
building races of the south.
This dim and yet fascinating introduction
to the history of the Ohio
will afford ample opportunity for later students
of the relations
between geography and population to make contributions
to our history.
The French explorers saw the river, but failed
to grasp its significance
as a strategic line in the conquest of the
West. Entangled in the water
labyrinth of the vast interior, and kindled
with aspirations to reach
the "Sea of the West," their fur traders and
explorers pushed their way
through the forests of the North and across
the plains of the South,
from river to lake, from lake to river, until
they met the mountains of
the West. But while they were reaching the
upper course of the Missouri
and the Spanish outposts of Santa Fé, they
missed the opportunity to
hold the Ohio Valley, and before France could
settle the Valley, the
long and attenuated line of French posts in
the west, reaching from
Canada to Louisiana, was struck by the advancing
column of the American
backwoodsmen in the center by the way of the
Ohio. Parkman, in whose
golden pages is written the epic of the American
wilderness, found his
hero in the wandering Frenchman. Perhaps because
he was a New Englander
he missed a great opportunity and neglected
to portray the formation and
advance of the backwood society which was
finally to erase the traces of
French control in the interior of North America.
It is not without significance in a consideration
of the national
aspects of the history of the Ohio Valley,
that the messenger of English
civilization, who summoned the French to evacuate
the Valley and its
approaches, and whose men near the forks of
the Ohio fired the opening
gun of the world-historic conflict that wrought
the doom of New France
in America, was George Washington, the first
American to win a national
position in the United States. The father
of his country was the prophet
of the Ohio Valley.
Into this dominion, in the next scene of this
drama, came the
backwoodsmen, the men who began the formation
of the society of the
Valley. I wish to consider the effects of
the formation of this society
upon the nation. And first let us consider
the stock itself.
The Ohio Valley was settled, for the most
part (though with important
exceptions, especially in Ohio), by men of
the Upland South, and this
determined a large part of its influence in
the nation through a long
period. As the Ohio Valley, as a whole, was
an extension of the Upland
South, so the Upland South was, broadly speaking,
an extension from the
old Middle Region, chiefly from Pennsylvania.
The society of pioneers,
English, Scotch-Irish, Germans, and other
nationalities which formed in
the beginning of the eighteenth century in
the Great Valley of
Pennsylvania and its lateral extensions was
the nursery of the American
backwoodsmen. Between about 1730 and the Revolution,
successive tides of
pioneers ascended the Shenandoah, occupied
the Piedmont, or up-country
of Virginia and the Carolinas, and received
recruits from similar
peoples who came by eastward advances from
the coast toward this Old
West.
Thus by the middle of the eighteenth century
a new section had been
created in America, a kind of peninsula thrust
down from Pennsylvania
between the falls of the rivers of the South
Atlantic colonies on the
one side and the Alleghany mountains on the
other. Its population showed
a mixture of nationalities and religions.
Less English than the colonial
coast, it was built on a basis of religious
feeling different from that
of Puritan New England, and still different
from the conservative
Anglicans of the southern seaboard. The Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians with
the glow of the covenanters; German sectaries
with serious-minded
devotion to one or another of a multiplicity
of sects, but withal deeply
responsive to the call of the religious spirit,
and the English Quakers
all furnish a foundation of emotional responsiveness
to religion and a
readiness to find a new heaven and a new earth
in politics as well as in
religion. In spite of the influence of the
backwoods in hampering
religious organization, this upland society
was a fertile field for
tillage by such democratic and emotional sects
as the Baptists,
Methodists and the later Campbellites, as
well as by Presbyterians. Mr.
Bryce has well characterized the South as
a region of "high religious
voltage," but this characterization is especially
applicable to the
Upland South, and its colonies in the Ohio
Valley. It is not necessary
to assert that this religious spirit resulted
in the kind of conduct
associated with the religious life of the
Puritans. What I wish to point
out is the responsiveness of the Upland South
to emotional religious and
political appeal.
Besides its variety of stocks and its religious
sects responsive to
emotion, the Upland South was intensely democratic
and individualistic.
It believed that government was based on a
limited contract for the
benefit of the individual, and it acted independently
of governmental
organs and restraints with such ease that
in many regions this was the
habitual mode of social procedure: voluntary
coöperation was more
natural to the Southern Uplanders than action
through the machinery of
government, especially when government checked
rather than aided their
industrial and social tendencies and desires.
It was a naturally radical
society. It was moreover a rural section not
of the planter or merchant
type, but characterized by the small farmer,
building his log cabin in
the wilderness, raising a small crop and a
few animals for family use.
It was this stock which began to pass into
the Ohio Valley when Daniel
Boone, and the pioneers associated with his
name, followed the
"Wilderness Trace" from the Upland South to
the Blue Grass lands in the
midst of the Kentucky hills, on the Ohio river.
In the opening years of
the Revolution these pioneers were recruited
by westward extensions
from Pennsylvania and West Virginia. With
this colonization of the Ohio
Valley begins a chapter in American history.
This settlement contributed a new element
to our national development
and raised new national problems. It took
a long time for the seaboard
South to assimilate the upland section. We
cannot think of the South as
a unit through much of its ante-bellum history
without doing violence to
the facts. The struggle between the men of
the up-country and the men of
the tide-water, made a large part of the domestic
history of the "Old
South." Nevertheless, the Upland South, as
slavery and cotton
cultivation extended westward from the coast,
gradually merged in the
East. On the other hand, its children, who
placed the wall of the
Alleghanies between them and the East, gave
thereby a new life to the
conditions and ideals which were lost in their
former home. Nor was this
all. Beyond the mountains new conditions,
new problems, aroused new
ambitions and new social ideals. Its entrance
into the "Western World"
was a tonic to this stock. Its crossing put
new fire into its
veins--fires of militant expansion, creative
social energy, triumphant
democracy. A new section was added to the
American nation, a new element
was infused into the combination which we
call the United States, a new
flavor was given to the American spirit.
We may next rapidly note some of the results.
First, let us consider the
national effects of the settlement of this
new social type in the Ohio
Valley upon the expansion and diplomacy of
the nation. Almost from the
first the Ohio valley had constituted the
problem of westward expansion.
It was the entering wedge to the possession
of the Mississippi Valley,
and, although reluctantly, the Eastern colonies
and then the Eastern
States were compelled to join in the struggle
first to possess the Ohio,
then to retain it, and finally to enforce
its demand for the possession
of the whole Mississippi Valley and the basin
of the Great Lakes as a
means of outlet for its crops and of defense
for its settlements. The
part played by the pioneers of the Ohio Valley
as a flying column of the
nation, sent across the mountains and making
a line of advance between
hostile Indians and English on the north,
and hostile Indians and
Spaniards on the south, is itself too extensive
a theme to be more than
mentioned.
Here in historic Kentucky, in the State which
was the home of George
Rogers Clark it is not necessary to dwell
upon his clear insight and
courage in carrying American arms into the
Northwest. From the first,
Washington also grasped the significance of
the Ohio Valley as a "rising
empire," whose population and trade were essential
to the nation, but
which found its natural outlet down the Mississippi,
where Spain blocked
the river, and which was in danger of withdrawing
from the weak
confederacy. The intrigues of England to attract
the Valley to herself
and those of Spain to add the settlements
to the Spanish Empire, the use
of the Indians by these rivals, and the efforts
of France to use the
pioneers of Kentucky to win New Orleans and
the whole Valley between the
Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains for a
revived French Empire in
America, are among the fascinating chapters
of American, as well as of
Ohio Valley, history. This position of the
Valley explains much of the
Indian wars, the foreign relations, and, indirectly,
the domestic
politics of the period from the Revolution
to the purchase of Louisiana.
Indeed, the purchase was in large measure
due to the pressure of the
settlers of the Ohio Valley to secure this
necessary outlet. It was the
Ohio Valley which forced the nation away from
a narrow colonial attitude
into its career as a nation among other nations
with an adequate
physical basis for future growth.
In this development of a foreign policy in
connection with the Ohio
Valley, we find the germ of the Monroe doctrine,
and the beginnings of
the definite independence of the United States
from the state system of
the Old World, the beginning, in fact, of
its career as a world power.
This expansive impulse went on into the War
of 1812, a war which was in
no inconsiderable degree, the result of the
aggressive leadership of a
group of men from Kentucky and Tennessee,
and especially of the daring
and lofty demands of Henry Clay, who even
thus early voiced the spirit
of the Ohio Valley. That in this war William
Henry Harrison and the
Kentucky troops achieved the real conquest
of the northwest province and
Andrew Jackson with his Tennesseeans achieved
the real conquest of the
Gulf Plains, is in itself abundant evidence
of the part played in the
expansion of the nation by the section which
formed on the Ohio and its
tributaries. Nor was this the end of the process,
for the annexation of
Texas and the Pacific Coast was in a very
real sense only an aftermath
of the same movement of expansion.
While the Ohio Valley was leading the way
to the building of a greater
nation, it was also the field wherein was
formed an important
contribution of the United States to political
institutions. By this I
mean what George Bancroft has well called
"federal colonial system,"
that is, our system of territories and new
States. It is a mistake to
attribute this system to the Ordinance of
1787 and to the leadership of
New England. It was in large measure the work
of the communities of the
Ohio Valley who wrought out the essentials
of the system for themselves,
and by their attitude imposed it, of necessity,
upon the nation. The
great Ordinance only perfected the system.[168:1]
Under the belief that all men going into vacant
lands have the right to
shape their own political institutions, the
riflemen of western
Virginia, western Pennsylvania, Kentucky and
Tennessee, during the
Revolution, protested against the rule of
governments east of the
mountains, and asserted with manly independence
their right to
self-government. But it is significant that
in making this assertion,
they at the same time petitioned congress
to admit them to the
sisterhood of States. Even when leaders like
Wilkinson were attempting
to induce Kentucky to act as an independent
nation, the national spirit
of the people as a whole led them to delay
until at last they found
themselves a State of the new Union. This
recognition of the paramount
authority of congress and this demand for
self-government under that
authority, constitute the foundations of the
federal territorial system,
as expressed in congressional resolutions,
worked out tentatively in
Jefferson's Ordinance of 1784, and finally
shaped in the Ordinance of
1787.
Thus the Ohio Valley was not only the area
to which this system was
applied, but it was itself instrumental in
shaping the system by its own
demands and by the danger that too rigorous
an assertion of either State
or national power over these remote communities
might result in their
loss to the nation. The importance of the
result can hardly be
overestimated. It insured the peaceful and
free development of the great
West and gave it political organization not
as the outcome of wars of
hostile States, nor by arbitrary government
by distant powers, but by
territorial government combined with large
local autonomy. These
governments in turn were admitted as equal
States of the Union. By this
peaceful process of colonization a whole continent
has been filled with
free and orderly commonwealths so quietly,
so naturally, that we can
only appreciate the profound significance
of the process by contrasting
it with the spread of European nations through
conquest and oppression.
Next let me invite your attention to the part
played by the Ohio Valley
in the economic legislation which shaped our
history in the years of the
making of the nation between the War of 1812
and the rise of the slavery
struggle. It needs but slight reflection to
discover that in the area in
question, the men and measures of the Ohio
Valley held the balance of
power and set the course of our national progress.
The problems before
the country at that time were problems of
internal development: the mode
of dealing with the public domain; the building
of roads and digging of
canals for the internal improvement of a nation
which was separated into
East and West by the Alleghany Mountains;
the formation of a tariff
system for the protection of home industries
and to supply a market for
the surplus of the West which no longer found
an outlet in warring
Europe; the framing of a banking and currency
system which should meet
the needs of the new interstate commerce produced
by the rise of the
western surplus.
In the Ohio Valley, by the initiative of Ohio
Valley men, and often
against the protest of Eastern sections, the
public land policy was
developed by laws which subordinated the revenue
idea to the idea of the
upbuilding of a democracy of small landholders.
The squatters of the
Ohio Valley forced the passage of preëmption
laws and these laws in
their turn led to the homestead agitation.
There has been no single
element more influential in shaping American
democracy and its ideals
than this land policy. And whether the system
be regarded as harmful or
helpful, there can be, I think, no doubt that
it was the outcome of
conditions imposed by the settlers of the
Ohio Valley.
When one names the tariff, internal improvements
and the bank, he is
bound to add the title "The American System,"
and to think of Henry Clay
of Kentucky, the captivating young statesman,
who fashioned a national
policy, raised issues and disciplined a party
to support them and who
finally imposed the system upon the nation.
But, however clearly we
recognize the genius and originality of Henry
Clay as a political
leader; however we recognize that he has a
national standing as a
constructive statesman, we must perceive,
if we probe the matter deeply
enough, that his policy and his power grew
out of the economic and
social conditions of the people whose needs
he voiced--the people of the
Ohio Valley. It was the fact that in this
period they had begun to
create an agricultural surplus, which made
the necessity for this
legislation.
The nation has recently celebrated the one
hundredth anniversary of
Fulton's invention of the steamboat, and the
Hudson river has been
ablaze in his honor; but in truth it is on
the Ohio and the Mississippi
that the fires of celebration should really
burn in honor of Fulton, for
the historic significance to the United States
of the invention of the
steamboat does not lie in its use on Eastern
rivers; not even in its use
on the ocean; for our own internal commerce
carried in our own ships has
had a vaster influence upon our national life
than has our foreign
commerce. And this internal commerce was at
first, and for many years,
the commerce of the Ohio Valley carried by
way of the Mississippi. When
Fulton's steamboat was applied in 1811 to
the Western Waters, it became
possible to develop agriculture and to get
the Western crops rapidly and
cheaply to a market. The result was a tremendous
growth in the entire
Ohio Valley, but this invention did not solve
the problem of cheap
supplies of Eastern manufactures, nor satisfy
the desire of the West to
build up its own factories in order to consume
its own products. The
Ohio Valley had seen the advantage of home
markets, as her towns grew
up with their commerce and manufacturers close
to the rural regions.
Lands had increased in value in proportion
to their nearness to these
cities, and crops were in higher demand near
them. Thus Henry Clay found
a whole section standing behind him when he
demanded a protective tariff
to create home markets on a national scale,
and when he urged the
breaking of the Alleghany barrier by a national
system of roads and
canals. If we analyse the congressional votes
by which the tariff and
internal improvement acts were passed, we
shall find that there was an
almost unbroken South against them, a Middle
Region largely for them, a
New England divided, and the Ohio Valley almost
a unit, holding the
balance of power and casting it in favor of
the American system.
The next topic to which I ask your attention
is the influence of the
Ohio Valley in the promotion of democracy.
On this I shall, by reason of
lack of time, be obliged merely to point out
that the powerful group of
Ohio Valley States, which sprang out of the
democracy of the backwoods,
and which entered the Union one after the
other with manhood suffrage,
greatly recruited the effective forces of
democracy in the Union. Not
only did they add new recruits, but by their
competitive pressure for
population they forced the older States to
break down their historic
restraints upon the right of voting, unless
they were to lose their
people to the freer life of the West.
But in the era of Jacksonian democracy, Henry
Clay and his followers
engaged the great Tennesseean in a fierce
political struggle out of
which was born the rival Whig and Democratic
parties. This struggle was
in fact reflective of the conditions which
had arisen in the Ohio
Valley. As the section had grown in population
and wealth, as the trails
changed into roads, the cabins into well-built
houses, the clearings
into broad farms, the hamlets into towns;
as barter became commerce and
all the modern processes of industrial development
began to operate in
this rising region, the Ohio Valley broke
apart into the rival interests
of the industrial forces (the town-makers
and the business builders), on
the one side and the old rural democracy of
the uplands on the other.
This division was symbolical of national processes.
In the contest
between these forces, Andrew Jackson was the
champion of the cause of
the upland democracy. He denounced the money
power, banks and the whole
credit system and sounded a fierce tocsin
of danger against the
increasing influence of wealth in politics.
Henry Clay, on the other
hand, represented the new industrial forces
along the Ohio. It is
certainly significant that in the rivalry
between the great Whig of the
Ohio Valley and the great Democrat of its
Tennessee tributary lay the
issues of American politics almost until the
slavery struggle. The
responsiveness of the Ohio Valley to leadership
and its enthusiasm in
action are illustrated by the Harrison campaign
of 1840; in that "log
cabin campaign" when the Whigs "stole the
thunder" of pioneer Jacksonian
democracy for another backwoods hero, the
Ohio Valley carried its spirit
as well as its political favorite throughout
the nation.
Meanwhile, on each side of the Ohio Valley,
other sections were forming.
New England and the children of New England
in western New York and an
increasing flood of German immigrants were
pouring into the Great Lake
basin and the prairies, north of the upland
peoples who had chopped out
homes in the forests along the Ohio. This
section was tied to the East
by the Great Lake navigation and the Erie
canal, it became in fact an
extension of New England and New York. Here
the Free Soil party found
its strength and New York newspapers expressed
the political ideas.
Although this section tried to attach the
Ohio River interests to itself
by canals and later by railroads, it was in
reality for a long time
separate in its ideals and its interests and
never succeeded in
dominating the Ohio Valley.
On the south along the Gulf Plains there developed
the "Cotton Kingdom,"
a Greater South with a radical program of
slavery expansion mapped out
by bold and aggressive leaders. Already this
Southern section had
attempted to establish increasing commercial
relations with the Ohio
Valley. The staple-producing region was a
principal consumer of its live
stock and food products. South Carolina leaders
like Calhoun tried to
bind the Ohio to the chariot of the South
by the Cincinnati and
Charleston Railroad, designed to make an outlet
for the Ohio Valley
products to the southeast. Georgia in her
turn was a rival of South
Carolina in plans to drain this commerce itself.
In all of these plans
to connect the Ohio Valley commercially with
the South, the political
object was quite as prominent as the commercial.
In short, various areas were bidding for the
support of the zone of
population along the Ohio River. The Ohio
Valley recognized its old
relationship to the South, but its people
were by no means champions of
slavery. In the southern portion of the States
north of the Ohio where
indented servitude for many years opened a
way to a system of
semi-slavery, there were divided counsels.
Kentucky also spoke with no
certain voice. As a result, it is in these
regions that we find the
stronghold of the compromising movement in
the slavery struggle.
Kentucky furnished Abraham Lincoln to Illinois,
and Jefferson Davis to
Mississippi, and was in reality the very center
of the region of
adjustment between these rival interests.
Senator Thomas, of southern
Illinois, moved the Missouri Compromise, and
Henry Clay was the most
effective champion of that compromise, as
he was the architect of the
Compromise of 1850. The Crittenden compromise
proposals on the eve of
the Civil War came also from Kentucky and
represent the persistence of
the spirit of Henry Clay.
In a word, as I pointed out in the beginning,
the Ohio Valley was a
Middle Region with a strong national allegiance,
striving to hold apart
with either hand the sectional combatants
in this struggle. In the
cautious development of his policy of emancipation,
we may see the
profound influence of the Ohio Valley upon
Abraham Lincoln--Kentucky's
greatest son. No one can understand his presidency
without proper
appreciation of the deep influence of the
Ohio Valley, its ideals and
its prejudices upon America's original contribution
to the great men of
the world.
Enough has been said to make it clear, I trust,
that the Ohio Valley has
not only a local history worthy of study,
a rich heritage to its people,
but also that it has been an independent and
powerful force in shaping
the development of a nation. Of the late history
of this Valley, the
rise of its vast industrial power, its far-reaching
commercial
influence, it is not necessary that I should
speak. You know its
statesmen and their influence upon our own
time; you know the relation
of Ohio to the office of President of the
United States! Nor is it
necessary that I should attempt to prophesy
concerning the future which
the Ohio Valley will hold in the nation.
In that new age of inland water transportation,
which is certain to
supplement the age of the railroad, there
can be no more important
region than the Ohio Valley. Let us hope that
its old love of democracy
may endure, and that in this section, where
the first trans-Alleghany
pioneers struck blows at the forests, there
may be brought to blossom
and to fruit the ripe civilization of a people
who know that whatever
the glories of prosperity may be, there are
greater glories of the
spirit of man; who know that in the ultimate
record of history, the
place of the Ohio Valley will depend upon
the contribution which her
people and her leaders make to the cause of
an enlightened, a
cultivated, a God-fearing and a free, as well
as a comfortable,
democracy.
FOOTNOTES:
[157:1] An address before the Ohio Valley
Historical Association,
October 16, 1909.
[168:1] See F. J. Turner, "New States West
of the Alleghanies,"
_American Historical Review_, i, pp. 70 ff.
VI
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
IN AMERICAN HISTORY[177:1]
The rise of a company of sympathetic and critical
students of history in
the South and in the West is bound to revolutionize
the perspective of
American history. Already our Eastern colleagues
are aware in general,
if not in detail, of the importance of the
work of this nation in
dealing with the vast interior, and with the
influence of the West upon
the nation. Indeed, I might take as the text
for this address the words
of one of our Eastern historians, Professor
Albert Bushnell Hart, who, a
decade ago, wrote:
The Mississippi Valley yields to no region
in the world in
interest, in romance, and in promise for the
future. Here, if
anywhere, is the real America--the field,
the theater, and the
basis of the civilization of the Western World.
The history of
the Mississippi Valley is the history of the
United States;
its future is the future of one of the most
powerful of modern
nations.[177:2]
If those of us who have been insisting on
the importance of our own
region are led at times by the enthusiasm
of the pioneer for the
inviting historical domain that opens before
us to overstate the
importance of our subject, we may at least
plead that we have gone no
farther than some of our brethren of the East;
and we may take comfort
in this declaration of Theodore Roosevelt:
The states that have grown up around the Great
Lakes and in
the Valley of the Upper Mississippi, [are]
the states which
are destined to be the greatest, the richest,
the most
prosperous of all the great, rich, and prosperous
commonwealths which go to make up the mightiest
republic the
world has ever seen. These states . . . form
the heart of the
country geographically, and they will soon
become the heart in
population and in political and social importance.
. . . I
should be sorry to think that before these
states there loomed
a future of material prosperity merely. I
regard this section
of the country as the heart of true American
sentiment.[178:1]
In studying the history of the whole Mississippi
Valley, therefore, the
members of this Association are studying the
origins of that portion of
the nation which is admitted by competent
Eastern authorities to be the
section potentially most influential in the
future of America. They are
also studying the region which has engaged
the most vital activities of
the whole nation; for the problems arising
from the existence of the
Mississippi Valley, whether of movement of
population, diplomacy,
politics, economic development, or social
structure, have been
fundamental problems in shaping the nation.
It is not a narrow, not even
a local, interest which determines the mission
of this Association. It
is nothing less than the study of the American
people in the presence
and under the influence of the vast spaces,
the imperial resources of
the great interior. The social destiny of
this Valley will be the social
destiny, and will mark the place in history,
of the United States.
In a large sense, and in the one usually given
to it by geographers and
historians, the Mississippi Valley includes
the whole interior basin, a
province which drains into nearly two thousand
miles of navigable waters
of the Mississippi itself, two thousand miles
of the tawny flood of the
Missouri, and a thousand miles of the Ohio--five
thousand miles of main
water highways open to the steamboat, nearly
two and a half million
square miles of drainage basin, a land greater
than all Europe except
Russia, Norway, and Sweden, a land of levels,
marked by essential
geographic unity, a land estimated to be able
to support a population of
two or three hundred millions, three times
the present population of the
whole nation, an empire of natural resources
in which to build a noble
social structure worthy to hold its place
as the heart of American
industrial, political and spiritual life.
The significance of the Mississippi Valley
in American history was first
shown in the fact that it opened to various
nations visions of power in
the New World--visions that sweep across the
horizon of historical
possibility like the luminous but unsubstantial
aurora of a comet's
train, portentous and fleeting.
Out of the darkness of the primitive history
of the continent are being
drawn the evidences of the rise and fall of
Indian cultures, the
migrations through and into the great Valley
by men of the Stone Age,
hinted at in legends and languages, dimly
told in the records of mounds
and artifacts, but waiting still for complete
interpretation.
Into these spaces and among the savage peoples,
came France and wrote a
romantic page in our early history, a page
that tells of unfulfilled
empire. What is striking in the effect of
the Mississippi Valley upon
France is the pronounced influence of the
unity of its great spaces. It
is not without meaning that Radisson and Groseilliers
not only reached
the extreme of Lake Superior but also, in
all probability, entered upon
the waters of the Mississippi and learned
of its western affluent; that
Marquette not only received the Indians of
the Illinois region in his
post on the shores of Lake Superior, but traversed
the length of the
Mississippi almost to its mouth, and returning
revealed the site of
Chicago; that La Salle was inspired with the
vision of a huge interior
empire reaching from the Gulf to the Great
Lakes. Before the close of
the seventeenth century, Perrot's influence
was supreme in the Upper
Mississippi, while D'Iberville was laying
the foundations of Louisiana
toward the mouth of the river. Nor is it without
significance that while
the Verendryes were advancing toward the northwest
(where they
discovered the Big Horn Mountains and revealed
the natural boundaries of
the Valley) the Mallet brothers were ascending
the Platte, crossing the
Colorado plains to Santa Fé and so revealing
the natural boundaries
toward the southwest.
To the English the great Valley was a land
beyond the Alleghanies.
Spotswood, the far-sighted Governor of Virginia,
predecessor of frontier
builders, grasped the situation when he proposed
western settlements to
prevent the French from becoming a great people
at the back of the
colonies. He realized the importance of the
Mississippi Valley as the
field for expansion, and the necessity to
the English empire of
dominating it, if England would remain the
great power of the New World.
In the war that followed between France and
England, we now see what
the men of the time could not have realized:
that the main issue was
neither the possession of the fisheries nor
the approaches to the St.
Lawrence on the one hemisphere, nor the possession
of India on the
other, but the mastery of the interior basin
of North America.
How little the nations realized the true meaning
of the final victory of
England is shown in the fact that Spain reluctantly
received from France
the cession of the lands beyond the Mississippi,
accepting it as a means
of preventing the infringement of her colonial
monopoly in Spanish
America rather than as a field for imperial
expansion.
But we know now that when George Washington
came as a stripling to the
camp of the French at the edge of the great
Valley and demanded the
relinquishment of the French posts in the
name of Virginia, he was
demanding in the name of the English speaking
people the right to occupy
and rule the real center of American resources
and power. When
Braddock's axmen cut their road from the Potomac
toward the forks of the
Ohio they were opening a channel through which
the forces of
civilization should flow with ever increasing
momentum and "carving a
cross on the wilderness rim" at the spot which
is now the center of
industrial power of the American nation.
England trembled on the brink of her great
conquest, fearful of the
effect of these far-stretching rivers upon
her colonial system, timorous
in the presence of the fierce peoples who
held the vast domain beyond
the Alleghanies. It seems clear, however,
that the Proclamation of 1763,
forbidding settlement and the patenting of
lands beyond the Alleghanies,
was not intended as a permanent creation of
an Indian reservation out of
this Valley, but was rather a temporary arrangement
in order that
British plans might mature and a system of
gradual colonization be
devised. Already our greatest leaders, men
like Washington and
Franklin, had been quick to see the importance
of this new area for
enlarged activities of the American people.
A sudden revelation that it
was the West, rather than the ocean, which
was the real theater for the
creative energy of America came with the triumph
over France. The Ohio
Company and the Loyal Land Company indicate
the interest at the outbreak
of the war, while the Mississippi Company,
headed by the Washingtons and
Lees, organized to occupy southern Illinois,
Indiana, and western
Kentucky, mark the Virginia interest in the
Mississippi Valley, and
Franklin's activity in promoting a colony
in the Illinois country
illustrates the interest of the Philadelphians.
Indeed, Franklin saw
clearly the possibilities of a settlement
there as a means of breaking
up Spanish America. Writing to his son in
1767 he declared that a
"settlement should be made in the Illinois
country . . . raising a
strength there which on occasions of a future
war might easily be poured
down the Mississippi upon the lower country
and into the Bay of Mexico
to be used against Cuba, the French Islands,
or Mexico itself."[182:1]
The Mississippi Valley had been the despair
of France in the matter of
governmental control. The coureurs de bois
escaping from restraints of
law and order took their way through its extensive
wilderness, exploring
and trading as they listed. Similarly, when
the English colonists
crossed the Alleghanies they escaped from
the control of mother colonies
as well as of the mother country. If the Mississippi
Valley revealed to
the statesmen of the East, in the exultation
of the war with France, an
opportunity for new empire building, it revealed
to the frontiersmen,
who penetrated the passes of the Alleghanies,
and entered into their new
inheritance, the sharp distinctions between
them and the Eastern lands
which they left behind. From the beginning
it was clear that the lands
beyond the Alleghanies furnished an opportunity
and an incentive to
develop American society on independent and
unconventional lines. The
"men of the Western Waters" broke with the
old order of things,
subordinated social restraint to the freedom
of the individual, won
their title to the rich lands which they entered
by hard fighting
against the Indians, hotly challenged the
right of the East to rule
them, demanded their own States, and would
not be refused, spoke with
contempt of the old social order of ranks
and classes in the lands
between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic,
and proclaimed the ideal of
democracy for the vast country which they
had entered. Not with the
mercurial facility of the French did they
follow the river systems of
the Great Valley. Like the advance of the
glacier they changed the face
of the country in their steady and inevitable
progress, and they sought
the sea. It was not long before the Spaniards
at the mouth of the river
realized the meaning of the new forces that
had entered the Valley.
In 1794 the Governor of Louisiana wrote:
This vast and restless population progressively
driving the
Indian tribes before them and upon us, seek
to possess
themselves of all the extensive regions which
the Indians
occupy between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers,
the Gulf of
Mexico, and the Appalachian Mountains, thus
becoming our
neighbors, at the same time that they menacingly
ask for the
free navigation of the Mississippi. If they
achieve their
object, their ambitions would not be confined
to this side of
the Mississippi. Their writings, public papers,
and speeches,
all turn on this point, the free navigation
of the Gulf by the
rivers . . . which empty into it, the rich
fur trade of the
Missouri, and in time the possession of the
rich mines of the
interior provinces of the very Kingdom of
Mexico. Their mode
of growth and their policy are as formidable
for Spain as
their armies. . . . Their roving spirit and
the readiness with
which they procure sustenance and shelter
facilitate rapid
settlement. A rifle and a little corn meal
in a bag are
enough for an American wandering alone in
the woods for a
month. . . . With logs crossed upon one another
he makes a
house, and even an impregnable fort against
the Indians. . . .
Cold does not terrify him, and when a family
wearies of one
place, it moves to another and settles there
with the same
ease.
If such men come to occupy the banks of the
Mississippi and
Missouri, or secure their navigation, doubtless
nothing will
prevent them from crossing and penetrating
into our provinces
on the other side, which, being to a great
extent unoccupied,
can oppose no resistance. . . . In my opinion,
a general
revolution in America threatens Spain unless
the remedy be
applied promptly.
In fact, the pioneers who had occupied the
uplands of the South, the
backwoods stock with its Scotch-Irish leaders
which had formed on the
eastern edge of the Alleghanies, separate
and distinct from the type of
tidewater and New England, had found in the
Mississippi Valley a new
field for expansion under conditions of free
land and unrestraint. These
conditions gave it promise of ample time to
work out its own social
type. But, first of all, these men who were
occupying the Western Waters
must find an outlet for their surplus products,
if they were to become
a powerful people. While the Alleghanies placed
a veto toward the east,
the Mississippi opened a broad highway to
the south. Its swift current
took their flat boats in its strong arms to
bear them to the sea, but
across the outlet of the great river Spain
drew the barrier of her
colonial monopoly and denied them exit.
The significance of the Mississippi Valley
in American history at the
opening of the new republic, therefore, lay
in the fact that, beyond the
area of the social and political control of
the thirteen colonies, there
had arisen a new and aggressive society which
imperiously put the
questions of the public lands, internal communication,
local
self-government, defense, and aggressive expansion,
before the
legislators of the old colonial régime. The
men of the Mississippi
Valley compelled the men of the East to think
in American terms instead
of European. They dragged a reluctant nation
on in a new course.
From the Revolution to the end of the War
of 1812 Europe regarded the
destiny of the Mississippi Valley as undetermined.
Spain desired to
maintain her hold by means of the control
given through the possession
of the mouth of the river and the Gulf, by
her influence upon the Indian
tribes, and by intrigues with the settlers.
Her object was primarily to
safeguard the Spanish American monopoly which
had made her a great
nation in the world. Instinctively she seemed
to surmise that out of
this Valley were the issues of her future;
here was the lever which
might break successively, from her empire
fragments about the
Gulf--Louisiana, Florida and Texas, Cuba and
Porto Rico--the Southwest
and Pacific coast, and even the Philippines
and the Isthmian Canal,
while the American republic, building itself
on the resources of the
Valley, should become paramount over the independent
republics into
which her empire was to disintegrate.
France, seeking to regain her former colonial
power, would use the
Mississippi Valley as a means of provisioning
her West Indian islands;
of dominating Spanish America, and of subordinating
to her purposes the
feeble United States, which her policy assigned
to the lands between the
Atlantic and the Alleghanies. The ancient
Bourbon monarchy, the
revolutionary republic, and the Napoleonic
empire--all contemplated the
acquisition of the whole Valley of the Mississippi
from the Alleghanies
to the Rocky Mountains.[186:1]
England holding the Great Lakes, dominating
the northern Indian
populations and threatening the Gulf and the
mouth of the Mississippi by
her fleet, watched during the Revolution,
the Confederation, and the
early republic for the breaking of the fragile
bonds of the thirteen
States, ready to extend her protection over
the settlers in the
Mississippi Valley.
Alarmed by the prospect of England's taking
Louisiana and Florida from
Spain, Jefferson wrote in 1790: "Embraced
from St. Croix to St. Mary's
on one side by their possessions, on the other
by their fleet, we need
not hesitate to say that they would soon find
means to unite to them all
the territory covered by the ramifications
of the Mississippi." And
that, he thought, must result in "bloody and
eternal war or indissoluble
confederacy" with England.
None of these nations deemed it impossible
that American settlers in the
Mississippi Valley might be won to accept
another flag than that of the
United States. Gardoqui had the effrontery
in 1787 to suggest to Madison
that the Kentuckians would make good Spanish
subjects. France enlisted
the support of frontiersmen led by George
Rogers Clark for her attempted
conquest of Louisiana in 1793. England tried
to win support among the
western settlers. Indeed, when we recall that
George Rogers Clark
accepted a commission as Major General from
France in 1793 and again in
1798; that Wilkinson, afterwards commander-in-chief
of the American
army, secretly asked Spanish citizenship and
promised renunciation of
his American allegiance; that Governor Sevier
of Franklin, afterwards
Senator from Tennessee and its first Governor
as a State, Robertson the
founder of Cumberland, and Blount, Governor
of the Southwest Territory
and afterwards Senator from Tennessee, were
all willing to accept the
rule of another nation sooner than see the
navigation of the Mississippi
yielded by the American government we can
easily believe that it lay
within the realm of possibility that another
allegiance might have been
accepted by the frontiersmen themselves. We
may well trust Rufus Putnam,
whose federalism and devotion to his country
had been proved and whose
work in founding New England's settlement
at Marietta is well known,
when he wrote in 1790 in answer to Fisher
Ames's question whether the
Mississippi Valley could be retained in the
Union: "Should Congress give
up her claim to the navigation of the Mississippi
or cede it to the
Spaniards, I believe the people in the Western
quarter would separate
themselves from the United States very soon.
Such a measure, I have no
doubt, would excite so much rage and dissatisfaction
that the people
would sooner put themselves under the despotic
government of Spain than
remain the indented servants of Congress."
He added that if Congress did
not afford due protection also to these western
settlers they might turn
to England or Spain.[187:1]
Prior to the railroad the Mississippi Valley
was potentially the basis
for an independent empire, in spite of the
fact that its population
would inevitably be drawn from the Eastern
States. Its natural outlet
was down the current to the Gulf. New Orleans
controlled the Valley, in
the words of Wilkinson, "as the key the lock,
or the citadel the
outworks." So long as the Mississippi Valley
was menaced, or in part
controlled, by rival European states, just
so long must the United
States be a part of the state system of Europe,
involved in its
fortunes. And particularly was this the case
in view of the fact that
until the Union made internal commerce, based
upon the Mississippi
Valley, its dominant economic interest, the
merchants and sailors of the
northeastern States and the staple producers
of the southern sea-board
were a commercial appanage of Europe. The
significance of the
Mississippi Valley was clearly seen by Jefferson.
Writing to Livingston
in 1802 he declared:
There is on the globe one single spot, the
possessor of which
is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New
Orleans, through
which the produce of three-eights of our territory
must pass
to market, and from its fertility it will
ere long yield more
than half of our whole produce and contain
more than half of
our inhabitants. . . . The day that France
takes possession of
New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to
restrain her within
her low-water mark. It seals the union of
two nations who in
conjunction can maintain exclusive possession
of the ocean.
From that moment we must marry ourselves to
the British fleet
and nation . . . holding the two continents
of America in
sequestration for the common purposes of the
united British
and American nations.[188:1]
The acquisition of Louisiana was a recognition
of the essential unity of
the Mississippi Valley. The French engineer
Collot reported to his
government after an investigation in 1796:
All the positions on the left [east] bank
of the Mississippi
. . . without the alliance of the Western
states are far from
covering Louisiana. . . . When two nations
possess, one the
coasts and the other the plains, the former
must inevitably
embark or submit. From thence I conclude that
the Western
States of the North American republic must
unite themselves
with Louisiana and form in the future one
single compact
nation; or else that colony to whatever power
it shall belong
will be conquered or devoured.
The effect of bringing political unity to
the Mississippi Valley by the
Louisiana Purchase was profound. It was the
decisive step of the United
States on an independent career as a world
power, free from entangling
foreign alliances. The victories of Harrison
in the Northwest, in the
War of 1812 that followed, ensured our expansion
in the northern half of
the Valley. Jackson's triumphal march to the
Gulf and his defense of New
Orleans in the same war won the basis for
that Cotton Kingdom, so
important in the economic life of the nation
and so pregnant with the
issue of slavery.[189:1] The acquisition of
Florida, Texas, and the Far
West followed naturally. Not only was the
nation set on an independent
path in foreign relations; its political system
was revolutionized, for
the Mississippi Valley now opened the way
for adding State after State,
swamping the New England section and its Federalism.
The doctrine of
strict construction had received a fatal blow
at the hands of its own
prophet. The old conception of historic sovereign
States, makers of a
federation, was shattered by this vast addition
of raw material for an
indefinite number of parallelograms called
States, nursed through a
Territorial period by the Federal government,
admitted under conditions,
and animated by national rather than by State
patriotism.
The area of the nation had been so enlarged
and the development of the
internal resources so promoted, by the acquisition
of the whole course
of the mighty river, its tributaries and its
outlet, that the Atlantic
coast soon turned its economic energies from
the sea to the interior.
Cities and sections began to struggle for
ascendancy over its industrial
life. A real national activity, a genuine
American culture began. The
vast spaces, the huge natural resources, of
the Valley demanded
exploitation and population. Later there came
the tide of foreign
immigration which has risen so steadily that
it has made a composite
American people whose amalgamation is destined
to produce a new national
stock.
But without attempting to exhaust, or even
to indicate, all the effects
of the Louisiana Purchase, I wish next to
ask your attention to the
significance of the Mississippi Valley in
the promotion of democracy and
the transfer of the political center of gravity
in the nation. The
Mississippi Valley has been the especial home
of democracy. Born of free
land and the pioneer spirit, nurtured in the
ideas of the Revolution and
finding free play for these ideas in the freedom
of the wilderness,
democracy showed itself in the earliest utterances
of the men of the
Western Waters and it has persisted there.
The demand for local
self-government, which was insistent on the
frontier, and the
endorsement given by the Alleghanies to these
demands led to the
creation of a system of independent Western
governments and to the
Ordinance of 1787, an original contribution
to colonial policy. This was
framed in the period when any rigorous subjection
of the West to Eastern
rule would have endangered the ties that bound
them to the Union
itself. In the Constitutional Convention prominent
Eastern statesmen
expressed their fears of the Western democracy
and would have checked
its ability to out-vote the regions of property
by limiting its
political power, so that it should never equal
that of the Atlantic
coast. But more liberal counsels prevailed.
In the first debates upon
the public lands, also, it was clearly stated
that the social system of
the nation was involved quite as much as the
question of revenue.
Eastern fears that cheap lands in abundance
would depopulate the
Atlantic States and check their industrial
growth by a scarcity of labor
supply were met by the answer of one of the
representatives in 1796:
I question if any man would be hardy enough
to point out a
class of citizens by name that ought to be
the servants of the
community; yet unless that is done to what
class of the People
could you direct such a law? But if you passed
such an act
[limiting the area offered for sale in the
Mississippi
Valley], it would be tantamount to saying
that there is some
class which must remain here, and by law be
obliged to serve
the others for such wages as they please to
give.
Gallatin showed his comprehension of the basis
of the prosperous
American democracy in the same debate when
he said:
If the cause of the happiness of this country
was examined
into, it would be found to arise as much from
the great plenty
of land in proportion to the inhabitants,
which their citizens
enjoyed as from the wisdom of their political
institutions.
Out of this frontier democratic society where
the freedom and abundance
of land in the great Valley opened a refuge
to the oppressed in all
regions, came the Jacksonian democracy which
governed the nation after
the downfall of the party of John Quincy Adams.
Its center rested in
Tennessee, the region from which so large
a portion of the Mississippi
Valley was settled by descendants of the men
of the Upland South. The
rule of the Mississippi Valley is seen when
we recall the place that
Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri held in
both parties. Besides Jackson,
Clay, Harrison and Polk, we count such presidential
candidates as Hugh
White and John Bell, Vice President R. M.
Johnson, Grundy, the chairman
of the finance committee, and Benton, the
champion of western
radicalism.
It was in this same period, and largely by
reason of the drainage of
population to the West, and the stir in the
air raised by the Western
winds of Jacksonian democracy, that most of
the older States
reconstructed their constitutions on a more
democratic basis. From the
Mississippi Valley where there were liberal
suffrage provisions (based
on population alone instead of property and
population), disregard of
vested interests, and insistence on the rights
of man, came the
inspiration for this era of change in the
franchise and apportionment,
of reform of laws for imprisonment for debt,
of general attacks upon
monopoly and privilege. "It is now plain,"
wrote Jackson in 1837, "that
the war is to be carried on by the monied
aristocracy of the few against
the democracy of numbers; the [prosperous]
to make the honest laborers
hewers of wood and drawers of water . . . through
the credit and paper
system."
By this time the Mississippi Valley had grown
in population and
political power so that it ranked with the
older sections. The next
indication of its significance in American
history which I shall
mention is its position in shaping the economic
and political course of
the nation between the close of the War of
1812 and the slavery
struggle. In 1790 the Mississippi Valley had
a population of about a
hundred thousand, or one-fortieth of that
of the United States as a
whole; by 1810 it had over a million, or one-seventh;
by 1830 it had
three and two-thirds millions, or over one-fourth;
by 1840 over six
millions, more than one-third. While the Atlantic
coast increased only a
million and a half souls between 1830 and
1840, the Mississippi Valley
gained nearly three millions. Ohio (virgin
wilderness in 1790) was, half
a century later, nearly as populous as Pennsylvania
and twice as
populous as Massachusetts. While Virginia,
North Carolina, and South
Carolina were gaining 60,000 souls between
1830 and 1840, Illinois
gained 318,000. Indeed, the growth of this
State alone excelled that of
the entire South Atlantic States.
These figures show the significance of the
Mississippi Valley in its
pressure upon the older section by the competition
of its cheap lands,
its abundant harvests, and its drainage of
the labor supply. All of
these things meant an upward lift to the Eastern
wage earner. But they
meant also an increase of political power
in the Valley. Before the War
of 1812 the Mississippi Valley had six senators,
New England ten, the
Middle States ten, and the South eight. By
1840 the Mississippi Valley
had twenty-two senators, double those of the
Middle States and New
England combined, and nearly three times as
many as the Old South; while
in the House of Representatives the Mississippi
Valley outweighed any
one of the old sections. In 1810 it had less
than one-third the power of
New England and the South together in the
House. In 1840 it outweighed
them both combined and because of its special
circumstances it held the
balance of power.
While the Mississippi Valley thus rose to
superior political power as
compared with any of the old sections, its
economic development made it
the inciting factor in the industrial life
of the nation. After the War
of 1812 the steamboat revolutionized the transportation
facilities of
the Mississippi Valley. In each economic area
a surplus formed,
demanding an outlet and demanding returns
in manufactures. The spread of
cotton into the lower Mississippi Valley and
the Gulf Plains had a
double significance. This transfer of the
center of cotton production
away from the Atlantic South not only brought
increasing hardship and
increasing unrest to the East as the competition
of the virgin soils
depressed Atlantic land values and made Eastern
labor increasingly dear,
but the price of cotton fell also in due proportion
to the increase in
production by the Mississippi Valley. While
the transfer of economic
power from the Seaboard South to the Cotton
Kingdom of the lower
Mississippi Valley was in progress, the upper
Mississippi Valley was
leaping forward, partly under the stimulus
of a market for its surplus
in the plantations of the South, where almost
exclusive cultivation of
the great staples resulted in a lack of foodstuffs
and livestock.
At the same time the great river and its affluents
became the highway of
a commerce that reached to the West Indies,
the Atlantic Coast, Europe,
and South America. The Mississippi Valley
was an industrial entity, from
Pittsburgh and Santa Fé to New Orleans. It
became the most important
influence in American politics and industry.
Washington had declared in
1784 that it was the part of wisdom for Virginia
to bind the West to the
East by ties of interest through internal
improvement thereby taking
advantage of the extensive and valuable trade
of a rising empire.
This realization of the fact that an economic
empire was growing up
beyond the mountains stimulated rival cities,
New York, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore, to engage in a struggle to
supply the West with goods
and receive its products. This resulted in
an attempt to break down the
barrier of the Alleghanies by internal improvements.
The movement became
especially active after the War of 1812, when
New York carried out De
Witt Clinton's vast conception of making by
the Erie Canal a greater
Hudson which should drain to the port of New
York all the basin of the
Great Lakes, and by means of other canals
even divert the traffic from
the tributaries of the Mississippi. New York
City's commercial
ascendancy dates from this connection with
interior New York and the
Mississippi Valley. A writer in Hunt's _Merchants'
Magazine_ in 1869
makes the significance of this clearer by
these words:
There was a period in the history of the seaboard
cities when
there was no West; and when the Alleghany
Mountains formed the
frontier of settlement and agricultural production.
During
that epoch the seaboard cities, North and
South, grew in
proportion to the extent and fertility of
the country in their
rear; and as Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas
and Georgia
were more productive in staples valuable to
commerce than the
colonies north of them, the cities of Baltimore,
Norfolk,
Charleston, and Savannah enjoyed a greater
trade and
experienced a larger growth than those on
the northern
seaboard.
He, then, classifies the periods of city development
into three: (1) the
provincial, limited to the Atlantic seaboard;
(2) that of canal and
turnpike connected with the Mississippi Valley;
and (3) that of railroad
connection. Thus he was able to show how Norfolk,
for example, was shut
off from the enriching currents of interior
trade and was outstripped
by New York. The efforts of Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Charleston, and
Savannah to divert the trade of the Mississippi
system to their own
ports on the Atlantic, and the rise or fall
of these cities in
proportion as they succeeded are a sufficient
indication of the meaning
of the Mississippi Valley in American industrial
life. What colonial
empire has been for London that the Mississippi
Valley is to the
seaboard cities of the United States, awakening
visions of industrial
empire, systematic control of vast spaces,
producing the American type
of the captain of industry.
It was not alone city rivalry that converged
upon the Mississippi Valley
and sought its alliance. Sectional rivalry
likewise saw that the balance
of power possessed by the interior furnished
an opportunity for
combinations. This was a fundamental feature
of Calhoun's policy when he
urged the seaboard South to complete a railroad
system to tap the
Northwest. As Washington had hoped to make
western trade seek its outlet
in Virginia and build up the industrial power
of the Old Dominion by
enriching intercourse with the Mississippi
Valley, as Monroe wished to
bind the West to Virginia's political interests;
and as De Witt Clinton
wished to attach it to New York, so Calhoun
and Hayne would make
"Georgia and Carolina the commercial center
of the Union, and the two
most powerful and influential members of the
confederacy," by draining
the Mississippi Valley to their ports. "I
believe," said Calhoun, "that
the success of a connection of the West is
of the last importance to us
politically and commercially. . . . I do verily
believe that Charleston
has more advantages in her position for the
Western trade, than any city
on the Atlantic, but to develop them we ought
to look to the Tennessee
instead of the Ohio, and much farther to the
West than Cincinnati or
Lexington."
This was the secret of Calhoun's advocacy
in 1836 and 1837 both of the
distribution of the surplus revenue and of
the cession of the public
lands to the States in which they lay, as
an inducement to the West to
ally itself with Southern policies; and it
is the key to the readiness
of Calhoun, even after he lost his nationalism,
to promote internal
improvements which would foster the southward
current of trade on the
Mississippi.
Without going into details, I may simply call
your attention to the fact
that Clay's whole system of internal improvements
and tariff was based
upon the place of the Mississippi Valley in
American life. It was the
upper part of the Valley, and especially the
Ohio Valley, that furnished
the votes which carried the tariffs of 1816,
1824, and 1828. Its
interests profoundly influenced the details
of those tariffs and its
need of internal improvement constituted a
basis for sectional
bargaining in all the constructive legislation
after the War of 1812.
New England, the Middle Region, and the South
each sought alliance with
the growing section beyond the mountains.
American legislation bears the
enduring evidence of these alliances. Even
the National Bank found in
this Valley the main sphere of its business.
The nation had turned its
energies to internal exploitation, and sections
contended for the
economic and political power derived from
connection with the interior.
But already the Mississippi Valley was beginning
to stratify, both
socially and geographically. As the railroads
pushed across the
mountains, the tide of New England and New
York colonists and German
immigrants sought the basin of the Great Lakes
and the Upper
Mississippi. A distinct zone, industrially
and socially connected with
New England, was forming. The railroad reinforced
the Erie Canal and, as
De Bow put it, turned back the tide of the
Father of Waters so that its
outlet was in New York instead of New Orleans
for a large part of the
Valley. Below the Northern zone was the border
zone of the Upland
South, the region of compromise, including
both banks of the Ohio and
the Missouri and reaching down to the hills
on the north of the Gulf
Plains. The Cotton Kingdom based on slavery
found its center in the
fertile soils along the Lower Mississippi
and the black prairies of
Georgia and Alabama, and was settled largely
by planters from the old
cotton lands of the Atlantic States. The Mississippi
Valley had
rejuvenated slavery, had given it an aggressive
tone characteristic of
Western life.
Thus the Valley found itself in the midst
of the slavery struggle at the
very time when its own society had lost homogeneity.
Let us allow two
leaders, one of the South and one of the North,
to describe the
situation; and, first, let the South speak.
Said Hammond, of South
Carolina,[198:1] in a speech in the Senate
on March 4, 1858:
I think it not improper that I should attempt
to bring the
North and South face to face, and see what
resources each of
us might have in the contingency of separate
organizations.
Through the heart of our country runs the
great Mississippi,
the father of waters, into whose bosom are
poured thirty-six
thousand miles of tributary streams; and beyond
we have the
desert prairie wastes to protect us in our
rear. Can you hem
in such a territory as that? You talk of putting
up a wall of
fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand
miles so
situated! How absurd.
But in this territory lies the great valley
of the
Mississippi, now the real and soon to be the
acknowledged seat
of the empire of the world. The sway of that
valley will be as
great as ever the Nile knew in the earlier
ages of mankind.
We own the most of it. The most valuable part
of it belongs to
us now; and although those who have settled
above us are now
opposed to us, another generation will tell
a different tale.
They are ours by all the laws of nature; slave
labor will go
to every foot of this great valley where it
will be found
profitable to use it, and some of those who
may not use it are
soon to be united with us by such ties as
will make us one and
inseparable. The iron horse will soon be clattering
over the
sunny plains of the South to bear the products
of its upper
tributaries to our Atlantic ports, as it now
does through the
ice-bound North. There is the great Mississippi,
bond of union
made by nature herself. She will maintain
it forever.
As the Seaboard South had transferred the
mantle of leadership to
Tennessee and then to the Cotton Kingdom of
the Lower Mississippi, so
New England and New York resigned their command
to the northern half of
the Mississippi Valley and the basin of the
Great Lakes. Seward, the
old-time leader of the Eastern Whigs who had
just lost the Republican
nomination for the presidency to Lincoln,
may rightfully speak for the
Northeast. In the fall of 1860, addressing
an audience at Madison,
Wisconsin, he declared:[199:1]
The empire established at Washington is of
less than a hundred
years' formation. It was the empire of thirteen
Atlantic
states. Still, practically, the mission of
that empire is
fulfilled. The power that directs it is ready
to pass away
from those thirteen states, and although held
and exercised
under the same constitution and national form
of government,
yet it is now in the very act of being transferred
from the
thirteen states east of the Alleghany mountains
and on the
coast of the Atlantic ocean, to the twenty
states that lie
west of the Alleghanies, and stretch away
from their base to
the base of the Rocky mountains on the West,
and you are the
heirs to it. When the next census shall reveal
your power, you
will be found to be the masters of the United
States of
America, and through them the dominating political
power of
the world.
Appealing to the Northwest on the slavery
issue Seward declared:
The whole responsibility rests henceforth
directly or
indirectly on the people of the Northwest.
. . . There can be
no virtue in commercial and manufacturing
communities to
maintain a democracy, when the democracy themselves
do not
want a democracy. There is no virtue in Pearl
street, in Wall
street, in Court street, in Chestnut street,
in any other
street of great commercial cities, that can
save the great
democratic government of ours, when you cease
to uphold it
with your intelligent votes, your strong and
mighty hands. You
must, therefore, lead us as we heretofore
reserved and
prepared the way for you. We resign to you
the banner of human
rights and human liberty, on this continent,
and we bid you be
firm, bold and onward and then you may hope
that we will be
able to follow you.
When we survey the course of the slavery struggle
in the United States
it is clear that the form the question took
was due to the Mississippi
Valley. The Ordinance of 1787, the Missouri
Compromise, the Texas
question, the Free Soil agitation, the Compromise
of 1850, the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, the Dred Scott decision,
"bleeding Kansas"--these
are all Mississippi Valley questions, and
the mere enumeration makes it
plain that it was the Mississippi Valley as
an area for expansion which
gave the slavery issue its significance in
American history. But for
this field of expansion, slavery might have
fulfilled the expectation of
the fathers and gradually died away.
Of the significance of the Mississippi Valley
in the Civil War, it is
unnecessary that I should speak. Illinois
gave to the North its
President; Mississippi gave to the South its
President. Lincoln and
Davis were both born in Kentucky. Grant and
Sherman, the northern
generals, came from the Mississippi Valley;
and both of them believed
that when Vicksburg fell the cause of the
South was lost, and so it must
have been if the Confederacy had been unable,
after victories in the
East, to regain the Father of Waters; for,
as General Sherman said:
"Whatever power holds that river can govern
this continent."
With the close of the war political power
passed for many years to the
northern half of the Mississippi Valley, as
the names of Grant, Hayes,
Garfield, Harrison, and McKinley indicate.
The population of the Valley
grew from about fifteen millions in 1860 to
over forty millions in
1900--over half the total population of the
United States. The
significance of its industrial growth is not
likely to be overestimated
or overlooked. On its northern border, from
near Minnesota's boundary
line, through the Great Lakes to Pittsburgh,
on its eastern edge, runs a
huge movement of iron from mine to factory.
This industry is basal in
American life, and it has revolutionized the
industry of the world. The
United States produces pig iron and steel
in amount equal to her two
greatest competitors combined, and the iron
ores for this product are
chiefly in the Mississippi Valley. It is the
chief producer of coal,
thereby enabling the United States almost
to equal the combined
production of Germany and Great Britain; and
great oil fields of the
nation are in its midst. Its huge crops of
wheat and corn and its cattle
are the main resources for the United States
and are drawn upon by
Europe. Its cotton furnishes two-thirds of
the world's factory supply.
Its railroad system constitutes the greatest
transportation network in
the world. Again it is seeking industrial
consolidation by demanding
improvement of its vast water system as a
unit. If this design, favored
by Roosevelt, shall at some time be accomplished,
again the bulk of the
commerce of the Valley may flow along the
old routes to New Orleans; and
to Galveston by the development of southern
railroad outlets after the
building of the Panama Canal. For the development
and exploitation of
these and of the transportation and trade
interests of the Middle West,
Eastern capital has been consolidated into
huge corporations, trusts,
and combinations. With the influx of capital,
and the rise of cities and
manufactures, portions of the Mississippi
Valley have become assimilated
with the East. With the end of the era of
free lands the basis of its
democratic society is passing away.
The final topic on which I shall briefly comment
in this discussion of
the significance of the Mississippi Valley
in American history is a
corollary of this condition. Has the Mississippi
Valley a permanent
contribution to make to American society,
or is it to be adjusted into a
type characteristically Eastern and European?
In other words, has the
United States itself an original contribution
to make to the history of
society? This is what it comes to. The most
significant fact in the
Mississippi Valley is its ideals. Here has
been developed, not by
revolutionary theory, but by growth among
free opportunities, the
conception of a vast democracy made up of
mobile ascending individuals,
conscious of their power and their responsibilities.
Can these ideals of
individualism and democracy be reconciled
and applied to the twentieth
century type of civilization?
Other nations have been rich and prosperous
and powerful, art-loving and
empire-building. No other nation on a vast
scale has been controlled by
a self-conscious, self-restrained democracy
in the interests of progress
and freedom, industrial as well as political.
It is in the vast and
level spaces of the Mississippi Valley, if
anywhere, that the forces of
social transformation and the modification
of its democratic ideals may
be arrested.
Beginning with competitive individualism,
as well as with belief in
equality, the farmers of the Mississippi Valley
gradually learned that
unrestrained competition and combination meant
the triumph of the
strongest, the seizure in the interest of
a dominant class of the
strategic points of the nation's life. They
learned that between the
ideal of individualism, unrestrained by society,
and the ideal of
democracy, was an innate conflict; that their
very ambitions and
forcefulness had endangered their democracy.
The significance of the
Mississippi Valley in American history has
lain partly in the fact that
it was a region of revolt. Here have arisen
varied, sometimes
ill-considered, but always devoted, movements
for ameliorating the lot
of the common man in the interests of democracy.
Out of the Mississippi
Valley have come successive and related tidal
waves of popular demand
for real or imagined legislative safeguards
to their rights and their
social ideals. The Granger movement, the Greenback
movement, the
Populist movement, Bryan Democracy, and Roosevelt
Republicanism all
found their greatest strength in the Mississippi
Valley. They were
Mississippi Valley ideals in action. Its people
were learning by
experiment and experience how to grapple with
the fundamental problem of
creating a just social order that shall sustain
the free, progressive,
individual in a real democracy. The Mississippi
Valley is asking, "What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?"
The Mississippi Valley has furnished a new
social order to America. Its
universities have set new types of institutions
for social service and
for the elevation of the plain people. Its
historians should recount its
old ambitions, and inventory its ideals, as
well as its resources, for
the information of the present age, to the
end that building on its
past, the mighty Valley may have a significance
in the life of the
nation even more profound than any which I
have recounted.
FOOTNOTES:
[177:1] Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley
Historical Association for
1909-10. Reprinted with the permission of
the Association.
[177:2] _Harper's Magazine_, February, 1900,
p. 413.
[178:1] Roosevelt, "The Northwest in the Nation,"
in "Proceedings of the
Wisconsin Historical Society," Fortieth Annual
Meeting, p. 92.
[182:1] "Franklin's Works," iv, p. 141.
[186:1] [See the author's paper in _American
Historical Review_, x, p.
245.]
[187:1] Cutler's "Cutler," ii, p. 372.
[188:1] "Jefferson's Works," iv, p. 431.
[189:1] [See on the Cotton Kingdom, U. B.
Phillips, "History of
Slavery"; W. G. Brown, "Lower South"; W. E.
Dodd, "Expansion and
Conflict"; F. J. Turner, "New West."]
[198:1] "Congressional Globe," 35th Congress,
First Session, Appendix,
p. 70.
[199:1] "Seward's Works" (Boston, 1884), iv,
p. 319.
VII
THE PROBLEM OF THE WEST[205:1]
The problem of the West is nothing less than
the problem of American
development. A glance at the map of the United
States reveals the truth.
To write of a "Western sectionalism," bounded
on the east by the
Alleghanies, is, in itself, to proclaim the
writer a provincial. What is
the West? What has it been in American life?
To have the answers to
these questions, is to understand the most
significant features of the
United States of to-day.
The West, at bottom, is a form of society,
rather than an area. It is
the term applied to the region whose social
conditions result from the
application of older institutions and ideas
to the transforming
influences of free land. By this application,
a new environment is
suddenly entered, freedom of opportunity is
opened, the cake of custom
is broken, and new activities, new lines of
growth, new institutions and
new ideals, are brought into existence. The
wilderness disappears, the
"West" proper passes on to a new frontier,
and in the former area, a new
society has emerged from its contact with
the backwoods. Gradually this
society loses its primitive conditions, and
assimilates itself to the
type of the older social conditions of the
East; but it bears within it
enduring and distinguishing survivals of its
frontier experience. Decade
after decade, West after West, this rebirth
of American society has gone
on, has left its traces behind it, and has
reacted on the East. The
history of our political institutions, our
democracy, is not a history
of imitation, of simple borrowing; it is a
history of the evolution and
adaptation of organs in response to changed
environment, a history of
the origin of new political species. In this
sense, therefore, the West
has been a constructive force of the highest
significance in our life.
To use the words of that acute and widely
informed observer, Mr. Bryce,
"The West is the most American part of America.
. . . What Europe is to
Asia, what America is to England, that the
Western States and
Territories are to the Atlantic States."
* * * * *
The West, as a phase of social organization,
began with the Atlantic
coast, and passed across the continent. But
the colonial tide-water area
was in close touch with the Old World, and
soon lost its Western
aspects. In the middle of the eighteenth century,
the newer social
conditions appeared along the upper waters
of the tributaries of the
Atlantic. Here it was that the West took on
its distinguishing features,
and transmitted frontier traits and ideals
to this area in later days.
On the coast, were the fishermen and skippers,
the merchants and
planters, with eyes turned toward Europe.
Beyond the falls of the rivers
were the pioneer farmers, largely of non-English
stock, Scotch-Irish and
German. They constituted a distinct people,
and may be regarded as an
expansion of the social and economic life
of the middle region into the
back country of the South. These frontiersmen
were the ancestors of
Boone, Andrew Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, and
Lincoln. Washington and
Jefferson were profoundly affected by these
frontier conditions. The
forest clearings have been the seed plots
of American character.
In the Revolutionary days, the settlers crossed
the Alleghanies and put
a barrier between them and the coast. They
became, to use their phrases,
"the men of the Western waters," the heirs
of the "Western world." In
this era, the backwoodsmen, all along the
western slopes of the
mountains, with a keen sense of the difference
between them and the
dwellers on the coast, demanded organization
into independent States of
the Union. Self-government was their ideal.
Said one of their rude, but
energetic petitions for statehood: "Some of
our fellow-citizens may
think we are not able to conduct our affairs
and consult our interests;
but if our society is rude, much wisdom is
not necessary to supply our
wants, and a fool can sometimes put on his
clothes better than a wise
man can do it for him." This forest philosophy
is the philosophy of
American democracy. But the men of the coast
were not ready to admit its
implications. They apportioned the State legislatures
so that the
property-holding minority of the tide-water
lands were able to outvote
the more populous back countries. A similar
system was proposed by
Federalists in the constitutional convention
of 1787. Gouverneur Morris,
arguing in favor of basing representation
on property as well as
numbers, declared that "he looked forward,
also, to that range of new
States which would soon be formed in the West.
He thought the rule of
representation ought to be so fixed, as to
secure to the Atlantic States
a prevalence in the national councils." "The
new States," said he, "will
know less of the public interest than these;
will have an interest in
many respects different; in particular will
be little scrupulous of
involving the community in wars, the burdens
and operations of which
would fall chiefly on the maritime States.
Provision ought, therefore,
to be made to prevent the maritime States
from being hereafter outvoted
by them." He added that the Western country
"would not be able to
furnish men equally enlightened to share in
the administration of our
common interests. The busy haunts of men,
not the remote wilderness, was
the proper school of political talents. If
the Western people get power
into their hands, they will ruin the Atlantic
interest. The back
members are always most averse to the best
measures." Add to these
utterances of Gouverneur Morris the impassioned
protest of Josiah
Quincy, of Massachusetts, in the debates in
the House of
Representatives, on the admission of Louisiana.
Referring to the
discussion over the slave votes and the West
in the constitutional
convention, he declared, "Suppose, then, that
it had been distinctly
foreseen that, in addition to the effect of
this weight, the whole
population of a world beyond the Mississippi
was to be brought into this
and the other branch of the legislature, to
form our laws, control our
rights, and decide our destiny. Sir, can it
be pretended that the
patriots of that day would for one moment
have listened to it? . . .
They had not taken degrees at the hospital
of idiocy. . . . Why, sir, I
have already heard of six States, and some
say there will be, at no
great distant time, more. I have also heard
that the mouth of the Ohio
will be far to the east of the center of the
contemplated empire. . . .
You have no authority to throw the rights
and property of this people
into 'hotch-pot' with the wild men on the
Missouri, nor with the mixed,
though more respectable, race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans
who bask
on the sands in the mouth of the Mississippi.
. . . Do you suppose the
people of the Northern and Atlantic States
will, or ought to, look on
with patience and see Representatives and
Senators from the Red River
and Missouri, pouring themselves upon this
and the other floor, managing
the concerns of a seaboard fifteen hundred
miles, at least, from their
residence; and having a preponderancy in councils
into which,
constitutionally, they could never have been
admitted?"
Like an echo from the fears expressed by the
East at the close of the
eighteenth century come the words of an eminent
Eastern man of
letters[208:1] at the end of the nineteenth
century, in warning against
the West: "Materialized in their temper; with
few ideals of an ennobling
sort; little instructed in the lessons of
history; safe from exposure to
the direct calamities and physical horrors
of war; with undeveloped
imaginations and sympathies--they form a community
unfortunate and
dangerous from the possession of power without
a due sense of its
corresponding responsibilities; a community
in which the passion for war
may easily be excited as the fancied means
by which its greatness may be
convincingly exhibited, and its ambitions
gratified. . . . Some chance
spark may fire the prairie."
Here, then, is the problem of the West, as
it looked to New England
leaders of thought in the beginning and at
the end of this century. From
the first, it was recognized that a new type
was growing up beyond the
seaboard, and that the time would come when
the destiny of the nation
would be in Western hands. The divergence
of these societies became
clear in the struggle over the ratification
of the federal constitution.
The up-country agricultural regions, the communities
that were in debt
and desired paper money, with some Western
exceptions, opposed the
instrument; but the areas of intercourse and
property carried the day.
It is important to understand, therefore,
what were some of the ideals
of this early Western democracy. How did the
frontiersman differ from
the man of the coast?
The most obvious fact regarding the man of
the Western Waters is that he
had placed himself under influences destructive
to many of the gains of
civilization. Remote from the opportunity
for systematic education,
substituting a log hut in the forest-clearing
for the social comforts of
the town, he suffered hardships and privations,
and reverted in many
ways to primitive conditions of life. Engaged
in a struggle to subdue
the forest, working as an individual, and
with little specie or
capital, his interests were with the debtor
class. At each stage of its
advance, the West has favored an expansion
of the currency. The pioneer
had boundless confidence in the future of
his own community, and when
seasons of financial contraction and depression
occurred, he, who had
staked his all on confidence in Western development,
and had fought the
savage for his home, was inclined to reproach
the conservative sections
and classes. To explain this antagonism requires
more than denunciation
of dishonesty, ignorance, and boorishness
as fundamental Western traits.
Legislation in the United States has had to
deal with two distinct
social conditions. In some portions of the
country there was, and is, an
aggregation of property, and vested rights
are in the foreground: in
others, capital is lacking, more primitive
conditions prevail, with
different economic and social ideals, and
the contentment of the average
individual is placed in the foreground. That
in the conflict between
these two ideals an even hand has always been
held by the government
would be difficult to show.
The separation of the Western man from the
seaboard, and his
environment, made him in a large degree free
from European precedents
and forces. He looked at things independently
and with small regard or
appreciation for the best Old World experience.
He had no ideal of a
philosophical, eclectic nation, that should
advance civilization by
"intercourse with foreigners and familiarity
with their point of view,
and readiness to adopt whatever is best and
most suitable in their
ideas, manners, and customs." His was rather
the ideal of conserving and
developing what was original and valuable
in this new country. The
entrance of old society upon free lands meant
to him opportunity for a
new type of democracy and new popular ideals.
The West was not
conservative: buoyant self-confidence and
self-assertion were
distinguishing traits in its composition.
It saw in its growth nothing
less than a new order of society and state.
In this conception were
elements of evil and elements of good.
But the fundamental fact in regard to this
new society was its relation
to land. Professor Boutmy has said of the
United States, "Their one
primary and predominant object is to cultivate
and settle these
prairies, forests, and vast waste lands. The
striking and peculiar
characteristic of American society is that
it is not so much a democracy
as a huge commercial company for the discovery,
cultivation, and
capitalization of its enormous territory.
The United States are
primarily a commercial society, and only secondarily
a nation." Of
course, this involves a serious misapprehension.
By the very fact of the
task here set forth, far-reaching ideals of
the state and of society
have been evolved in the West, accompanied
by loyalty to the nation
representative of these ideals. But M. Boutmy's
description hits the
substantial fact, that the fundamental traits
of the man of the interior
were due to the free lands of the West. These
turned his attention to
the great task of subduing them to the purposes
of civilization, and to
the task of advancing his economic and social
status in the new
democracy which he was helping to create.
Art, literature, refinement,
scientific administration, all had to give
way to this Titanic labor.
Energy, incessant activity, became the lot
of this new American. Says a
traveler of the time of Andrew Jackson, "America
is like a vast
workshop, over the door of which is printed
in blazing characters, 'No
admittance here, except on business.'" The
West of our own day reminds
Mr. Bryce "of the crowd which Vathek found
in the hall of Eblis, each
darting hither and thither with swift steps
and unquiet mien, driven to
and fro by a fire in the heart. Time seems
too short for what they have
to do, and the result always to come short
of their desire."
But free lands and the consciousness of working
out their social
destiny did more than turn the Westerner to
material interests and
devote him to a restless existence. They promoted
equality among the
Western settlers, and reacted as a check on
the aristocratic influences
of the East. Where everybody could have a
farm, almost for taking it,
economic equality easily resulted, and this
involved political equality.
Not without a struggle would the Western man
abandon this ideal, and it
goes far to explain the unrest in the remote
West to-day.
Western democracy included individual liberty,
as well as equality. The
frontiersman was impatient of restraints.
He knew how to preserve order,
even in the absence of legal authority. If
there were cattle thieves,
lynch law was sudden and effective: the regulators
of the Carolinas were
the predecessors of the claims associations
of Iowa and the vigilance
committees of California. But the individual
was not ready to submit to
complex regulations. Population was sparse,
there was no multitude of
jostling interests, as in older settlements,
demanding an elaborate
system of personal restraints. Society became
atomic. There was a
reproduction of the primitive idea of the
personality of the law, a
crime was more an offense against the victim
than a violation of the law
of the land. Substantial justice, secured
in the most direct way, was
the ideal of the backwoodsman. He had little
patience with finely drawn
distinctions or scruples of method. If the
thing was one proper to be
done, then the most immediate, rough and ready,
effective way was the
best way.
It followed from the lack of organized political
life, from the atomic
conditions of the backwoods society, that
the individual was exalted and
given free play. The West was another name
for opportunity. Here were
mines to be seized, fertile valleys to be
preëmpted, all the natural
resources open to the shrewdest and the boldest.
The United States is
unique in the extent to which the individual
has been given an open
field, unchecked by restraints of an old social
order, or of scientific
administration of government. The self-made
man was the Western man's
ideal, was the kind of man that all men might
become. Out of his
wilderness experience, out of the freedom
of his opportunities, he
fashioned a formula for social regeneration,--the
freedom of the
individual to seek his own. He did not consider
that his conditions were
exceptional and temporary.
Under such conditions, leadership easily develops,--a
leadership based
on the possession of the qualities most serviceable
to the young
society. In the history of Western settlement,
we see each forted
village following its local hero. Clay, Jackson,
Harrison, Lincoln, were
illustrations of this tendency in periods
when the Western hero rose to
the dignity of national hero.
The Western man believed in the manifest destiny
of his country. On his
border, and checking his advance, were the
Indian, the Spaniard, and the
Englishman. He was indignant at Eastern indifference
and lack of
sympathy with his view of his relations to
these peoples; at the
short-sightedness of Eastern policy. The closure
of the Mississippi by
Spain, and the proposal to exchange our claim
of freedom of navigating
the river, in return for commercial advantages
to New England, nearly
led to the withdrawal of the West from the
Union. It was the Western
demands that brought about the purchase of
Louisiana, and turned the
scale in favor of declaring the War of 1812.
Militant qualities were
favored by the annual expansion of the settled
area in the face of
hostile Indians and the stubborn wilderness.
The West caught the vision
of the nation's continental destiny. Henry
Adams, in his History of the
United States, makes the American of 1800
exclaim to the foreign
visitor, "Look at my wealth! See these solid
mountains of salt and
iron, of lead, copper, silver, and gold. See
these magnificent cities
scattered broadcast to the Pacific! See my
cornfields rustling and
waving in the summer breeze from ocean to
ocean, so far that the sun
itself is not high enough to mark where the
distant mountains bound my
golden seas. Look at this continent of mine,
fairest of created worlds,
as she lies turning up to the sun's never
failing caress her broad and
exuberant breasts, overflowing with milk for
her hundred million
children." And the foreigner saw only dreary
deserts, tenanted by
sparse, ague-stricken pioneers and savages.
The cities were log huts and
gambling dens. But the frontiersman's dream
was prophetic. In spite of
his rude, gross nature, this early Western
man was an idealist withal.
He dreamed dreams and beheld visions. He had
faith in man, hope for
democracy, belief in America's destiny, unbounded
confidence in his
ability to make his dreams come true. Said
Harriet Martineau in 1834, "I
regard the American people as a great embryo
poet, now moody, now wild,
but bringing out results of absolute good
sense: restless and wayward in
action, but with deep peace at his heart;
exulting that he has caught
the true aspect of things past, and the depth
of futurity which lies
before him, wherein to create something so
magnificent as the world has
scarcely begun to dream of. There is the strongest
hope of a nation that
is capable of being possessed with an idea."
It is important to bear this idealism of the
West in mind. The very
materialism that has been urged against the
West was accompanied by
ideals of equality, of the exaltation of the
common man, of national
expansion, that makes it a profound mistake
to write of the West as
though it were engrossed in mere material
ends. It has been, and is,
preëminently a region of ideals, mistaken
or not.
It is obvious that these economic and social
conditions were so
fundamental in Western life that they might
well dominate whatever
accessions came to the West by immigration
from the coast sections or
from Europe. Nevertheless, the West cannot
be understood without bearing
in mind the fact that it has received the
great streams from the North
and from the South, and that the Mississippi
compelled these currents to
intermingle. Here it was that sectionalism
first gave way under the
pressure of unification. Ultimately the conflicting
ideas and
institutions of the old sections struggled
for dominance in this area
under the influence of the forces that made
for uniformity, but this is
merely another phase of the truth that the
West must become unified,
that it could not rest in sectional groupings.
For precisely this reason
the struggle occurred. In the period from
the Revolution to the close of
the War of 1812, the democracy of the Southern
and Middle States
contributed the main streams of settlement
and social influence to the
West. Even in Ohio political power was soon
lost by the New England
leaders. The democratic spirit of the Middle
region left an indelible
impress on the West in this its formative
period. After the War of 1812,
New England, its supremacy in the carrying
trade of the world having
vanished, became a hive from which swarms
of settlers went out to
western New York and the remoter regions.
These settlers spread New England ideals of
education and character and
political institutions, and acted as a leaven
of great significance in
the Northwest. But it would be a mistake to
believe that an unmixed New
England influence took possession of the Northwest.
These pioneers did
not come from the class that conserved the
type of New England
civilization pure and undefiled. They represented
a less contented, less
conservative influence. Moreover, by their
sojourn in the Middle Region,
on their westward march, they underwent modification,
and when the
farther West received them, they suffered
a forest-change, indeed. The
Westernized New England man was no longer
the representative of the
section that he left. He was less conservative,
less provincial, more
adaptable and approachable, less rigorous
in his Puritan ideals, less a
man of culture, more a man of action.
As might have been expected, therefore, the
Western men, in the "era of
good feeling," had much homogeneity throughout
the Mississippi Valley,
and began to stand as a new national type.
Under the lead of Henry Clay
they invoked the national government to break
down the mountain barrier
by internal improvements, and thus to give
their crops an outlet to the
coast. Under him they appealed to the national
government for a
protective tariff to create a home market.
A group of frontier States
entered the Union with democratic provisions
respecting the suffrage,
and with devotion to the nation that had given
them their lands, built
their roads and canals, regulated their territorial
life, and made them
equals in the sisterhood of States. At last
these Western forces of
aggressive nationalism and democracy took
possession of the government
in the person of the man who best embodied
them, Andrew Jackson. This
new democracy that captured the country and
destroyed the ideals of
statesmanship came from no theorist's dreams
of the German forest. It
came, stark and strong and full of life, from
the American forest. But
the triumph of this Western democracy revealed
also the fact that it
could rally to its aid the laboring classes
of the coast, then just
beginning to acquire self-consciousness and
organization.
The next phase of Western development revealed
forces of division
between the northern and southern portions
of the West. With the spread
of the cotton culture went the slave system
and the great plantation.
The small farmer in his log cabin, raising
varied crops, was displaced
by the planter raising cotton. In all except
the mountainous areas the
industrial organization of the tidewater took
possession of the
Southwest, the unity of the back country was
broken, and the solid South
was formed. In the Northwest this was the
era of railroads and canals,
opening the region to the increasing stream
of Middle State and New
England settlement, and strengthening the
opposition to slavery. A map
showing the location of the men of New England
ancestry in the Northwest
would represent also the counties in which
the Free Soil party cast its
heaviest votes. The commercial connections
of the Northwest likewise
were reversed by the railroad. The result
is stated by a writer in _De
Bow's Review_ in 1852 in these words:--
"What is New Orleans now? Where are her dreams
of greatness
and glory? . . . Whilst she slept, an enemy
has sowed tares in
her most prolific fields. Armed with energy,
enterprise, and
an indomitable spirit, that enemy, by a system
of bold,
vigorous, and sustained efforts, has succeeded
in reversing
the very laws of nature and of nature's God,--rolled
back the
mighty tide of the Mississippi and its thousand
tributary
streams, until their mouth, practically and
commercially, is
more at New York or Boston than at New Orleans."
The West broke asunder, and the great struggle
over the social system to
be given to the lands beyond the Mississippi
followed. In the Civil War
the Northwest furnished the national hero,--Lincoln
was the very flower
of frontier training and ideals,--and it also
took into its hands the
whole power of the government. Before the
war closed, the West could
claim the President, Vice-President, Chief
Justice, Speaker of the
House, Secretary of the Treasury, Postmaster-General,
Attorney-General,
General of the army, and Admiral of the navy.
The leading generals of
the war had been furnished by the West. It
was the region of action,
and in the crisis it took the reins.
The triumph of the nation was followed by
a new era of Western
development. The national forces projected
themselves across the
prairies and plains. Railroads, fostered by
government loans and land
grants, opened the way for settlement and
poured a flood of European
immigrants and restless pioneers from all
sections of the Union into the
government lands. The army of the United States
pushed back the Indian,
rectangular Territories were carved into checkerboard
States, creations
of the federal government, without a history,
without physiographical
unity, without particularistic ideas. The
later frontiersman leaned on
the strong arm of national power.
At the same time the South underwent a revolution.
The plantation, based
on slavery, gave place to the farm, the gentry
to the democratic
elements. As in the West, new industries,
of mining and of manufacture,
sprang up as by magic. The New South, like
the New West, was an area of
construction, a debtor area, an area of unrest;
and it, too, had learned
the uses to which federal legislation might
be put.
In the meantime the Old Northwest[218:1] passed
through an economic and
social transformation. The whole West furnished
an area over which
successive waves of economic development have
passed. The State of
Wisconsin, now much like parts of the State
of New York, was at an
earlier period like the State of Nebraska
of to-day; the Granger
movement and Greenback party had for a time
the ascendancy; and in the
northern counties of the State, where there
is a sparser population, and
the country is being settled, its sympathies
are still with the debtor
class. Thus the Old Northwest is a region
where the older frontier
conditions survive in parts, and where the
inherited ways of looking at
things are largely to be traced to its frontier
days. At the same time
it is a region in many ways assimilated to
the East. It understands both
sections. It is not entirely content with
the existing structure of
economic society in the sections where wealth
has accumulated and
corporate organizations are powerful; but
neither has it seemed to feel
that its interests lie in supporting the program
of the prairies and the
South. In the Fifty-third Congress it voted
for the income tax, but it
rejected free coinage. It is still affected
by the ideal of the
self-made man, rather than by the ideal of
industrial nationalism. It is
more American, but less cosmopolitan than
the seaboard.
We are now in a position to see clearly some
of the factors involved in
the Western problem. For nearly three centuries
the dominant fact in
American life has been expansion. With the
settlement of the Pacific
coast and the occupation of the free lands,
this movement has come to a
check. That these energies of expansion will
no longer operate would be
a rash prediction; and the demands for a vigorous
foreign policy, for an
interoceanic canal, for a revival of our power
upon the seas, and for
the extension of American influence to outlying
islands and adjoining
countries, are indications that the movement
will continue. The
stronghold of these demands lies west of the
Alleghanies.
In the remoter West, the restless, rushing
wave of settlement has broken
with a shock against the arid plains. The
free lands are gone, the
continent is crossed, and all this push and
energy is turning into
channels of agitation. Failures in one area
can no longer be made good
by taking up land on a new frontier; the conditions
of a settled society
are being reached with suddenness and with
confusion. The West has been
built up with borrowed capital, and the question
of the stability of
gold, as a standard of deferred payments,
is eagerly agitated by the
debtor West, profoundly dissatisfied with
the industrial conditions that
confront it, and actuated by frontier directness
and rigor in its
remedies. For the most part, the men who built
up the West beyond the
Mississippi, and who are now leading the agitation,[220:1]
came as
pioneers from the old Northwest, in the days
when it was just passing
from the stage of a frontier section. For
example, Senator Allen of
Nebraska, president of the recent national
Populist Convention, and a
type of the political leaders of his section,
was born in Ohio in the
middle of the century, went in his youth to
Iowa, and not long after the
Civil War made his home in Nebraska. As a
boy, he saw the buffalo driven
out by the settlers; he saw the Indian retreat
as the pioneer advanced.
His training is that of the old West, in its
frontier days. And now the
frontier opportunities are gone. Discontent
is demanding an extension of
governmental activity in its behalf. In these
demands, it finds itself
in touch with the depressed agricultural classes
and the workingmen of
the South and East. The Western problem is
no longer a sectional
problem: it is a social problem on a national
scale. The greater West,
extending from the Alleghanies to the Pacific,
cannot be regarded as a
unit; it requires analysis into regions and
classes. But its area, its
population, and its material resources would
give force to its assertion
that if there is a sectionalism in the country,
the sectionalism is
Eastern. The old West, united to the new South,
would produce, not a new
sectionalism, but a new Americanism. It would
not mean sectional
disunion, as some have speculated, but it
might mean a drastic assertion
of national government and imperial expansion
under a popular hero.
This, then, is the real situation: a people
composed of heterogeneous
materials, with diverse and conflicting ideals
and social interests,
having passed from the task of filling up
the vacant spaces of the
continent, is now thrown back upon itself,
and is seeking an
equilibrium. The diverse elements are being
fused into national unity.
The forces of reorganization are turbulent
and the nation seems like a
witches' kettle.
But the West has its own centers of industrial
life and culture not
unlike those of the East. It has State universities,
rivaling in
conservative and scientific economic instruction
those of any other part
of the Union, and its citizens more often
visit the East, than do
Eastern men the West. As time goes on, its
industrial development will
bring it more into harmony with the East.
Moreover, the Old Northwest holds the balance
of power, and is the
battlefield on which these issues of American
development are to be
settled. It has more in common with all parts
of the nation than has any
other region. It understands the East, as
the East does not understand
the West. The White City which recently rose
on the shores of Lake
Michigan fitly typified its growing culture
as well as its capacity for
great achievement. Its complex and representative
industrial
organization and business ties, its determination
to hold fast to what
is original and good in its Western experience,
and its readiness to
learn and receive the results of the experience
of other sections and
nations, make it an open-minded and safe arbiter
of the American
destiny.
In the long run the "Center of the Republic"
may be trusted to strike a
wise balance between the contending ideals.
But she does not deceive
herself; she knows that the problem of the
West means nothing less than
the problem of working out original social
ideals and social adjustments
for the American nation.
FOOTNOTES:
[205:1] _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1896.
Reprinted by permission.
[208:1] Charles Eliot Norton.
[218:1] The present States of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and
Wisconsin.
[220:1] [Written in the year of Mr. Bryan's
first presidential
campaign.]
VIII
DOMINANT FORCES IN WESTERN LIFE[222:1]
The Old Northwest is a name which tells of
the vestiges which the march
of settlement across the American continent
has left behind it. The New
Northwest fronts the watery labyrinth of Puget
Sound and awaits its
destiny upon the Pacific. The Old Northwest,
the historic Northwest
Territory, is now the new Middle Region of
the United States. A century
ago it was a wilderness, broken only by a
few French settlements and the
straggling American hamlets along the Ohio
and its tributaries, while,
on the shore of Lake Erie, Moses Cleaveland
had just led a handful of
men to the Connecticut Reserve. To-day it
is the keystone of the
American Commonwealth. Since 1860 the center
of population of the United
States has rested within its limits, and the
center of manufacturing in
the nation lies eight miles from President
McKinley's Ohio home. Of the
seven men who have been elected to the presidency
of the United States
since 1860, six have come from the Old Northwest,
and the seventh came
from the kindred region of western New York.
The congressional
Representatives from these five States of
the Old Northwest already
outnumber those from the old Middle States,
and are three times as
numerous as those from New England.
The elements that have contributed to the
civilization of this region
are therefore well worth consideration. To
know the States that make up
the Old Northwest--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan and Wisconsin--one
must understand their social origins.
Eldest in this sisterhood was Ohio. New England
gave the formative
impulses to this State by the part which the
Ohio Company played in
securing the Ordinance of 1787, and at Marietta
and Cleveland
Massachusetts and Connecticut planted enduring
centers of Puritan
influence. During the same period New Jersey
and Pennsylvania sent their
colonists to the Symmes Purchase, in which
Cincinnati was the
rallying-point, while Virginians sought the
Military Bounty Lands in the
region of Chillicothe. The Middle States and
the South, with their
democratic ideas, constituted the dominant
element in Ohio politics in
the early part of her history. This dominance
is shown by the nativity
of the members of the Ohio legislature elected
in 1820: New England
furnished nine Senators and sixteen Representatives,
chiefly from
Connecticut; New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,
seventeen Senators
and twenty-one Representatives, mostly from
Pennsylvania; while the
South furnished nine Senators and twenty-seven
Representatives, of whom
the majority came from Virginia. Five of the
Representatives were native
of Ireland, presumably Scotch-Irishmen. In
the Ohio Senate, therefore,
the Middle States had as many representatives
as had New England and the
South together, while the Southern men slightly
outnumbered the Middle
States men in the Assembly. Together, the
emigrants from the Democratic
South and Middle Region outnumbered the Federalist
New Englanders three
to one. Although Ohio is popularly considered
a child of New England, it
is clear that in these formative years of
her statehood the commonwealth
was dominated by other forces.
By the close of this early period, in 1820,
the settlement in Ohio had
covered more or less fully all except the
northwest corner of the State,
and Indiana's formative period was well started.
Here, as in Ohio,
there was a large Southern element. But while
the Southern stream that
flowed into Ohio had its sources in Virginia,
the main current that
sought Indiana came from North Carolina; and
these settlers were for the
most part from the humbler classes. In the
settlement of Indiana from
the South two separate elements are distinguishable:
the Quaker
migration from North Carolina, moving chiefly
because of anti-slavery
convictions; the "poor white" stream, made
up in part of restless
hunters and thriftless pioneers moving without
definite ambitions, and
in part of other classes, such as former overseers,
migrating to the new
country with definite purpose of improving
their fortunes.
These elements constituted well-marked features
in the Southern
contribution to Indiana, and they explain
why she has been named the
Hoosier State; but it should by no means be
thought that all of the
Southern immigrants came under these classes,
nor that these have been
the normal elements in the development of
the Indiana of to-day. In the
Northwest, where interstate migration has
been so continuous and
widespread, the lack of typical State peculiarities
is obvious, and the
student of society, like the traveler, is
tempted, in his effort to
distinguish the community from its neighbors,
to exaggerate the odd and
exceptional elements which give a particular
flavor to the State.
Indiana has suffered somewhat from this tendency;
but it is undoubted
that these peculiarities of origin left deep
and abiding influences upon
the State. In 1820 her settlement was chiefly
in the southern counties,
where Southern and Middle States influence
was dominant. Her two United
States Senators were Virginians by birth,
while her Representative was
from Pennsylvania. The Southern element continued
so powerful that one
student of Indiana origins has estimated that
in 1850 one-third of the
population of the State were native Carolinians
and their children in
the first generation. Not until a few years
before the Civil War did the
Northern current exert a decisive influence
upon Indiana. She had no
such lake ports as had her sister States,
and extension of settlement
into the State from ports like Chicago was
interrupted by the less
attractive area of the northwestern part of
Indiana. Add to this the
geological fact that the limestone ridges
and the best soils ran in
nearly perpendicular belts northward from
the Ohio, and it will be seen
how circumstances combined to diminish Northern
and to facilitate
Southern influences in the State prior to
the railroad development.
In Illinois, also, the current of migration
was at first preponderantly
Southern, but the settlers were less often
from the Atlantic coast.
Kentucky and Tennessee were generous contributors,
but many of the
distinguished leaders came from Virginia,
and it is worthy of note that
in 1820 the two United States Senators of
Illinois were of Maryland
ancestry, while her Representative was of
Kentucky origin. The swarms of
land-seekers between 1820 and 1830 ascended
the Illinois river, and
spread out between that river and the Mississippi.
It was in this period
that Abraham Lincoln's father, who had come
from Kentucky to Indiana,
again left his log cabin and traveled by ox-team
with his family to the
popular Illinois county of Sangamon. Here
Lincoln split his famous rails
to fence their land, and grew up under the
influences of this migration
of the Southern pioneers to the prairies.
They were not predominantly of
the planter class; but the fierce contest
in 1824 over the proposition
to open Illinois to slavery was won for freedom
by a narrow majority.
Looking at the three States, Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois, prior to 1850,
we perceive how important was the voice of
the South here, and we can
the more easily understand the early affiliation
of the Northwest with
her sister States to the south on the Western
waters. It was not
without reason that the proposal of the Missouri
Compromise came from
Illinois, and it was a natural enthusiasm
with which these States
followed Henry Clay in the war policy of 1812.
The combination of the
South, the western portion of the Middle States,
and the Mississippi
Valley gave the ascendancy to the democratic
ideals of the followers of
Jefferson, and left New England a weakened
and isolated section for
nearly half a century. Many of the most characteristic
elements in
American life in the first part of the century
were due to this
relationship between the South and the trans-Alleghany
region. But even
thus early the Northwest had revealed strong
predilections for the
Northern economic ideals as against the peculiar
institution of the
South, and this tendency grew with the increase
of New England
immigration.
The northern two in this sisterhood of Northwestern
States were the
first to be entered by the French, but latest
by the English settlers.
Why Michigan was not occupied by New York
men at an earlier period is at
first sight not easy to understand. Perhaps
the adverse reports of
surveyors who visited the interior of the
State, the partial
geographical isolation, and the unprogressive
character of the French
settlers account for the tardy occupation
of the area. Certain it is
that while the southern tier of States was
sought by swarms of settlers,
Wisconsin and Michigan still echoed to Canadian
boating-songs, and
voyageurs paddled their birch canoes along
the streams of the wilderness
to traffic with the savages. Great Britain
maintained the dominant
position until after the War of 1812, and
the real center of authority
was in Canada.
But after the digging of the Erie Canal, settlement
began to turn into
Michigan. Between 1830 and 1840 the population
of the State leaped from
31,000 to 212,000, in the face of the fact
that the heavy debt of the
State and the crisis of 1837 turned from her
borders many of the
thrifty, debt-hating Germans. The vast majority
of the settlers were New
Yorkers. Michigan is distinctly a child of
the Empire State. Canadians,
both French and English, continued to come
as the lumber interests of
the region increased. By 1850 Michigan contained
nearly 400,000
inhabitants, who occupied the southern half
of the State.
But she now found an active competitor for
settlement in Wisconsin. In
this region two forces had attracted the earlier
inhabitants. The
fur-trading posts of Green Bay, Prairie du
Chien, and Milwaukee
constituted one element, in which the French
influence was continued.
The lead region of the southwest corner of
the State formed the center
of attraction for Illinois and Southern pioneers.
The soldiers who
followed Black Hawk's trail in 1832 reported
the richness of the soil,
and an era of immigration followed. To the
port of Milwaukee came a
combined migration from western New York and
New England, and spread
along the southern tier of prairie counties
until it met the Southern
settlers in the lead region. Many of the early
political contests in the
State were connected, as in Ohio and Illinois,
with the antagonisms
between the sections thus brought together
in a limited area.
The other element in the formation of Wisconsin
was that of the Germans,
then just entering upon their vast immigration
to the United States.
Wisconsin was free from debt; she made a constitution
of exceptional
liberality to foreigners, and instead of treasuring
her school lands or
using them for internal improvements, she
sold them for almost nothing
to attract immigration. The result was that
the prudent Germans, who
loved light taxes and cheap hard wood lands,
turned toward
Wisconsin,--another _Völkerwanderung_. From
Milwaukee as a center they
spread north along the shore of Lake Michigan,
and later into northern
central Wisconsin, following the belt of the
hardwood forests. So
considerable were their numbers that such
an economist as Roscher wrote
of the feasibility of making Wisconsin a German
State. "They can plant
the vine on the hills," cried Franz Löher
in 1847, "and drink with happy
song and dance; they can have German schools
and universities, German
literature and art, German science and philosophy,
German courts and
assemblies; in short, they can form a German
State, in which the German
language shall be as much the popular and
official language as the
English is now, and in which the German spirit
shall rule." By 1860 the
German-born were sixteen per cent of the population
of the State. But
the New York and New England stream proved
even more broad and steady in
its flow in these years before the war. Wisconsin's
population rose from
30,000 in 1840 to 300,000 in 1850.
The New England element that entered this
State is probably typical of
the same element in Wisconsin's neighboring
States, and demands notice.
It came for the most part, not from the seaboard
of Massachusetts, which
has so frequently represented New England
to the popular apprehension. A
large element in this stock was the product
of the migration that
ascended the valleys of Connecticut and central
Massachusetts through
the hills into Vermont and New York,--a pioneer
folk almost from the
time of their origin. The Vermont colonists
decidedly outnumbered those
of Massachusetts in both Michigan and Wisconsin,
and were far more
numerous in other Northwestern States than
the population of Vermont
warranted. Together with this current came
the settlers from western New
York. These were generally descendants of
this same pioneer New England
stock, continuing into a remoter West the
movement that had brought
their parents to New York. The combined current
from New England and New
York thus constituted a distinctly modified
New England stock, and was
clearly the dominant native element in Michigan
and Wisconsin.
The decade of the forties was also the period
of Iowa's rapid increase.
Although not politically a part of the Old
Northwest, in history she is
closely related to that region. Her growth
was by no means so rapid as
was Wisconsin's, for the proportion of foreign
immigration was less.
Whereas in 1850 more than one-third of Wisconsin's
population was
foreign-born, the proportion for Iowa was
not much over one-tenth. The
main body of her people finally came from
the Middle States, and
Illinois and Ohio; but Southern elements were
well represented,
particularly among her political leaders.
The middle of the century was the turning-point
in the transfer of
control in the Northwest. Below the line of
the old national turnpike,
marked by the cities of Columbus, Indianapolis,
Vandalia, and St. Louis,
the counties had acquired a stability of settlement;
and partly because
of the Southern element, partly because of
a natural tendency of new
communities toward Jacksonian ideals, these
counties were preponderantly
Democratic. But the Southern migration had
turned to the cotton areas of
the Southwest, and the development of railroads
and canals had broken
the historic commercial ascendancy of the
Mississippi River; New Orleans
was yielding the scepter to New York. The
tide of migration from the
North poured along these newly opened channels,
and occupied the less
settled counties above the national turnpike.
In cities like Columbus
and Indianapolis, where the two currents had
run side by side, the
combined elements were most clearly marked,
but in the Northwest as a
whole a varied population had been formed.
This region seemed to
represent and understand the various parts
of the Union. It was this
aspect which Mr. Vinton, of Ohio, urged in
Congress when he made his
notable speech in favor of the admission of
Iowa. He pleaded the
mission of the Northwest as the mediator between
the sections and the
unifying agency in the nation, with such power
and pathos as to thrill
even John Quincy Adams.
But there are some issues which cannot be
settled by compromise,
tendencies one of which must conquer the other.
Such an issue the slave
power raised, and raised too late for support
in the upper half of the
Mississippi Basin. The Northern and the Southern
elements found
themselves in opposition to each other. "A
house divided against itself
cannot stand," said Abraham Lincoln, a Northern
leader of Southern
origin. Douglas, a leader of the Southern
forces, though coming from New
England, declared his indifference whether
slavery were voted up or down
in the Western Territories. The historic debates
between these two
champions reveal the complex conditions in
the Northwest, and take on a
new meaning when considered in the light of
this contest between the
Northern and the Southern elements. The State
that had been so potent
for compromise was at last the battle-ground
itself, and the places
selected for the various debates of Lincoln
and Douglas marked the
strongholds and the outposts of the antagonistic
forces.
At this time the kinship of western New York
and the dominant element in
the Northwest was clearly revealed. Speaking
for the anti-slavery forces
at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1860, Seward said:
"The Northwest is by no
means so small as you may think it. I speak
to you because I feel that I
am, and during all my mature life have been,
one of you. Although of New
York, I am still a citizen of the Northwest.
The Northwest extends
eastward to the base of the Alleghany Mountains,
and does not all of
western New York lie westward of the Alleghany
Mountains? Whence comes
all the inspiration of free soil which spreads
itself with such cheerful
voices over all these plains? Why, from New
York westward of the
Alleghany Mountains. The people before me,--who
are you but New York
men, while you are men of the Northwest?"
In the Civil War, western New
York and the Northwest were powerful in the
forum and in the field. A
million soldiers came from the States that
the Ordinance, passed by
Southern votes, had devoted to freedom.
This was the first grave time of trial for
the Northwest, and it did
much eventually to give to the region a homogeneity
and
self-consciousness. But at the close of the
war the region was still
agricultural, only half-developed; still breaking
ground in northern
forests; still receiving contributions of
peoples which radically
modified the social organism, and undergoing
economic changes almost
revolutionary in their rapidity and extent.
The changes since the war
are of more social importance, in many respects,
than those in the years
commonly referred to as the formative period.
As a result, the Northwest
finds herself again between contending forces,
sharing the interests of
East and West, as once before those of North
and South, and forced to
give her voice on issues of equal significance
for the destiny of the
republic.
In these transforming years since 1860, Ohio,
finding the magician's
talisman that revealed the treasury of mineral
wealth, gas, and
petroleum beneath her fields, has leaped to
a front rank among the
manufacturing States of the Union. Potential
on the Great Lakes by
reason of her ports of Toledo and Cleveland,
tapping the Ohio river
artery of trade at Cincinnati, and closely
connected with all the vast
material development of the upper waters of
this river in western
Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Ohio has become
distinctly a part of the
eastern social organism, much like the State
of Pennsylvania. The
complexity of her origin still persists. Ohio
has no preponderant social
center; her multiplicity of colleges and universities
bears tribute to
the diversity of the elements that have made
the State. One-third of
her people are of foreign parentage (one or
both parents foreign-born),
and the city of Cincinnati has been deeply
affected by the German stock,
while Cleveland strongly reflects the influence
of the New England
element. That influence is still very palpable,
but it is New England in
the presence of natural gas, iron, and coal,
New England shaped by blast
and forge. The Middle State ideals will dominate
Ohio's future.
Bucolic Indiana, too, within the last decade
has come into the
possession of gas-fields and has increased
the exploitation of her coals
until she seems destined to share in the industrial
type represented by
Ohio. Cities have arisen, like a dream, on
the sites of country
villages. But Indiana has a much smaller proportion
of foreign elements
than any other State of the Old Northwest,
and it is the Southern
element that still differentiates her from
her sisters. While Ohio's
political leaders still attest the Puritan
migration, Indiana's clasp
hands with the leaders from the South.
The Southern elements continue also to reveal
themselves in the
Democratic southwestern counties of Illinois,
grouped like a broad delta
of the Illinois River, while northern Illinois
holds a larger proportion
of descendants of the Middle States and New
England. About one-half her
population is of foreign parentage, in which
the German, Irish, and
Scandinavians furnish the largest elements.
She is a great agricultural
State and a great manufacturing State, the
connecting link between the
Mississippi and the Great Lakes. Her metropolis,
Chicago, is the very
type of Northwestern development for good
and for evil. It is an epitome
of her composite nationality. A recent writer,
analyzing the school
census of Chicago, points out that "only two
cities in the German
Empire, Berlin and Hamburg, have a greater
German population than
Chicago; only two in Sweden, Stockholm and
Göteborg, have more Swedes;
and only two in Norway, Christiana and Bergen,
have more Norwegians";
while the Irish, Polish, Bohemians, and Dutch
elements are also largely
represented. But in spite of her rapidity
of growth and her complex
elements, Chicago stands as the representative
of the will-power and
genius for action of the Middle West, and
the State of Illinois will be
the battle-ground for social and economic
ideals for the next
generation.
Michigan is two States. The northern peninsula
is cut off from the
southern physically, industrially, and in
the history of settlement. It
would seem that her natural destiny was with
Wisconsin, or some possible
new State embracing the iron and copper, forest
and shipping areas of
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota on Lake
Superior. The lower peninsula
of Michigan is the daughter of New York and
over twelve per cent of
Michigan's present population were born in
that State, and her traits
are those of the parent State. Over half her
population is of foreign
parentage, of which Canada and England together
have furnished one-half,
while the Germans outnumber any other single
foreign element. The State
has undergone a steady industrial development,
exploiting her northern
mines and forests, developing her lumber interests
with Saginaw as the
center, raising fruits along the lake shore
counties, and producing
grain in the middle trough of counties running
from Saginaw Bay to the
south of Lake Michigan. Her state university
has been her peculiar
glory, furnishing the first model for the
state university, and it is
the educational contribution of the Northwest
to the nation.
Wisconsin's future is dependent upon the influence
of the large
proportion of her population of foreign parentage,
for nearly
three-fourths of her inhabitants are of that
class. She thus has a
smaller percentage of native population than
any other of the States
formed from the Old Northwest. Of this foreign
element the Germans
constitute by far the largest part, with the
Scandinavians second. Her
American population born outside of Wisconsin
comes chiefly from New
York. In contrast with the Ohio River States,
she lacks the Southern
element. Her greater foreign population and
her dairy interests contrast
with Michigan's Canadian and English elements
and fruit culture. Her
relations are more Western than Michigan's
by reason of her connection
with the Mississippi and the prairie States.
Her foreign element is
slightly less than Minnesota's, and in the
latter State the
Scandinavians take the place held by the Germans
in Wisconsin. The
facility with which the Scandinavians catch
the spirit of Western
America and assimilate with their neighbors
is much greater than is the
case with the Germans, so that Wisconsin seems
to offer opportunity for
non-English influence in a greater degree
than her sister on the west.
While Minnesota's economic development has
heretofore been closely
dependent on the wheat-producing prairies,
the opening of the iron
fields of the Mesabi and Vermilion ranges,
together with the development
of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Duluth and West
Superior, and the
prospective achievement of a deep-water communication
with the Atlantic,
seem to offer to that State a new and imperial
industrial destiny.
Between this stupendous economic future to
the northwest and the
colossal growth of Chicago on the southeast
Wisconsin seems likely to
become a middle agricultural area, developing
particularly into a dairy
State. She is powerfully affected by the conservative
tendencies of her
German element in times of political agitation
and of proposals of
social change.
Some of the social modifications in this State
are more or less typical
of important processes at work among the neighboring
States of the Old
Northwest. In the north, the men who built
up the lumber interests of
the State, who founded a mill town surrounded
by the stumps of the pine
forests which they exploited for the prairie
markets, have acquired
wealth and political power. The spacious and
well-appointed home of the
town-builder may now be seen in many a northern
community, in a group of
less pretentious homes of operatives and tradesmen,
the social
distinctions between them emphasized by the
difference in nationality. A
few years before, this captain of industry
was perhaps actively engaged
in the task of seeking the best "forties"
or directing the operations of
his log-drivers. His wife and daughters make
extensive visits to Europe,
his sons go to some university, and he himself
is likely to acquire
political position, or to devote his energies
to saving the town from
industrial decline, as the timber is cut away,
by transforming it into a
manufacturing center for more finished products.
Still others continue
their activity among the forests of the South.
This social history of
the timber areas of Wisconsin has left clear
indications in the
development of the peculiar political leadership
in the northern portion
of the State.
In the southern and middle counties of the
State, the original
settlement of the native American pioneer
farmer, a tendency is showing
itself to divide the farms and to sell to
thrifty Germans, or to
cultivate the soil by tenants, while the farmer
retires to live in the
neighboring village, and perhaps to organize
creameries and develop a
dairy business. The result is that a replacement
of nationalities is in
progress. Townships and even counties once
dominated by the native
American farmers of New York extraction are
now possessed by Germans or
other European nationalities. Large portions
of the retail trades of the
towns are also passing into German hands,
while the native element seeks
the cities, the professions, or mercantile
enterprises of larger
character. The non-native element shows distinct
tendencies to dwell in
groups. One of the most striking illustrations
of this fact is the
community of New Glarus, in Wisconsin, formed
by a carefully organized
migration from Glarus in Switzerland, aided
by the canton itself. For
some years this community was a miniature
Swiss canton in social
organization and customs, but of late it has
become increasingly
assimilated to the American type, and has
left an impress by
transforming the county in which it is from
a grain-raising to a dairy
region.
From Milwaukee as a center, the influence
of the Germans upon the social
customs and ideals of Wisconsin has been marked.
Milwaukee has many of
the aspects of a German city, and has furnished
a stronghold of
resistance to native American efforts to enact
rigid temperance
legislation, laws regulative of parochial
schools, and similar attempts
to bend the German type to the social ideas
of the pioneer American
stock. In the last presidential election,
the German area of the State
deserted the Democratic party, and its opposition
to free silver was a
decisive factor in the overwhelming victory
of the Republicans in
Wisconsin. With all the evidence of the persistence
of the influence of
this nationality, it is nevertheless clear
that each decade marks an
increased assimilation and homogeneity in
the State; but the result is a
compromise, and not a conquest by either element.
The States of the Old Northwest gave to McKinley
a plurality of over
367,000 out of a total vote of about 3,734,000.
New England and the
Middle States together gave him a plurality
of 979,000 in about the same
vote, while the farther West gave to Bryan
a decisive net plurality. It
thus appears that the Old Northwest occupied
the position of a political
middle region between East and West. The significance
of this position
is manifest when it is recalled that this
section is the child of the
East and the mother of the Populistic West.
The occupation of the Western prairies was
determined by forces similar
to those which settled the Old Northwest.
In the decade before the war,
Minnesota succeeded to the place held by Wisconsin
as the Mecca of
settlers in the prior decade. To Wisconsin
and New York she owes the
largest proportion of her native settlers
born outside of the State.
Kansas and Nebraska were settled most rapidly
in the decade following
the war, and had a large proportion of soldiers
in their American
immigrants. Illinois and Ohio together furnished
about one-third of the
native settlers of these States, but the element
coming from Southern
States was stronger in Kansas than in Nebraska.
Both these States have
an exceptionally large proportion of native
whites as compared with
their neighbors among the prairie States.
Kansas, for example, has about
twenty-six per cent of persons of foreign
parentage, while Nebraska has
about forty-two, Iowa forty-three, South Dakota
sixty, Wisconsin
seventy-three, Minnesota seventy-five, and
North Dakota seventy-nine.
North Dakota's development was greatest in
the decade prior to 1890. Her
native stock came in largest numbers from
Wisconsin, with New York,
Minnesota, and Iowa next in order. The growth
of South Dakota occupied
the two decades prior to the census of 1890,
and she has recruited her
native element from Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois,
and New York.
In consequence of the large migration from
the States of the Old
Northwest to the virgin soils of these prairie
States many counties in
the parent States show a considerable decline
in growth in the decade
before 1890. There is significance in the
fact that, with the exception
of Iowa, these prairie States, the colonies
of the Old Northwest, gave
Bryan votes in the election of 1896 in the
ratio of their proportion of
persons of native parentage. North Dakota,
with the heaviest foreign
element, was carried for McKinley, while South
Dakota, with a much
smaller foreign vote, went for Bryan. Kansas
and Nebraska rank with Ohio
in their native percentage, and they were
the center of prairie
Populism. Of course, there were other important
local economic and
political explanations for this ratio, but
it seems to have a basis of
real meaning. Certain it is that the leaders
of the silver movement came
from the native element furnished by the Old
Northwest. The original
Populists in the Kansas legislature of 1891
were born in different
States as follows: in Ohio, twelve; Indiana,
six; Illinois, five; New
York, four; Pennsylvania, two; Connecticut,
Vermont, and Maine, one
each,--making a total, for the Northern current,
of thirty-two. Of the
remaining eighteen, thirteen were from the
South, and one each from
Kansas, Missouri, California, England and
Ireland. Nearly all were
Methodists and former Republicans.[238:1]
Looking at the silver movement more largely,
we find that of the Kansas
delegation in the Fifty-fourth Congress, one
was born in Kansas, and the
rest in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, and Maine.
All of the Nebraska delegation in the House
came from the Old Northwest
or from Iowa. The biographies of the two Representatives
from the State
of Washington tell an interesting story. These
men came as children to
the pine woods of Wisconsin, took up public
lands, and worked on the
farm and in the pineries. One passed on to
a homestead in Nebraska
before settling in Washington. Thus they kept
one stage ahead of the
social transformations of the West. This is
the usual training of the
Western politicians. If the reader would see
a picture of the
representative Kansas Populist, let him examine
the family portraits of
the Ohio farmer in the middle of this century.
In a word, the Populist is the American farmer
who has kept in advance
of the economic and social transformations
that have overtaken those
who remained behind. While, doubtless, investigation
into the ancestry
of the Populists and "silver men" who came
to the prairies from the Old
Northwest would show a large proportion of
Southern origin, yet the
center of discontent seems to have been among
the men of the New England
and New York current. If New England looks
with care at these men, she
may recognize in them the familiar lineaments
of the embattled farmers
who fired the shot heard round the world.
The continuous advance of this
pioneer stock from New England has preserved
for us the older type of
the pioneer of frontier New England.
I do not overlook the transforming influences
of the wilderness on this
stock ever since it left the earlier frontier
to follow up the valleys
of western Connecticut, Massachusetts, and
Vermont, into western New
York, into Ohio, into Iowa, and out to the
arid plains of western Kansas
and Nebraska; nor do I overlook the peculiar
industrial conditions of
the prairie States. But I desire to insist
upon the other truth, also,
that these westward immigrants, keeping for
generations in advance of
the transforming industrial and social forces
that have wrought so vast
a revolution in the older regions of the East
which they left, could not
but preserve important aspects of the older
farmer type. In the arid
West these pioneers have halted and have turned
to perceive an altered
nation and changed social ideals. They see
the sharp contrast between
their traditional idea of America, as the
land of opportunity, the land
of the self-made man, free from class distinctions
and from the power of
wealth, and the existing America, so unlike
the earlier ideal. If we
follow back the line of march of the Puritan
farmer, we shall see how
responsive he has always been to _isms_, and
how persistently he has
resisted encroachments on his ideals of individual
opportunity and
democracy. He is the prophet of the "higher
law" in Kansas before the
Civil War. He is the Prohibitionist of Iowa
and Wisconsin, crying out
against German customs as an invasion of his
traditional ideals. He is
the Granger of Wisconsin, passing restrictive
railroad legislation. He
is the Abolitionist, the Anti-mason, the Millerite,
the Woman
Suffragist, the Spiritualist, the Mormon,
of Western New York. Follow
him to his New England home in the turbulent
days of Shays' rebellion,
paper money, stay and tender laws, and land
banks. The radicals among
these New England farmers hated lawyers and
capitalists. "I would not
trust them," said Abraham White, in the ratification
convention of
Massachusetts, in 1788, "though every one
of them should be a Moses."
"These lawyers," cried Amos Singletary, "and
men of learning and moneyed
men that talk so finely and gloss over matters
so smoothly to make us
poor illiterate people swallow the pill, expect
to get into Congress
themselves! They mean to get all the money
into their hands, and then
they will swallow up all us little folk, like
the Leviathan, Mr.
President; yea, just as the whale swallowed
up Jonah."
If the voice of Mary Ellen Lease sounds raucous
to the New England man
to-day, while it is sweet music in the ears
of the Kansas farmer, let
him ponder the utterances of these frontier
farmers in the days of the
Revolution; and if he is still doubtful of
this spiritual kinship, let
him read the words of the levelers and sectaries
of Cromwell's army.
The story of the political leaders who remained
in the place of their
birth and shared its economic changes differs
from the story of those
who by moving to the West continued on a new
area the old social type.
In the throng of Scotch-Irish pioneers that
entered the uplands of the
Carolinas in the second quarter of the eighteenth
century were the
ancestors of Calhoun and of Andrew Jackson.
Remaining in this region,
Calhoun shared the transformations of the
South Carolina interior. He
saw it change from the area of the pioneer
farmers to an area of great
planters raising cotton by slave labor. This
explains the transformation
of the nationalist and protectionist Calhoun
of 1816 into the
state-sovereignty and free-trade Calhoun.
Jackson, on the other hand,
left the region while it was still a frontier,
shared the frontier life
of Tennessee, and reflected the democracy
and nationalism of his people.
Henry Clay lived long enough in the kindred
State of Kentucky to see it
pass from a frontier to a settled community,
and his views on slavery
reflected the transitional history of that
State. Lincoln, on the other
hand, born in Kentucky in 1809, while the
State was still under frontier
conditions, migrated in 1816 to Indiana, and
in 1830 to Illinois. The
pioneer influences of his community did much
to shape his life, and the
development of the raw frontiersman into the
statesman was not unlike
the development of his own State. Political
leaders who experienced the
later growth of the Northwest, like Garfield,
Hayes, Harrison, and
McKinley, show clearly the continued transformations
of the section. But
in the days when the Northwest was still in
the gristle, she sent her
sons into the newer West to continue the views
of life and the policies
of the half-frontier region they had left.
To-day, the Northwest, standing between her
ancestral connections in the
East and her children in the West, partly
like the East, partly like the
West, finds herself in a position strangely
like that in the days of the
slavery struggle, when her origins presented
to her a "divided duty."
But these issues are not with the same imperious
"Which?" as was the
issue of freedom or slavery.
Looking at the Northwest as a whole, one sees,
in the character of its
industries and in the elements of its population,
it is identified on
the east with the zone of States including
the middle region and New
England. Cotton culture and the negro make
a clear line of division
between the Old Northwest and the South. And
yet in important historical
ideals--in the process of expansion, in the
persistence of agricultural
interests, in impulsiveness, in imperialistic
ways of looking at the
American destiny, in hero-worship, in the
newness of its present social
structure--the Old Northwest has much in common
with the South and the
Far West.
Behind her is the old pioneer past of simple
democratic conditions, and
freedom of opportunity for all men. Before
her is a superb industrial
development, the brilliancy of success as
evinced in a vast population,
aggregate wealth, and sectional power.
FOOTNOTES:
[222:1] _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1897. Published
by permission.
[238:1] For this information I am indebted
to Professor F. W. Blackmar,
of the University of Kansas.
IX
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY[243:1]
Political thought in the period of the French
Revolution tended to treat
democracy as an absolute system applicable
to all times and to all
peoples, a system that was to be created by
the act of the people
themselves on philosophical principles. Ever
since that era there has
been an inclination on the part of writers
on democracy to emphasize the
analytical and theoretical treatment to the
neglect of the underlying
factors of historical development.
If, however, we consider the underlying conditions
and forces that
create the democratic type of government,
and at times contradict the
external forms to which the name democracy
is applied, we shall find
that under this name there have appeared a
multitude of political types
radically unlike in fact.
The careful student of history must, therefore,
seek the explanation of
the forms and changes of political institutions
in the social and
economic forces that determine them. To know
that at any one time a
nation may be called a democracy, an aristocracy,
or a monarchy, is not
so important as to know what are the social
and economic tendencies of
the state. These are the vital forces that
work beneath the surface and
dominate the external form. It is to changes
in the economic and social
life of a people that we must look for the
forces, that ultimately
create and modify organs of political action.
For the time, adaptation of political structure
may be incomplete or
concealed. Old organs will be utilized to
express new forces, and so
gradual and subtle will be the change that
it may hardly be recognized.
The pseudo-democracies under the Medici at
Florence and under Augustus
at Rome are familiar examples of this type.
Or again, if the political
structure be rigid, incapable of responding
to the changes demanded by
growth, the expansive forces of social and
economic transformation may
rend it in some catastrophe like that of the
French Revolution. In
all these changes both conscious ideals and
unconscious social
reorganization are at work.
These facts are familiar to the student, and
yet it is doubtful if they
have been fully considered in connection with
American democracy. For a
century at least, in conventional expression,
Americans have referred to
a "glorious Constitution" in explaining the
stability and prosperity of
their democracy. We have believed as a nation
that other peoples had
only to will our democratic institutions in
order to repeat our own
career.
In dealing with Western contributions to democracy,
it is essential that
the considerations which have just been mentioned
shall be kept in mind.
Whatever these contributions may have been,
we find ourselves at the
present time in an era of such profound economic
and social
transformation as to raise the question of
the effect of these changes
upon the democratic institutions of the United
States. Within a decade
four marked changes have occurred in our national
development; taken
together they constitute a revolution.
First, there is the exhaustion of the supply
of free land and the
closing of the movement of Western advance
as an effective factor in
American development. The first rough conquest
of the wilderness is
accomplished, and that great supply of free
lands which year after year
has served to reinforce the democratic influences
in the United States
is exhausted. It is true that vast tracts
of government land are still
untaken, but they constitute the mountain
and arid regions, only a small
fraction of them capable of conquest, and
then only by the application
of capital and combined effort. The free lands
that made the American
pioneer have gone.
In the second place, contemporaneously with
this there has been such a
concentration of capital in the control of
fundamental industries as to
make a new epoch in the economic development
of the United States. The
iron, the coal, and the cattle of the country
have all fallen under the
domination of a few great corporations with
allied interests, and by the
rapid combination of the important railroad
systems and steamship lines,
in concert with these same forces, even the
breadstuffs and the
manufactures of the nation are to some degree
controlled in a similar
way. This is largely the work of the last
decade. The development of the
greatest iron mines of Lake Superior occurred
in the early nineties, and
in the same decade came the combination by
which the coal and the coke
of the country, and the transportation systems
that connect them with
the iron mines, have been brought under a
few concentrated managements.
Side by side with this concentration of capital
has gone the combination
of labor in the same vast industries. The
one is in a certain sense the
concomitant of the other, but the movement
acquires an additional
significance because of the fact that during
the past fifteen years the
labor class has been so recruited by a tide
of foreign immigration that
this class is now largely made up of persons
of foreign parentage, and
the lines of cleavage which begin to appear
in this country between
capital and labor have been accentuated by
distinctions of nationality.
A third phenomenon connected with the two
just mentioned is the
expansion of the United States politically
and commercially into lands
beyond the seas. A cycle of American development
has been completed. Up
to the close of the War of 1812, this country
was involved in the
fortunes of the European state system. The
first quarter of a century of
our national existence was almost a continual
struggle to prevent
ourselves being drawn into the European wars.
At the close of that era
of conflict, the United States set its face
toward the West. It began
the settlement and improvement of the vast
interior of the country. Here
was the field of our colonization, here the
field of our political
activity. This process being completed, it
is not strange that we find
the United States again involved in world-politics.
The revolution that
occurred four years ago, when the United States
struck down that ancient
nation under whose auspices the New World
was discovered, is hardly yet
more than dimly understood. The insular wreckage
of the Spanish War,
Porto Rico and the Philippines, with the problems
presented by the
Hawaiian Islands, Cuba, the Isthmian Canal,
and China, all are
indications of the new direction of the ship
of state, and while we thus
turn our attention overseas, our concentrated
industrial strength has
given us a striking power against the commerce
of Europe that is already
producing consternation in the Old World.
Having completed the conquest
of the wilderness, and having consolidated
our interests, we are
beginning to consider the relations of democracy
and empire.
And fourth, the political parties of the United
States, now tend to
divide on issues that involve the question
of Socialism. The rise of the
Populist party in the last decade, and the
acceptance of so many of its
principles by the Democratic party under the
leadership of Mr. Bryan,
show in striking manner the birth of new political
ideas, the
reformation of the lines of political conflict.
It is doubtful if in any ten years of American
history more significant
factors in our growth have revealed themselves.
The struggle of the
pioneer farmers to subdue the arid lands of
the Great Plains in the
eighties was followed by the official announcement
of the extinction of
the frontier line in 1890. The dramatic outcome
of the Chicago
Convention of 1896 marked the rise into power
of the representatives of
Populistic change. Two years later came the
battle of Manila, which
broke down the old isolation of the nation,
and started it on a path the
goal of which no man can foretell; and finally,
but two years ago came
that concentration of which the billion and
a half dollar steel trust
and the union of the Northern continental
railways are stupendous
examples. Is it not obvious, then, that the
student who seeks for the
explanation of democracy in the social and
economic forces that underlie
political forms must make inquiry into the
conditions that have produced
our democratic institutions, if he would estimate
the effect of these
vast changes? As a contribution to this inquiry,
let us now turn to an
examination of the part that the West has
played in shaping our
democracy.
From the beginning of the settlement of America,
the frontier regions
have exercised a steady influence toward democracy.
In Virginia, to take
an example, it can be traced as early as the
period of Bacon's
Rebellion, a hundred years before our Declaration
of Independence. The
small landholders, seeing that their powers
were steadily passing into
the hands of the wealthy planters who controlled
Church and State and
lands, rose in revolt. A generation later,
in the governorship of
Alexander Spotswood, we find a contest between
the frontier settlers and
the property-holding classes of the coast.
The democracy with which
Spotswood had to struggle, and of which he
so bitterly complained, was a
democracy made up of small landholders, of
the newer immigrants, and of
indented servants, who at the expiration of
their time of servitude
passed into the interior to take up lands
and engage in pioneer farming.
The "War of the Regulation," just on the eve
of the American Revolution,
shows the steady persistence of this struggle
between the classes of the
interior and those of the coast. The Declaration
of Grievances which the
back counties of the Carolinas then drew up
against the aristocracy that
dominated the politics of those colonies exhibits
the contest between
the democracy of the frontier and the established
classes who
apportioned the legislature in such fashion
as to secure effective
control of government. Indeed, in a period
before the outbreak of the
American Revolution, one can trace a distinct
belt of democratic
territory extending from the back country
of New England down through
western New York, Pennsylvania, and the South.[248:1]
In each colony this region was in conflict
with the dominant classes of
the coast. It constituted a quasi-revolutionary
area before the days of
the Revolution, and it formed the basis on
which the Democratic party
was afterwards established. It was, therefore,
in the West, as it was in
the period before the Declaration of Independence,
that the struggle for
democratic development first revealed itself,
and in that area the
essential ideas of American democracy had
already appeared. Through the
period of the Revolution and of the Confederation
a similar contest can
be noted. On the frontier of New England,
along the western border of
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas,
and in the communities beyond
the Alleghany Mountains, there arose a demand
of the frontier settlers
for independent statehood based on democratic
provisions. There is a
strain of fierceness in their energetic petitions
demanding
self-government under the theory that every
people have the right to
establish their own political institutions
in an area which they have
won from the wilderness. Those revolutionary
principles based on
natural rights, for which the seaboard colonies
were contending, were
taken up with frontier energy in an attempt
to apply them to the lands
of the West. No one can read their petitions
denouncing the control
exercised by the wealthy landholders of the
coast, appealing to the
record of their conquest of the wilderness,
and demanding the possession
of the lands for which they have fought the
Indians, and which they had
reduced by their ax to civilization, without
recognizing in these
frontier communities the cradle of a belligerent
Western democracy. "A
fool can sometimes put on his coat better
than a wise man can do it for
him,"--such is the philosophy of its petitioners.
In this period also
came the contests of the interior agricultural
portion of New England
against the coast-wise merchants and property-holders,
of which Shays'
Rebellion is the best known, although by no
means an isolated instance.
By the time of the constitutional convention,
this struggle for
democracy had affected a fairly well-defined
division into parties.
Although these parties did not at first recognize
their interstate
connections, there were similar issues on
which they split in almost all
the States. The demands for an issue of paper
money, the stay of
execution against debtors, and the relief
against excessive taxation
were found in every colony in the interior
agricultural regions. The
rise of this significant movement wakened
the apprehensions of the men
of means, and in the debates over the basis
of suffrage for the House of
Representatives in the constitutional convention
of 1787 leaders of the
conservative party did not hesitate to demand
that safeguards to the
property should be furnished the coast against
the interior. The outcome
of the debate left the question of suffrage
for the House of
Representatives dependent upon the policy
of the separate States. This
was in effect imposing a property qualification
throughout the nation as
a whole, and it was only as the interior of
the country developed that
these restrictions gradually gave way in the
direction of manhood
suffrage.
All of these scattered democratic tendencies
Jefferson combined, in the
period of Washington's presidency, into the
Democratic-Republican party.
Jefferson was the first prophet of American
democracy, and when we
analyse the essential features of his gospel,
it is clear that the
Western influence was the dominant element.
Jefferson himself was born
in the frontier region of Virginia, on the
edge of the Blue Ridge, in
the middle of the eighteenth century. His
father was a pioneer.
Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" reveal clearly
his conception that
democracy should have an agricultural basis,
and that manufacturing
development and city life were dangerous to
the purity of the body
politic. Simplicity and economy in government,
the right of revolution,
the freedom of the individual, the belief
that those who win the vacant
lands are entitled to shape their own government
in their own
way,--these are all parts of the platform
of political principles to
which he gave his adhesion, and they are all
elements eminently
characteristic of the Western democracy into
which he was born.
In the period of the Revolution he had brought
in a series of measures
which tended to throw the power of Virginia
into the hands of the
settlers in the interior rather than of the
coastwise aristocracy. The
repeal of the laws of entail and primogeniture
would have destroyed the
great estates on which the planting aristocracy
based its power. The
abolition of the Established Church would
still further have diminished
the influence of the coastwise party in favor
of the dissenting sects of
the interior. His scheme of general public
education reflected the same
tendency, and his demand for the abolition
of slavery was characteristic
of a representative of the West rather than
of the old-time aristocracy
of the coast. His sympathy with the Western
expansion culminated in the
Louisiana Purchase. In short, the tendencies
of Jefferson's legislation
were to replace the dominance of the planting
aristocracy by the
dominance of the interior class, which had
sought in vain to achieve its
liberties in the period of Bacon's Rebellion.
Nevertheless, Thomas Jefferson was the John
the Baptist of democracy,
not its Moses. Only with the slow setting
of the tide of settlement
farther and farther toward the interior did
the democratic influence
grow strong enough to take actual possession
of the government. The
period from 1800 to 1820 saw a steady increase
in these tendencies. The
established classes in New England and the
South began to take alarm.
Perhaps no better illustration of the apprehensions
of the old-time
Federal conservative can be given than these
utterances of President
Dwight, of Yale College, in the book of travels
which he published in
that period:--
The class of pioneers cannot live in regular
society. They are
too idle, too talkative, too passionate, too
prodigal, and too
shiftless to acquire either property or character.
They are
impatient of the restraints of law, religion,
and morality,
and grumble about the taxes by which the Rulers,
Ministers,
and Schoolmasters are supported. . . . After
exposing the
injustice of the community in neglecting to
invest persons of
such superior merit in public offices, in
many an eloquent
harangue uttered by many a kitchen fire, in
every blacksmith
shop, in every corner of the streets, and
finding all their
efforts vain, they become at length discouraged,
and under the
pressure of poverty, the fear of the gaol,
and consciousness
of public contempt, leave their native places
and betake
themselves to the wilderness.
Such was a conservative's impression of that
pioneer movement of New
England colonists who had spread up the valley
of the Connecticut into
New Hampshire, Vermont, and western New York
in the period of which he
wrote, and who afterwards went on to possess
the Northwest. New England
Federalism looked with a shudder at the democratic
ideas of those who
refused to recognize the established order.
But in that period there
came into the Union a sisterhood of frontier
States--Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Missouri--with provisions for the
franchise that brought in
complete democracy.
Even the newly created States of the Southwest
showed the tendency. The
wind of democracy blew so strongly from the
West, that even in the older
States of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and Virginia,
conventions were called, which liberalized
their constitutions by
strengthening the democratic basis of the
State. In the same time the
labor population of the cities began to assert
its power and its
determination to share in government. Of this
frontier democracy which
now took possession of the nation, Andrew
Jackson was the very
personification. He was born in the backwoods
of the Carolinas in the
midst of the turbulent democracy that preceded
the Revolution, and he
grew up in the frontier State of Tennessee.
In the midst of this region
of personal feuds and frontier ideals of law,
he quickly rose to
leadership. The appearance of this frontiersman
on the floor of Congress
was an omen full of significance. He reached
Philadelphia at the close
of Washington's administration, having ridden
on horseback nearly eight
hundred miles to his destination. Gallatin,
himself a Western man,
describes Jackson as he entered the halls
of Congress: "A tall, lank,
uncouth-looking personage, with long locks
of hair hanging over his face
and a cue down his back tied in an eel-skin;
his dress singular; his
manners those of a rough backwoodsman." And
Jefferson testified: "When I
was President of the Senate he was a Senator,
and he could never speak
on account of the rashness of his feelings.
I have seen him attempt it
repeatedly and as often choke with rage."
At last the frontier in the
person of its typical man had found a place
in the Government. This
six-foot backwoodsman, with blue eyes that
could blaze on occasion, this
choleric, impetuous, self-willed Scotch-Irish
leader of men, this expert
duelist, and ready fighter, this embodiment
of the tenacious, vehement,
personal West, was in politics to stay. The
frontier democracy of that
time had the instincts of the clansman in
the days of Scotch border
warfare. Vehement and tenacious as the democracy
was, strenuously as
each man contended with his neighbor for the
spoils of the new country
that opened before them, they all had respect
for the man who best
expressed their aspirations and their ideas.
Every community had its
hero. In the War of 1812 and the subsequent
Indian fighting Jackson made
good his claim, not only to the loyalty of
the people of Tennessee, but
of the whole West, and even of the nation.
He had the essential traits
of the Kentucky and Tennessee frontier. It
was a frontier free from the
influence of European ideas and institutions.
The men of the "Western
World" turned their backs upon the Atlantic
Ocean, and with a grim
energy and self-reliance began to build up
a society free from the
dominance of ancient forms.
The Westerner defended himself and resented
governmental restrictions.
The duel and the blood-feud found congenial
soil in Kentucky and
Tennessee. The idea of the personality of
law was often dominant over
the organized machinery of justice. That method
was best which was most
direct and effective. The backwoodsman was
intolerant of men who split
hairs, or scrupled over the method of reaching
the right. In a word, the
unchecked development of the individual was
the significant product of
this frontier democracy. It sought rather
to express itself by choosing
a man of the people, than by the formation
of elaborate governmental
institutions.
It was because Andrew Jackson personified
these essential Western traits
that in his presidency he became the idol
and the mouthpiece of the
popular will. In his assault upon the Bank
as an engine of aristocracy,
and in his denunciation of nullification,
he went directly to his object
with the ruthless energy of a frontiersman.
For formal law and the
subtleties of State sovereignty he had the
contempt of a backwoodsman.
Nor is it without significance that this typical
man of the new
democracy will always be associated with the
triumph of the spoils
system in national politics. To the new democracy
of the West, office
was an opportunity to exercise natural rights
as an equal citizen of the
community. Rotation in office served not simply
to allow the successful
man to punish his enemies and reward his friends,
but it also furnished
the training in the actual conduct of political
affairs which every
American claimed as his birthright. Only in
a primitive democracy of the
type of the United States in 1830 could such
a system have existed
without the ruin of the State. National government
in that period was no
complex and nicely adjusted machine, and the
evils of the system were
long in making themselves fully apparent.
The triumph of Andrew Jackson marked the end
of the old era of trained
statesmen for the Presidency. With him began
the era of the popular
hero. Even Martin Van Buren, whom we think
of in connection with the
East, was born in a log house under conditions
that were not unlike
parts of the older West. Harrison was the
hero of the Northwest, as
Jackson had been of the Southwest. Polk was
a typical Tennesseean, eager
to expand the nation, and Zachary Taylor was
what Webster called a
"frontier colonel." During the period that
followed Jackson, power
passed from the region of Kentucky and Tennessee
to the border of the
Mississippi. The natural democratic tendencies
that had earlier shown
themselves in the Gulf States were destroyed,
however, by the spread of
cotton culture, and the development of great
plantations in that region.
What had been typical of the democracy of
the Revolutionary frontier and
of the frontier of Andrew Jackson was now
to be seen in the States
between the Ohio and the Mississippi. As Andrew
Jackson is the typical
democrat of the former region, so Abraham
Lincoln is the very embodiment
of the pioneer period of the Old Northwest.
Indeed, he is the embodiment
of the democracy of the West. How can one
speak of him except in the
words of Lowell's great "Commemoration Ode":--
"For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and
true.
* * * * *
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest
stars.
Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer,
Could Nature's equal scheme deface;
New birth of our new soil, the first American."
The pioneer life from which Lincoln came differed
in important respects
from the frontier democracy typified by Andrew
Jackson. Jackson's
democracy was contentious, individualistic,
and it sought the ideal of
local self-government and expansion. Lincoln
represents rather the
pioneer folk who entered the forest of the
great Northwest to chop out a
home, to build up their fortunes in the midst
of a continually ascending
industrial movement. In the democracy of the
Southwest, industrial
development and city life were only minor
factors, but to the democracy
of the Northwest they were its very life.
To widen the area of the
clearing, to contend with one another for
the mastery of the industrial
resources of the rich provinces, to struggle
for a place in the
ascending movement of society, to transmit
to one's offspring the chance
for education, for industrial betterment,
for the rise in life which the
hardships of the pioneer existence denied
to the pioneer himself, these
were some of the ideals of the region to which
Lincoln came. The men
were commonwealth builders, industry builders.
Whereas the type of hero
in the Southwest was militant, in the Northwest
he was industrial. It
was in the midst of these "plain people,"
as he loved to call them, that
Lincoln grew to manhood. As Emerson says:
"He is the true history of the
American people in his time." The years of
his early life were the years
when the democracy of the Northwest came into
struggle with the
institution of slavery which threatened to
forbid the expansion of the
democratic pioneer life in the West. In President
Eliot's essay on "Five
American Contributions to Civilization," he
instances as one of the
supreme tests of American democracy its attitude
upon the question of
slavery. But if democracy chose wisely and
worked effectively toward the
solution of this problem, it must be remembered
that Western democracy
took the lead. The rail-splitter himself became
the nation's President
in that fierce time of struggle, and armies
of the woodsmen and pioneer
farmers recruited in the Old Northwest made
free the Father of Waters,
marched through Georgia, and helped to force
the struggle to a
conclusion at Appomattox. The free pioneer
democracy struck down the
slave-holding aristocracy on its march to
the West.
The last chapter in the development of Western
democracy is the one that
deals with its conquest over the vast spaces
of the new West. At each
new stage of Western development, the people
have had to grapple with
larger areas, with bigger combinations. The
little colony of
Massachusetts veterans that settled at Marietta
received a land grant as
large as the State of Rhode Island. The band
of Connecticut pioneers
that followed Moses Cleaveland to the Connecticut
Reserve occupied a
region as large as the parent State. The area
which settlers of New
England stock occupied on the prairies of
northern Illinois surpassed
the combined area of Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and Rhode Island. Men
who had become accustomed to the narrow valleys
and the little towns of
the East found themselves out on the boundless
spaces of the West
dealing with units of such magnitude as dwarfed
their former experience.
The Great Lakes, the Prairies, the Great Plains,
the Rocky Mountains,
the Mississippi and the Missouri, furnished
new standards of measurement
for the achievement of this industrial democracy.
Individualism began to
give way to coöperation and to governmental
activity. Even in the
earlier days of the democratic conquest of
the wilderness, demands had
been made upon the government for support
in internal improvements, but
this new West showed a growing tendency to
call to its assistance the
powerful arm of national authority. In the
period since the Civil War,
the vast public domain has been donated to
the individual farmer, to
States for education, to railroads for the
construction of
transportation lines.
Moreover, with the advent of democracy in
the last fifteen years upon
the Great Plains, new physical conditions
have presented themselves
which have accelerated the social tendency
of Western democracy. The
pioneer farmer of the days of Lincoln could
place his family on a
flatboat, strike into the wilderness, cut
out his clearing, and with
little or no capital go on to the achievement
of industrial
independence. Even the homesteader on the
Western prairies found it
possible to work out a similar independent
destiny, although the factor
of transportation made a serious and increasing
impediment to the free
working-out of his individual career. But
when the arid lands and the
mineral resources of the Far West were reached,
no conquest was possible
by the old individual pioneer methods. Here
expensive irrigation works
must be constructed, coöperative activity
was demanded in utilization of
the water supply, capital beyond the reach
of the small farmer was
required. In a word, the physiographic province
itself decreed that the
destiny of this new frontier should be social
rather than individual.
Magnitude of social achievement is the watchword
of the democracy since
the Civil War. From petty towns built in the
marshes, cities arose whose
greatness and industrial power are the wonder
of our time. The
conditions were ideal for the production of
captains of industry. The
old democratic admiration for the self-made
man, its old deference to
the rights of competitive individual development,
together with the
stupendous natural resources that opened to
the conquest of the keenest
and the strongest, gave such conditions of
mobility as enabled the
development of the large corporate industries
which in our own decade
have marked the West.
Thus, in brief, have been outlined the chief
phases of the development
of Western democracy in the different areas
which it has conquered.
There has been a steady development of the
industrial ideal, and a
steady increase of the social tendency, in
this later movement of
Western democracy. While the individualism
of the frontier, so prominent
in the earliest days of the Western advance,
has been preserved as an
ideal, more and more these individuals struggling
each with the other,
dealing with vaster and vaster areas, with
larger and larger problems,
have found it necessary to combine under the
leadership of the
strongest. This is the explanation of the
rise of those preëminent
captains of industry whose genius has concentrated
capital to control
the fundamental resources of the nation. If
now in the way of
recapitulation, we try to pick out from the
influences that have gone to
the making of Western democracy the factors
which constitute the net
result of this movement, we shall have to
mention at least the
following:--
Most important of all has been the fact that
an area of free land has
continually lain on the western border of
the settled area of the United
States. Whenever social conditions tended
to crystallize in the East,
whenever capital tended to press upon labor
or political restraints to
impede the freedom of the mass, there was
this gate of escape to the
free conditions of the frontier. These free
lands promoted
individualism, economic equality, freedom
to rise, democracy. Men would
not accept inferior wages and a permanent
position of social
subordination when this promised land of freedom
and equality was theirs
for the taking. Who would rest content under
oppressive legislative
conditions when with a slight effort he might
reach a land wherein to
become a co-worker in the building of free
cities and free States on the
lines of his own ideal? In a word, then, free
lands meant free
opportunities. Their existence has differentiated
the American
democracy from the democracies which have
preceded it, because ever, as
democracy in the East took the form of highly
specialized and
complicated industrial society, in the West
it kept in touch with
primitive conditions, and by action and reaction
these two forces have
shaped our history.
In the next place, these free lands and this
treasury of industrial
resources have existed over such vast spaces
that they have demanded of
democracy increasing spaciousness of design
and power of execution.
Western democracy is contrasted with the democracy
of all other times in
the largeness of the tasks to which it has
set its hand, and in the vast
achievements which it has wrought out in the
control of nature and of
politics. It would be difficult to over-emphasize
the importance of this
training upon democracy. Never before in the
history of the world has a
democracy existed on so vast an area and handled
things in the gross
with such success, with such largeness of
design, and such grasp upon
the means of execution. In short, democracy
has learned in the West of
the United States how to deal with the problem
of magnitude. The old
historic democracies were but little states
with primitive economic
conditions.
But the very task of dealing with vast resources,
over vast areas, under
the conditions of free competition furnished
by the West, has produced
the rise of those captains of industry whose
success in consolidating
economic power now raises the question as
to whether democracy under
such conditions can survive. For the old military
type of Western
leaders like George Rogers Clark, Andrew Jackson,
and William Henry
Harrison have been substituted such industrial
leaders as James J. Hill,
John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie.
The question is imperative, then, What ideals
persist from this
democratic experience of the West; and have
they acquired sufficient
momentum to sustain themselves under conditions
so radically unlike
those in the days of their origin? In other
words, the question put at
the beginning of this discussion becomes pertinent.
Under the forms of
the American democracy is there in reality
evolving such a concentration
of economic and social power in the hands
of a comparatively few men as
may make political democracy an appearance
rather than a reality? The
free lands are gone. The material forces that
gave vitality to Western
democracy are passing away. It is to the realm
of the spirit, to the
domain of ideals and legislation, that we
must look for Western
influence upon democracy in our own days.
Western democracy has been from the time of
its birth idealistic. The
very fact of the wilderness appealed to men
as a fair, blank page on
which to write a new chapter in the story
of man's struggle for a higher
type of society. The Western wilds, from the
Alleghanies to the Pacific,
constituted the richest free gift that was
ever spread out before
civilized man. To the peasant and artisan
of the Old World, bound by the
chains of social class, as old as custom and
as inevitable as fate, the
West offered an exit into a free life and
greater well-being among the
bounties of nature, into the midst of resources
that demanded manly
exertion, and that gave in return the chance
for indefinite ascent in
the scale of social advance. "To each she
offered gifts after his will."
Never again can such an opportunity come to
the sons of men. It was
unique, and the thing is so near us, so much
a part of our lives, that
we do not even yet comprehend its full significance.
The existence of
this land of opportunity has made America
the goal of idealists from the
days of the Pilgrim Fathers. With all the
materialism of the pioneer
movements, this idealistic conception of the
vacant lands as an
opportunity for a new order of things is unmistakably
present.
Kipling's "Song of the English" has given
it expression:--
"We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the
man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange
roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the
Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent
us to lead.
As the deer breaks--as the steer breaks--from
the herd where they
graze,
In the faith of little children we went on
our ways.
Then the wood failed--then the food failed--then
the last water
dried--
In the faith of little children we lay down
and died.
"On the sand-drift--on the veldt-side--in
the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones
on the way.
Follow after--follow after! We have watered
the root
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens
for fruit!
Follow after--we are waiting by the trails
that we lost
For the sound of many footsteps, for the tread
of a host.
"Follow after--follow after--for the harvest
is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come
to your own!"
This was the vision that called to Roger Williams,--that
"prophetic soul
ravished of truth disembodied," "unable to
enter into treaty with its
environment," and forced to seek the wilderness.
"Oh, how sweet," wrote
William Penn, from his forest refuge, "is
the quiet of these parts,
freed from the troubles and perplexities of
woeful Europe." And here he
projected what he called his "Holy Experiment
in Government."
If the later West offers few such striking
illustrations of the relation
of the wilderness to idealistic schemes, and
if some of the designs were
fantastic and abortive, none the less the
influence is a fact. Hardly a
Western State but has been the Mecca of some
sect or band of social
reformers, anxious to put into practice their
ideals, in vacant land,
far removed from the checks of a settled form
of social organization.
Consider the Dunkards, the Icarians, the Fourierists,
the Mormons, and
similar idealists who sought our Western wilds.
But the idealistic
influence is not limited to the dreamers'
conception of a new State. It
gave to the pioneer farmer and city builder
a restless energy, a quick
capacity for judgment and action, a belief
in liberty, freedom of
opportunity, and a resistance to the domination
of class which infused a
vitality and power into the individual atoms
of this democratic mass.
Even as he dwelt among the stumps of his newly-cut
clearing, the pioneer
had the creative vision of a new order of
society. In imagination he
pushed back the forest boundary to the confines
of a mighty
Commonwealth; he willed that log cabins should
become the lofty
buildings of great cities. He decreed that
his children should enter
into a heritage of education, comfort, and
social welfare, and for this
ideal he bore the scars of the wilderness.
Possessed with this idea he
ennobled his task and laid deep foundations
for a democratic State. Nor
was this idealism by any means limited to
the American pioneer.
To the old native democratic stock has been
added a vast army of
recruits from the Old World. There are in
the Middle West alone four
million persons of German parentage out of
a total of seven millions in
the country. Over a million persons of Scandinavian
parentage live in
the same region. The democracy of the newer
West is deeply affected by
the ideals brought by these immigrants from
the Old World. To them
America was not simply a new home; it was
a land of opportunity, of
freedom, of democracy. It meant to them, as
to the American pioneer that
preceded them, the opportunity to destroy
the bonds of social caste that
bound them in their older home, to hew out
for themselves in a new
country a destiny proportioned to the powers
that God had given them, a
chance to place their families under better
conditions and to win a
larger life than the life that they had left
behind. He who believes
that even the hordes of recent immigrants
from southern Italy are drawn
to these shores by nothing more than a dull
and blind materialism has
not penetrated into the heart of the problem.
The idealism and
expectation of these children of the Old World,
the hopes which they
have formed for a newer and freer life across
the seas, are almost
pathetic when one considers how far they are
from the possibility of
fruition. He who would take stock of American
democracy must not forget
the accumulation of human purposes and ideals
which immigration has
added to the American populace.
In this connection it must also be remembered
that these democratic
ideals have existed at each stage of the advance
of the frontier, and
have left behind them deep and enduring effects
on the thinking of the
whole country. Long after the frontier period
of a particular region of
the United States has passed away, the conception
of society, the ideals
and aspirations which it produced, persist
in the minds of the people.
So recent has been the transition of the greater
portion of the United
States from frontier conditions to conditions
of settled life, that we
are, over the large portion of the United
States, hardly a generation
removed from the primitive conditions of the
West. If, indeed, we
ourselves were not pioneers, our fathers were,
and the inherited ways of
looking at things, the fundamental assumptions
of the American people,
have all been shaped by this experience of
democracy on its westward
march. This experience has been wrought into
the very warp and woof of
American thought.
Even those masters of industry and capital
who have risen to power by
the conquest of Western resources came from
the midst of this society
and still profess its principles. John D.
Rockefeller was born on a New
York farm, and began his career as a young
business man in St. Louis.
Marcus Hanna was a Cleveland grocer's clerk
at the age of twenty. Claus
Spreckles, the sugar king, came from Germany
as a steerage passenger to
the United States in 1848. Marshall Field
was a farmer boy in Conway,
Massachusetts, until he left to grow up with
the young Chicago. Andrew
Carnegie came as a ten-year-old boy from Scotland
to Pittsburgh, then a
distinctively Western town. He built up his
fortunes through successive
grades until he became the dominating factor
in the great iron
industries, and paved the way for that colossal
achievement, the Steel
Trust. Whatever may be the tendencies of this
corporation, there can be
little doubt of the democratic ideals of Mr.
Carnegie himself. With
lavish hand he has strewn millions through
the United States for the
promotion of libraries. The effect of this
library movement in
perpetuating the democracy that comes from
an intelligent and
self-respecting people can hardly be measured.
In his "Triumphant
Democracy," published in 1886, Mr. Carnegie,
the ironmaster, said, in
reference to the mineral wealth of the United
States: "Thank God, these
treasures are in the hands of an intelligent
people, the Democracy, to
be used for the general good of the masses,
and not made the spoils of
monarchs, courts, and aristocracy, to be turned
to the base and selfish
ends of a privileged hereditary class." It
would be hard to find a more
rigorous assertion of democratic doctrine
than the celebrated utterance,
attributed to the same man, that he should
feel it a disgrace to die
rich.
In enumerating the services of American democracy,
President Eliot
included the corporation as one of its achievements,
declaring that
"freedom of incorporation, though no longer
exclusively a democratic
agency, has given a strong support to democratic
institutions." In one
sense this is doubtless true, since the corporation
has been one of the
means by which small properties can be aggregated
into an effective
working body. Socialistic writers have long
been fond of pointing out
also that these various concentrations pave
the way for and make
possible social control. From this point of
view it is possible that the
masters of industry may prove to be not so
much an incipient aristocracy
as the pathfinders for democracy in reducing
the industrial world to
systematic consolidation suited to democratic
control. The great
geniuses that have built up the modern industrial
concentration were
trained in the midst of democratic society.
They were the product of
these democratic conditions. Freedom to rise
was the very condition of
their existence. Whether they will be followed
by successors who will
adopt the exploitation of the masses, and
who will be capable of
retaining under efficient control these vast
resources, is one of the
questions which we shall have to face.
This, at least, is clear: American democracy
is fundamentally the
outcome of the experiences of the American
people in dealing with the
West. Western democracy through the whole
of its earlier period tended
to the production of a society of which the
most distinctive fact was
the freedom of the individual to rise under
conditions of social
mobility, and whose ambition was the liberty
and well-being of the
masses. This conception has vitalized all
American democracy, and has
brought it into sharp contrasts with the democracies
of history, and
with those modern efforts of Europe to create
an artificial democratic
order by legislation. The problem of the United
States is not to create
democracy, but to conserve democratic institutions
and ideals. In the
later period of its development, Western democracy
has been gaining
experience in the problem of social control.
It has steadily enlarged
the sphere of its action and the instruments
for its perpetuation. By
its system of public schools, from the grades
to the graduate work of
the great universities, the West has created
a larger single body of
intelligent plain people than can be found
elsewhere in the world. Its
political tendencies, whether we consider
Democracy, Populism, or
Republicanism, are distinctly in the direction
of greater social control
and the conservation of the old democratic
ideals.
To these ideals the West adheres with even
a passionate determination.
If, in working out its mastery of the resources
of the interior, it has
produced a type of industrial leader so powerful
as to be the wonder of
the world, nevertheless, it is still to be
determined whether these men
constitute a menace to democratic institutions,
or the most efficient
factor for adjusting democratic control to
the new conditions.
Whatever shall be the outcome of the rush
of this huge industrial modern
United States to its place among the nations
of the earth, the formation
of its Western democracy will always remain
one of the wonderful
chapters in the history of the human race.
Into this vast shaggy
continent of ours poured the first feeble
tide of European settlement.
European men, institutions, and ideas were
lodged in the American
wilderness, and this great American West took
them to her bosom, taught
them a new way of looking upon the destiny
of the common man, trained
them in adaptation to the conditions of the
New World, to the creation
of new institutions to meet new needs; and
ever as society on her
eastern border grew to resemble the Old World
in its social forms and
its industry, ever, as it began to lose faith
in the ideals of
democracy, she opened new provinces, and dowered
new democracies in her
most distant domains with her material treasures
and with the ennobling
influence that the fierce love of freedom,
the strength that came from
hewing out a home, making a school and a church,
and creating a higher
future for his family, furnished to the pioneer.
She gave to the world such types as the farmer
Thomas Jefferson, with
his Declaration of Independence, his statute
for religious toleration,
and his purchase of Louisiana. She gave us
Andrew Jackson, that fierce
Tennessee spirit who broke down the traditions
of conservative rule,
swept away the privacies and privileges of
officialdom, and, like a
Gothic leader, opened the temple of the nation
to the populace. She gave
us Abraham Lincoln, whose gaunt frontier form
and gnarled, massive hand
told of the conflict with the forest, whose
grasp of the ax-handle of
the pioneer was no firmer than his grasp of
the helm of the ship of
state as it breasted the seas of civil war.
She has furnished to this
new democracy her stores of mineral wealth,
that dwarf those of the Old
World, and her provinces that in themselves
are vaster and more
productive than most of the nations of Europe.
Out of her bounty has
come a nation whose industrial competition
alarms the Old World, and the
masters of whose resources wield wealth and
power vaster than the wealth
and power of kings. Best of all, the West
gave, not only to the
American, but to the unhappy and oppressed
of all lands, a vision of
hope, and assurance that the world held a
place where were to be found
high faith in man and the will and power to
furnish him the opportunity
to grow to the full measure of his own capacity.
Great and powerful as
are the new sons of her loins, the Republic
is greater than they. The
paths of the pioneer have widened into broad
highways. The forest
clearing has expanded into affluent commonwealths.
Let us see to it that
the ideals of the pioneer in his log cabin
shall enlarge into the
spiritual life of a democracy where civic
power shall dominate and
utilize individual achievement for the common
good.
FOOTNOTES:
[243:1] _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1903.
Reprinted by permission.
[248:1] See chapter iii.
X
PIONEER IDEALS AND THE STATE UNIVERSITY[269:1]
The ideals of a people, their aspirations
and convictions, their hopes
and ambitions, their dreams and determinations,
are assets in their
civilization as real and important as per
capita wealth or industrial
skill.
This nation was formed under pioneer ideals.
During three centuries
after Captain John Smith struck the first
blow at the American forest on
the eastern edge of the continent, the pioneers
were abandoning settled
society for the wilderness, seeking, for generation
after generation,
new frontiers. Their experiences left abiding
influences upon the ideas
and purposes of the nation. Indeed the older
settled regions themselves
were shaped profoundly by the very fact that
the whole nation was
pioneering and that in the development of
the West the East had its own
part.
The first ideal of the pioneer was that of
conquest. It was his task to
fight with nature for the chance to exist.
Not as in older countries did
this contest take place in a mythical past,
told in folk lore and epic.
It has been continuous to our own day. Facing
each generation of
pioneers was the unmastered continent. Vast
forests blocked the way;
mountainous ramparts interposed; desolate,
grass-clad prairies, barren
oceans of rolling plains, arid deserts, and
a fierce race of savages,
all had to be met and defeated. The rifle
and the ax are the symbols of
the backwoods pioneer. They meant a training
in aggressive courage, in
domination, in directness of action, in destructiveness.
To the pioneer the forest was no friendly
resource for posterity, no
object of careful economy. He must wage a
hand-to-hand war upon it,
cutting and burning a little space to let
in the light upon a dozen
acres of hard-won soil, and year after year
expanding the clearing into
new woodlands against the stubborn resistance
of primeval trunks and
matted roots. He made war against the rank
fertility of the soil. While
new worlds of virgin land lay ever just beyond,
it was idle to expect
the pioneer to stay his hand and turn to scientific
farming. Indeed, as
Secretary Wilson has said, the pioneer would,
in that case, have raised
wheat that no one wanted to eat, corn to store
on the farm, and cotton
not worth the picking.
Thus, fired with the ideal of subduing the
wilderness, the destroying
pioneer fought his way across the continent,
masterful and wasteful,
preparing the way by seeking the immediate
thing, rejoicing in rude
strength and wilful achievement.
But even this backwoodsman was more than a
mere destroyer. He had
visions. He was finder as well as fighter--the
trail-maker for
civilization, the inventor of new ways. Although
Rudyard Kipling's
"Foreloper"[270:1] deals with the English
pioneer in lands beneath the
Southern Cross, yet the poem portrays American
traits as well:
"The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind
wave break in fire,
He shall fulfill God's utmost will, unknowing
his desire;
And he shall see old planets pass and alien
stars arise,
And give the gale his reckless sail in shadow
of new skies.
"Strong lust of gear shall drive him out and
hunger arm his hand
To wring food from desert nude, his foothold
from the sand.
His neighbors' smoke shall vex his eyes, their
voices break his
rest;
He shall go forth till south is north, sullen
and dispossessed;
He shall desire loneliness and his desire
shall bring
Hard on his heels, a thousand wheels, a people
and a king.
"He shall come back on his own track, and
by his scarce cool camp,
There shall he meet the roaring street, the
derrick and the stamp;
For he must blaze a nation's way with hatchet
and with brand,
Till on his last won wilderness an empire's
bulwarks stand."
This quest after the unknown, this yearning
"beyond the sky line, where
the strange roads go down," is of the very
essence of the backwoods
pioneer, even though he was unconscious of
its spiritual significance.
The pioneer was taught in the school of experience
that the crops of one
area would not do for a new frontier; that
the scythe of the clearing
must be replaced by the reaper of the prairies.
He was forced to make
old tools serve new uses; to shape former
habits, institutions and ideas
to changed conditions; and to find new means
when the old proved
inapplicable. He was building a new society
as well as breaking new
soil; he had the ideal of nonconformity and
of change. He rebelled
against the conventional.
Besides the ideals of conquest and of discovery,
the pioneer had the
ideal of personal development, free from social
and governmental
constraint. He came from a civilization based
on individual competition,
and he brought the conception with him to
the wilderness where a wealth
of resources, and innumerable opportunities
gave it a new scope. The
prizes were for the keenest and the strongest;
for them were the best
bottom lands, the finest timber tracts, the
best salt-springs, the
richest ore beds; and not only these natural
gifts, but also the
opportunities afforded in the midst of a forming
society. Here were mill
sites, town sites, transportation lines, banking
centers, openings in
the law, in politics--all the varied chances
for advancement afforded in
a rapidly developing society where everything
was open to him who knew
how to seize the opportunity.
The squatter enforced his claim to lands even
against the government's
title by the use of extra-legal combinations
and force. He appealed to
lynch law with little hesitation. He was impatient
of any governmental
restriction upon his individual right to deal
with the wilderness.
In our own day we sometimes hear of congressmen
sent to jail for
violating land laws; but the different spirit
in the pioneer days may be
illustrated by a speech of Delegate Sibley
of Minnesota in Congress in
1852. In view of the fact that he became the
State's first governor, a
regent of its university, president of its
historical society, and a
doctor of laws of Princeton, we may assume
that he was a pillar of
society. He said:
The government has watched its public domain
with jealous eye,
and there are now enactments upon your statute
books, aimed at
the trespassers upon it, which should be expunged
as a
disgrace to the country and to the nineteenth
century.
Especially is he pursued with unrelenting
severity, who has
dared to break the silence of the primeval
forest by the blows
of the American ax. The hardy lumberman who
has penetrated to
the remotest wilds of the Northwest, to drag
from their
recesses the materials for building up towns
and cities in the
great valley of the Mississippi, has been
particularly marked
out as a victim. After enduring all the privations
and
subjecting himself to all the perils incident
to his
vocation--when he has toiled for months to
add by his honest
labor to the comfort of his fellow men, and
to the aggregate
wealth of the nation, he finds himself suddenly
in the
clutches of the law for trespassing on the
public domain. The
proceeds of his long winter's work are reft
from him, and
exposed to public sale for the benefit of
his paternal
government . . . and the object of this oppression
and wrong
is further harassed by vexatious law proceedings
against him.
Sibley's protest in congress against these
"outrages" by which the
northern lumbermen were "harassed" in their
work of what would now be
called stealing government timber, aroused
no protest from his
colleagues. No president called this congressman
an undesirable citizen
or gave him over to the courts.
Thus many of the pioneers, following the ideal
of the right of the
individual to rise, subordinated the rights
of the nation and posterity
to the desire that the country should be "developed"
and that the
individual should advance with as little interference
as possible.
Squatter doctrines and individualism have
left deep traces upon American
conceptions.
But quite as deeply fixed in the pioneer's
mind as the ideal of
individualism was the ideal of democracy.
He had a passionate hatred for
aristocracy, monopoly and special privilege;
he believed in simplicity,
economy and in the rule of the people. It
is true that he honored the
successful man, and that he strove in all
ways to advance himself. But
the West was so free and so vast, the barriers
to individual achievement
were so remote, that the pioneer was hardly
conscious that any danger to
equality could come from his competition for
natural resources. He
thought of democracy as in some way the result
of our political
institutions, and he failed to see that it
was primarily the result of
the free lands and immense opportunities which
surrounded him.
Occasional statesmen voiced the idea that
American democracy was based
on the abundance of unoccupied land, even
in the first debates on the
public domain.
This early recognition of the influence of
abundance of land in shaping
the economic conditions of American democracy
is peculiarly significant
to-day in view of the practical exhaustion
of the supply of cheap arable
public lands open to the poor man, and the
coincident development of
labor unions to keep up wages.
Certain it is that the strength of democratic
movements has chiefly lain
in the regions of the pioneer. "Our governments
tend too much to
democracy," wrote Izard, of South Carolina,
to Jefferson, in 1785. "A
handicraftsman thinks an apprenticeship necessary
to make him acquainted
with his business. But our backcountrymen
are of the opinion that a
politician may be born just as well as a poet."
The Revolutionary ideas, of course, gave a
great impetus to democracy,
and in substantially every colony there was
a double revolution, one for
independence and the other for the overthrow
of aristocratic control.
But in the long run the effective force behind
American democracy was
the presence of the practically free land
into which men might escape
from oppression or inequalities which burdened
them in the older
settlements. This possibility compelled the
coastwise States to
liberalize the franchise; and it prevented
the formation of a dominant
class, whether based on property or on custom.
Among the pioneers one
man was as good as his neighbor. He had the
same chance; conditions were
simple and free. Economic equality fostered
political equality. An
optimistic and buoyant belief in the worth
of the plain people, a
devout faith in man prevailed in the West.
Democracy became almost the
religion of the pioneer. He held with passionate
devotion the idea that
he was building under freedom a new society,
based on self government,
and for the welfare of the average man.
And yet even as he proclaimed the gospel of
democracy the pioneer showed
a vague apprehension lest the time be short--lest
equality should not
endure--lest he might fall behind in the ascending
movement of Western
society. This led him on in feverish haste
to acquire advantages as
though he only half believed his dream. "Before
him lies a boundless
continent," wrote De Tocqueville, in the days
when pioneer democracy was
triumphant under Jackson, "and he urges forward
as if time pressed and
he was afraid of finding no room for his exertions."
Even while Jackson lived, labor leaders and
speculative thinkers were
demanding legislation to place a limit on
the amount of land which one
person might acquire and to provide free farms.
De Tocqueville saw the
signs of change. "Between the workman and
the master," he said, "there
are frequent relations but no real association.
. . . I am of the
opinion, upon the whole, that the manufacturing
aristocracy which is
growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest
which ever existed in
the world; . . . if ever a permanent inequality,
of conditions and
aristocracy again penetrate into the world,
it may be predicted that
this is the gate by which they will enter."
But the sanative influences
of the free spaces of the West were destined
to ameliorate labor's
condition, to afford new hopes and new faith
to pioneer democracy, and
to postpone the problem.
As the settlers advanced into provinces whose
area dwarfed that of the
older sections, pioneer democracy itself began
to undergo changes, both
in its composition and in its processes of
expansion. At the close of
the Civil War, when settlement was spreading
with greatest vigor across
the Mississippi, the railways began their
work as colonists. Their land
grants from the government, amounting altogether
by 1871 to an area five
times that of the State of Pennsylvania, demanded
purchasers, and so the
railroads pioneered the way for the pioneer.
The homestead law increased the tide of settlers.
The improved farm
machinery made it possible for him to go boldly
out on to the prairie
and to deal effectively with virgin soil in
farms whose cultivated area
made the old clearings of the backwoodsman
seem mere garden plots. Two
things resulted from these conditions, which
profoundly modified pioneer
ideals. In the first place the new form of
colonization demanded an
increasing use of capital; and the rapidity
of the formation of towns,
the speed with which society developed, made
men the more eager to
secure bank credit to deal with the new West.
This made the pioneer more
dependent on the eastern economic forces.
In the second place the farmer
became dependent as never before on transportation
companies. In this
speculative movement the railroads, finding
that they had pressed too
far in advance and had issued stock to freely
for their earnings to
justify the face of the investment, came into
collision with the pioneer
on the question of rates and of discriminations.
The Greenback movement
and the Granger movements were appeals to
government to prevent what the
pioneer thought to be invasions of pioneer
democracy.
As the western settler began to face the problem
of magnitude in the
areas he was occupying; as he began to adjust
his life to the modern
forces of capital and to complex productive
processes; as he began to
see that, go where he would, the question
of credit and currency, of
transportation and distribution in general
conditioned his success, he
sought relief by legislation. He began to
lose his primitive attitude
of individualism, government began to look
less like a necessary evil
and more like an instrument for the perpetuation
of his democratic
ideals. In brief, the defenses of the pioneer
democrat began to shift,
from free land to legislation, from the ideal
of individualism to the
ideal of social control through regulation
by law. He had no sympathy
with a radical reconstruction of society by
the revolution of socialism;
even his alliances with the movement of organized
labor, which
paralleled that of organized capital in the
East, were only
half-hearted. But he was becoming alarmed
over the future of the free
democratic ideal. The wisdom of his legislation
it is not necessary to
discuss here. The essential point is that
his conception of the right of
government to control social process had undergone
a change. He was
coming to regard legislation as an instrument
of social construction.
The individualism of the Kentucky pioneer
of 1796 was giving way to the
Populism of the Kansas pioneer of 1896.
The later days of pioneer democracy are too
familiar to require much
exposition. But they are profoundly significant.
As the pioneer doctrine
of free competition for the resources of the
nation revealed its
tendencies; as individual, corporation and
trust, like the pioneer,
turned increasingly to legal devices to promote
their contrasting
ideals, the natural resources were falling
into private possession.
Tides of alien immigrants were surging into
the country to replace the
old American stock in the labor market, to
lower the standard of living
and to increase the pressure of population
upon the land. These recent
foreigners have lodged almost exclusively
in the dozen great centers of
industrial life, and there they have accented
the antagonisms between
capital and labor by the fact that the labor
supply has become
increasingly foreign born, and recruited from
nationalities who arouse
no sympathy on the part of capital and little
on the part of the
general public. Class distinctions are accented
by national prejudices,
and democracy is thereby invaded. But even
in the dull brains of great
masses of these unfortunates from southern
and eastern Europe the idea
of America as the land of freedom and of opportunity
to rise, the land
of pioneer democratic ideals, has found lodgment,
and if it is given
time and is not turned into revolutionary
lines it will fructify.
As the American pioneer passed on in advance
of this new tide of
European immigration, he found lands increasingly
limited. In place of
the old lavish opportunity for the settler
to set his stakes where he
would, there were frantic rushes of thousands
of eager pioneers across
the line of newly opened Indian reservations.
Even in 1889, when
Oklahoma was opened to settlement, twenty
thousand settlers crowded at
the boundaries, like straining athletes, waiting
the bugle note that
should start the race across the line. To-day
great crowds gather at the
land lotteries of the government as the remaining
fragments of the
public domain are flung to hungry settlers.
Hundreds of thousands of pioneers from the
Middle West have crossed the
national boundary into Canadian wheat fields
eager to find farms for
their children, although under an alien flag.
And finally the government
has taken to itself great areas of arid land
for reclamation by costly
irrigation projects whereby to furnish twenty-acre
tracts in the desert
to settlers under careful regulation of water
rights. The government
supplies the capital for huge irrigation dams
and reservoirs and builds
them itself. It owns and operates quarries,
coal mines and timber to
facilitate this work. It seeks the remotest
regions of the earth for
crops suitable for these areas. It analyzes
the soils and tells the
farmer what and when and how to plant. It
has even considered the rental
to manufacturers of the surplus water, electrical
and steam power
generated in its irrigation works and the
utilization of this power to
extract nitrates from the air to replenish
worn-out soils. The pioneer
of the arid regions must be both a capitalist
and the protégé of the
government.
Consider the contrast between the conditions
of the pioneers at the
beginning and at the end of this period of
development. Three hundred
years ago adventurous Englishmen on the coast
of Virginia began the
attack on the wilderness. Three years ago
the President of the United
States summoned the governors of forty-six
states to deliberate upon the
danger of the exhaustion of the natural resources
of the nation.[279:1]
The pressure of population upon the food supply
is already felt and we
are at the beginning only of this transformation.
It is profoundly
significant that at the very time when American
democracy is becoming
conscious that its pioneer basis of free land
and sparse population is
giving way, it is also brought face to face
with the startling outcome
of its old ideals of individualism and exploitation
under competition
uncontrolled by government. Pioneer society
itself was not sufficiently
sophisticated to work out to its logical result
the conception of the
self-made man. But the captains of industry
by applying squatter
doctrines to the evolution of American industrial
society, have made the
process so clear that he who runs may read.
Contests imply alliances as
well as rivalries. The increasing magnitude
of the areas to be dealt
with and the occurrences of times of industrial
stress furnished
occasion for such unions. The panic of 1873
was followed by an
unprecedented combination of individual businesses
and partnerships into
corporations. The panic of 1893 marked the
beginning of an extraordinary
development of corporate combinations into
pools and trusts, agreements
and absorptions, until, by the time of the
panic of 1907, it seemed not
impossible that the outcome of free competition
under individualism was
to be monopoly of the most important natural
resources and processes by
a limited group of men whose vast fortunes
were so invested in allied
and dependent industries that they constituted
the dominating force in
the industrial life of the nation. The development
of large scale
factory production, the benefit of combination
in the competitive
struggle, and the tremendous advantage of
concentration in securing
possession of the unoccupied opportunities,
were so great that vast
accumulations of capital became the normal
agency of the industrial
world. In almost exact ratio to the diminution
of the supply of
unpossessed resources, combinations of capital
have increased in
magnitude and in efficiency of conquest. The
solitary backwoodsman
wielding his ax at the edge of a measureless
forest is replaced by
companies capitalized at millions, operating
railroads, sawmills, and
all the enginery of modern machinery to harvest
the remaining
trees.[280:1]
A new national development is before us without
the former safety valve
of abundant resources open to him who would
take. Classes are becoming
alarmingly distinct: There is the demand on
the one side voiced by Mr.
Harriman so well and by others since, that
nothing must be done to
interfere with the early pioneer ideals of
the exploitation and the
development of the country's wealth; that
restrictive and reforming
legislation must on no account threaten prosperity
even for a moment. In
fact, we sometimes hear in these days, from
men of influence, serious
doubts of democracy, and intimations that
the country would be better
off if it freely resigned itself to guidance
by the geniuses who are
mastering the economic forces of the nation,
and who, it is alleged,
would work out the prosperity of the United
States more effectively, if
unvexed by politicians and people.
On the other hand, an inharmonious group of
reformers are sounding the
warning that American democratic ideals and
society are menaced and
already invaded by the very conditions that
make this apparent
prosperity; that the economic resources are
no longer limitless and
free; that the aggregate national wealth is
increasing at the cost of
present social justice and moral health, and
the future well-being of
the American people. The Granger and the Populist
were prophets of this
reform movement. Mr. Bryan's Democracy, Mr.
Debs' Socialism, and Mr.
Roosevelt's Republicanism all had in common
the emphasis upon the need
of governmental regulation of industrial tendencies
in the interest of
the common man; the checking of the power
of those business Titans who
emerged successful out of the competitive
individualism of pioneer
America. As land values rise, as meat and
bread grow dearer, as the
process of industrial consolidation goes on,
and as Eastern industrial
conditions spread across the West, the problems
of traditional American
democracy will become increasingly grave.
The time has come when University men may
well consider pioneer ideals,
for American society has reached the end of
the first great period in
its formation. It must survey itself, reflect
upon its origins, consider
what freightage of purposes it carried in
its long march across the
continent, what ambitions it had for the man,
what rôle it would play in
the world. How shall we conserve what was
best in pioneer ideals? How
adjust the old conceptions to the changed
conditions of modern life?
Other nations have been rich and prosperous
and powerful. But the United
States has believed that it had an original
contribution to make to the
history of society by the production of a
self-determining,
self-restrained, intelligent democracy. It
is in the Middle West that
society has formed on lines least like those
of Europe. It is here, if
anywhere, that American democracy will make
its stand against the
tendency to adjust to a European type.
This consideration gives importance to my
final topic, the relation of
the University to pioneer ideals and to the
changing conditions of
American democracy. President Pritchett of
the Carnegie Foundation has
recently declared that in no other form of
popular activity does a
nation or State so clearly reveal its ideals
or the quality of its
civilization as in its system of education;
and he finds, especially in
the State University, "a conception of education
from the standpoint of
the whole people." "If our American democracy
were to-day called to give
proof of its constructive ability," he says,
"the State University and
the public school system which it crowns would
be the strongest evidence
of its fitness which it could offer."
It may at least be conceded that an essential
characteristic of the
State University is its democracy in the largest
sense. The provision in
the Constitution of Indiana of 1816, so familiar
to you all, for a
"general system of education ascending in
regular gradations from
township schools to a State University, wherein
tuition shall be gratis
and equally open to all," expresses the Middle
Western conception born
in the days of pioneer society and doubtless
deeply influenced by
Jeffersonian democracy.
The most obvious fact about these universities,
perhaps, lies in their
integral relation with the public schools,
whereby the pupil has pressed
upon him the question whether he shall go
to college, and whereby the
road is made open and direct to the highest
training. By this means the
State offers to every class the means of education,
and even engages in
propaganda to induce students to continue.
It sinks deep shafts through
the social strata to find the gold of real
ability in the underlying
rock of the masses. It fosters that due degree
of individualism which is
implied in the right of every human being
to have opportunity to rise in
whatever directions his peculiar abilities
entitle him to go,
subordinate to the welfare of the state. It
keeps the avenues of
promotion to the highest offices, the highest
honors, open to the
humblest and most obscure lad who has the
natural gifts, at the same
time that it aids in the improvement of the
masses.
Nothing in our educational history is more
striking than the steady
pressure of democracy upon its universities
to adapt them to the
requirements of all the people. From the State
Universities of the
Middle West, shaped under pioneer ideals,
have come the fuller
recognition of scientific studies, and especially
those of applied
science devoted to the conquest of nature;
the breaking down of the
traditional required curriculum; the union
of vocational and college
work in the same institution; the development
of agricultural and
engineering colleges and business courses;
the training of lawyers,
administrators, public men, and journalists--all
under the ideal of
service to democracy rather than of individual
advancement alone. Other
universities do the same thing; but the head
springs and the main
current of this great stream of tendency come
from the land of the
pioneers, the democratic states of the Middle
West. And the people
themselves, through their boards of trustees
and the legislature, are in
the last resort the court of appeal as to
the directions and conditions
of growth, as well as have the fountain of
income from which these
universities derive their existence.
The State University has thus both a peculiar
power in the directness of
its influence upon the whole people and a
peculiar limitation in its
dependence upon the people. The ideals of
the people constitute the
atmosphere in which it moves, though it can
itself affect this
atmosphere. Herein is the source of its strength
and the direction of
its difficulties. For to fulfil its mission
of uplifting the state to
continuously higher levels the University
must, in the words of Mr.
Bryce, "serve the time without yielding to
it;" it must recognize new
needs without becoming subordinate to the
immediately practical, to the
short-sightedly expedient. It must not sacrifice
the higher efficiency
for the more obvious but lower efficiency.
It must have the wisdom to
make expenditures for results which pay manifold
in the enrichment of
civilization, but which are not immediate
and palpable.
In the transitional condition of American
democracy which I have tried
to indicate, the mission of the university
is most important. The times
call for educated leaders. General experience
and rule-of-thumb
information are inadequate for the solution
of the problems of a
democracy which no longer owns the safety
fund of an unlimited quantity
of untouched resources. Scientific farming
must increase the yield of
the field, scientific forestry must economize
the woodlands, scientific
experiment and construction by chemist, physicist,
biologist and
engineer must be applied to all of nature's
forces in our complex modern
society. The test tube and the microscope
are needed rather than ax and
rifle in this new ideal of conquest. The very
discoveries of science in
such fields as public health and manufacturing
processes have made it
necessary to depend upon the expert, and if
the ranks of experts are to
be recruited broadly from the democratic masses
as well as from those of
larger means, the State Universities must
furnish at least as liberal
opportunities for research and training as
the universities based on
private endowments furnish. It needs no argument
to show that it is not
to the advantage of democracy to give over
the training of the expert
exclusively to privately endowed institutions.
But quite as much in the field of legislation
and of public life in
general as in the industrial world is the
expert needed. The industrial
conditions which shape society are too complex,
problems of labor,
finance, social reform too difficult to be
dealt with intelligently and
wisely without the leadership of highly educated
men familiar with the
legislation and literature on social questions
in other States and
nations.
By training in science, in law, politics,
economics and history the
universities may supply from the ranks of
democracy administrators,
legislators, judges and experts for commissions
who shall
disinterestedly and intelligently mediate
between contending interests.
When the words "capitalistic classes" and
"the proletariate" can be used
and understood in America it is surely time
to develop such men, with
the ideal of service to the State, who may
help to break the force of
these collisions, to find common grounds between
the contestants and to
possess the respect and confidence of all
parties which are genuinely
loyal to the best American ideals.
The signs of such a development are already
plain in the expert
commissions of some States; in the increasing
proportion of university
men in legislatures; in the university men's
influence in federal
departments and commissions. It is hardly
too much to say that the best
hope of intelligent and principled progress
in economic and social
legislation and administration lies in the
increasing influence of
American universities. By sending out these
open-minded experts, by
furnishing well-fitted legislators, public
leaders and teachers, by
graduating successive armies of enlightened
citizens accustomed to deal
dispassionately with the problems of modern
life, able to think for
themselves, governed not by ignorance, by
prejudice or by impulse, but
by knowledge and reason and high-mindedness,
the State Universities will
safeguard democracy. Without such leaders
and followers democratic
reactions may create revolutions, but they
will not be able to produce
industrial and social progress. America's
problem is not violently to
introduce democratic ideals, but to preserve
and entrench them by
courageous adaptation to new conditions. Educated
leadership sets
bulwarks against both the passionate impulses
of the mob and the
sinister designs of those who would subordinate
public welfare to
private greed. Lord Bacon's splendid utterance
still rings true: "The
learning of the few is despotism; the learning
of the many is liberty.
And intelligent and principled liberty is
fame, wisdom and power."
There is a danger to the universities in this
very opportunity. At first
pioneer democracy had scant respect for the
expert. He believed that "a
fool can put on his coat better than a wise
man can do it for him."
There is much truth in the belief; and the
educated leader, even he who
has been trained under present university
conditions, in direct contact
with the world about him, will still have
to contend with this inherited
suspicion of the expert. But if he be well
trained and worthy of his
training, if he be endowed with creative imagination
and personality, he
will make good his leadership.
A more serious danger will come when the universities
are fully
recognized as powerful factors in shaping
the life of the State--not
mere cloisters, remote from its life, but
an influential element in its
life. Then it may easily happen that the smoke
of the battle-field of
political and social controversy will obscure
their pure air, that
efforts will be made to stamp out the exceptional
doctrine and the
exceptional man. Those who investigate and
teach within the university
walls must respond to the injunction of the
church, "_Sursum
corda_"--lift up the heart to high thinking
and impartial search for
the unsullied truth in the interests of all
the people; this is the holy
grail of the universities.
That they may perform their work they must
be left free, as the pioneer
was free, to explore new regions and to report
what they find; for like
the pioneers they have the ideal of investigation,
they seek new
horizons. They are not tied to past knowledge;
they recognize the fact
that the universe still abounds in mystery,
that science and society
have not crystallized, but are still growing
and need their pioneer
trail-makers. New and beneficent discoveries
in nature, new and
beneficial discoveries in the processes and
directions of the growth of
society, substitutes for the vanishing material
basis of pioneer
democracy may be expected if the university
pioneers are left free to
seek the trail.
In conclusion, the university has a duty in
adjusting pioneer ideals to
the new requirements of American democracy,
even more important than
those which I have named. The early pioneer
was an individualist and a
seeker after the undiscovered; but he did
not understand the richness
and complexity of life as a whole; he did
not fully realize his
opportunities of individualism and discovery.
He stood in his somber
forest as the traveler sometimes stands in
a village on the Alps when
the mist has shrouded everything, and only
the squalid hut, the stony
field, the muddy pathway are in view. But
suddenly a wind sweeps the fog
away. Vast fields of radiant snow and sparkling
ice lie before him;
profound abysses open at his feet; and as
he lifts his eyes the
unimaginable peak of the Matterhorn cleaves
the thin air, far, far
above. A new and unsuspected world is revealed
all about him. Thus it is
the function of the university to reveal to
the individual the mystery
and the glory of life as a whole--to open
all the realms of rational
human enjoyment and achievement; to preserve
the consciousness of the
past; to spread before the eye the beauty
of the universe; and to throw
wide its portals of duty and of power to the
human soul. It must honor
the poet and painter, the writer and the teacher,
the scientist and the
inventor, the musician and the prophet of
righteousness--the men of
genius in all fields who make life nobler.
It must call forth anew, and
for finer uses, the pioneer's love of creative
individualism and provide
for it a spiritual atmosphere friendly to
the development of personality
in all uplifting ways. It must check the tendency
to act in mediocre
social masses with undue emphasis upon the
ideals of prosperity and
politics. In short, it must summon ability
of all kinds to joyous and
earnest effort for the welfare and the spiritual
enrichment of society.
It must awaken new tastes and ambitions among
the people.
The light of these university watch towers
should flash from State to
State until American democracy itself is illuminated
with higher and
broader ideals of what constitutes service
to the State and to mankind;
of what are prizes; of what is worthy of praise
and reward. So long as
success in amassing great wealth for the aggrandizement
of the
individual is the exclusive or the dominant
standard of success, so long
as material prosperity, regardless of the
conditions of its cost, or the
civilization which results, is the shibboleth,
American democracy, that
faith in the common man which the pioneer
cherishes, is in danger. For
the strongest will make their way unerringly
to whatever goal society
sets up as the mark of conceded preëminence.
What more effective agency
is there for the cultivation of the seed wheat
of ideals than the
university? Where can we find a more promising
body of sowers of the
grain?
The pioneer's clearing must be broadened into
a domain where all that is
worthy of human endeavor may find fertile
soil on which to grow; and
America must exact of the constructive business
geniuses who owe their
rise to the freedom of pioneer democracy supreme
allegiance and devotion
to the commonweal. In fostering such an outcome
and in tempering the
asperities of the conflicts that must precede
its fulfilment, the nation
has no more promising agency than the State
Universities, no more
hopeful product than their graduates.
FOOTNOTES:
[269:1] Commencement Address at the University
of Indiana, 1910.
[270:1] [Printed from an earlier version;
since published in his "Songs
from Books," p. 93, under the title, "The
Voortrekker." Even fuller of
insight into the idealistic side of the frontier,
is his "Explorer," in
"Collected Verse," p. 19.]
[279:1] Written in 1910.
[280:1] Omissions from the original are incorporated
in later chapters.
XI
THE WEST AND AMERICAN IDEALS[290:1]
True to American traditions that each succeeding
generation ought to
find in the Republic a better home, once in
every year the colleges and
universities summon the nation to lift its
eyes from the routine of
work, in order to take stock of the country's
purposes and achievements,
to examine its past and consider its future.
This attitude of self-examination is hardly
characteristic of the people
as a whole. Particularly it is not characteristic
of the historic
American. He has been an opportunist rather
than a dealer in general
ideas. Destiny set him in a current which
bore him swiftly along through
such a wealth of opportunity that reflection
and well-considered
planning seemed wasted time. He knew not where
he was going, but he was
on his way, cheerful, optimistic, busy and
buoyant.
To-day we are reaching a changed condition,
less apparent perhaps, in
the newer regions than in the old, but sufficiently
obvious to extend
the commencement frame of mind from the college
to the country as a
whole. The swift and inevitable current of
the upper reaches of the
nation's history has borne it to the broader
expanse and slower
stretches which mark the nearness of the level
sea. The vessel, no
longer carried along by the rushing waters,
finds it necessary to
determine its own directions on this new ocean
of its future, to give
conscious consideration to its motive power
and to its steering gear.
It matters not so much that those who address
these college men and
women upon life, give conflicting answers
to the questions of whence and
whither: the pause for remembrance, for reflection
and for aspiration is
wholesome in itself.
Although the American people are becoming
more self-conscious, more
responsive to the appeal to act by deliberate
choices, we should be
over-sanguine if we believed that even in
this new day these
commencement surveys were taken to heart by
the general public, or that
they were directly and immediately influential
upon national thought and
action.
But even while we check our enthusiasm by
this realization of the common
thought, we must take heart. The University's
peculiar privilege and
distinction lie in the fact that it is not
the passive instrument of the
State to voice its current ideas. Its problem
is not that of expressing
tendencies. Its mission is to create tendencies
and to direct them. Its
problem is that of leadership and of ideals.
It is called, of course, to
justify the support which the public gives
it, by working in close and
sympathetic touch with those it serves. More
than that, it would lose
important element of strength if it failed
to recognize the fact that
improvement and creative movement often come
from the masses themselves,
instinctively moving toward a better order.
The University's graduates
must be fitted to take their places naturally
and effectually in the
common life of the time.
But the University is called especially to
justify its existence by
giving to its sons and daughters something
which they could not well
have gotten through the ordinary experiences
of the life outside its
walls. It is called to serve the time by independent
research and by
original thought. If it were a mere recording
instrument of conventional
opinion and average information, it is hard
to see why the University
should exist at all. To clasp hands with the
common life in order that
it may lift that life, to be a radiant center
enkindling the society in
which it has its being, these are primary
duties of the University.
Fortunate the State which gives free play
to this spirit of inquiry. Let
it "grubstake" its intellectual prospectors
and send them forth where
"the trails run out and stop." A famous scientist
holds that the
universal ether bears vital germs which impinging
upon a dead world
would bring life to it. So, at least it is,
in the world of thought,
where energized ideals put in the air and
carried here and there by the
waves and currents of the intellectual atmosphere,
fertilize vast inert
areas.
The University, therefore, has a double duty.
On the one hand it must
aid in the improvement of the general economic
and social environment.
It must help on in the work of scientific
discovery and of making such
conditions of existence, economic, political
and social, as will produce
more fertile and responsive soil for a higher
and better life. It must
stimulate a wider demand on the part of the
public for right leadership.
It must extend its operations more widely
among the people and sink
deeper shafts through social strata to find
new supplies of intellectual
gold in popular levels yet untouched. And
on the other hand, it must
find and fit men and women for leadership.
It must both awaken new
demands and it must satisfy those demands
by trained leaders with new
motives, with new incentives to ambition,
with higher and broader
conception of what constitute the prize in
life, of what constitutes
success. The University has to deal with both
the soil and sifted seed
in the agriculture of the human spirit.
Its efficiency is not the efficiency which
the business engineer is
fitted to appraise. If it is a training ship,
it is a training ship
bound on a voyage of discovery, seeking new
horizons. The economy of the
University's consumption can only be rightly
measured by the later times
which shall possess those new realms of the
spirit which its voyage
shall reveal. If the ships of Columbus had
engaged in a profitable
coastwise traffic between Palos and Cadiz
they might have saved sail
cloth, but their keels would never have grated
on the shores of a New
World.
The appeal of the undiscovered is strong in
America. For three centuries
the fundamental process in its history was
the westward movement, the
discovery and occupation of the vast free
spaces of the continent. We
are the first generation of Americans who
can look back upon that era as
a historic movement now coming to its end.
Other generations have been
so much a part of it that they could hardly
comprehend its significance.
To them it seemed inevitable. The free land
and the natural resources
seemed practically inexhaustible. Nor were
they aware of the fact that
their most fundamental traits, their institutions,
even their ideals
were shaped by this interaction between the
wilderness and themselves.
American democracy was born of no theorist's
dream; it was not carried
in the _Susan Constant_ to Virginia, nor in
the _Mayflower_ to Plymouth.
It came out of the American forest, and it
gained new strength each time
it touched a new frontier. Not the constitution,
but free land and an
abundance of natural resources open to a fit
people, made the democratic
type of society in America for three centuries
while it occupied its
empire.
To-day we are looking with a shock upon a
changed world. The national
problem is no longer how to cut and burn away
the vast screen of the
dense and daunting forest; it is how to save
and wisely use the
remaining timber. It is no longer how to get
the great spaces of
fertile prairie land in humid zones out of
the hands of the government
into the hands of the pioneer; these lands
have already passed into
private possession. No longer is it a question
of how to avoid or cross
the Great Plains and the arid desert. It is
a question of how to conquer
those rejected lands by new method of farming
and by cultivating new
crops from seed collected by the government
and by scientists from the
cold, dry steppes of Siberia, the burning
sands of Egypt, and the remote
interior of China. It is a problem of how
to bring the precious rills of
water on to the alkali and sage brush. Population
is increasing faster
than the food supply.
New farm lands no longer increase decade after
decade in areas equal to
those of European states. While the ratio
of increase of improved land
declines, the value of farm lands rise and
the price of food leaps
upward, reversing the old ratio between the
two. The cry of scientific
farming and the conservation of natural resources
replaces the cry of
rapid conquest of the wilderness. We have
so far won our national home,
wrested from it its first rich treasures,
and drawn to it the
unfortunate of other lands, that we are already
obliged to compare
ourselves with settled states of the Old World.
In place of our attitude
of contemptuous indifference to the legislation
of such countries as
Germany and England, even Western States like
Wisconsin send commissions
to study their systems of taxation, workingmen's
insurance, old age
pensions and a great variety of other remedies
for social ills.
If we look about the periphery of the nation,
everywhere we see the
indications that our world is changing. On
the streets of Northeastern
cities like New York and Boston, the faces
which we meet are to a
surprising extent those of Southeastern Europe.
Puritan New England,
which turned its capital into factories and
mills and drew to its shores
an army of cheap labor, governed these people
for a time by a ruling
class like an upper stratum between which
and the lower strata there was
no assimilation. There was no such evolution
into an assimilated
commonwealth as is seen in Middle Western
agricultural States, where
immigrant and old native stock came in together
and built up a
homogeneous society on the principle of give
and take. But now the
Northeastern coast finds its destiny, politically
and economically,
passing away from the descendants of the Puritans.
It is the little
Jewish boy, the Greek or the Sicilian, who
takes the traveler through
historic streets, now the home of these newer
people to the Old North
Church or to Paul Revere's house, or to Tea
Wharf, and tells you in his
strange patois the story of revolution against
oppression.
Along the Southern Atlantic and the Gulf coast,
in spite of the
preservative influence of the negro, whose
presence has always called
out resistance to change on the part of the
whites, the forces of social
and industrial transformation are at work.
The old tidewater aristocracy
has surrendered to the up-country democrats.
Along the line of the
Alleghanies like an advancing column, the
forces of Northern capital,
textile and steel mills, year after year extend
their invasion into the
lower South. New Orleans, once the mistress
of the commerce of the
Mississippi Valley, is awakening to new dreams
of world commerce. On the
southern border, similar invasions of American
capital have been
entering Mexico. At the same time, the opening
of the Panama Canal has
completed the dream of the ages of the Straits
of Anian between Atlantic
and Pacific. Four hundred years ago, Balboa
raised the flag of Spain at
the edge of the Sea of the West and we are
now preparing to celebrate
both that anniversary, and the piercing of
the continent. New relations
have been created between Spanish America
and the United States and the
world is watching the mediation of Argentina,
Brazil and Chile between
the contending forces of Mexico and the Union.
Once more alien national
interests lie threatening at our borders,
but we no longer appeal to the
Monroe Doctrine and send our armies of frontiersmen
to settle our
concerns off-hand. We take council with European
nations and with the
sisterhood of South America, and propose a
remedy of social
reorganization in place of imperious will
and force. Whether the effort
will succeed or not, it is a significant indication
that an old order is
passing away, when such a solution is undertaken
by a President of
Scotch Presbyterian stock, born in the State
of Virginia.
If we turn to the Northern border, where we
are about to celebrate a
century of peace with England, we see in progress,
like a belated
procession of our own history the spread of
pioneers, the opening of new
wildernesses, the building of new cities,
the growth of a new and mighty
nation. That old American advance of the wheat
farmer from the
Connecticut to the Mohawk, and the Genesee,
from the Great Valley of
Pennsylvania to the Ohio Valley and the prairies
of the Middle West, is
now by its own momentum and under the stimulus
of Canadian homesteads
and the high price of wheat, carried across
the national border to the
once lone plains where the Hudson Bay dog
trains crossed the desolate
snows of the wild North Land. In the Pacific
Northwest the era of
construction has not ended, but it is so rapidly
in progress that we can
already see the closing of the age of the
pioneer. Already Alaska
beckons on the north, and pointing to her
wealth of natural resources
asks the nation on what new terms the new
age will deal with her. Across
the Pacific looms Asia, no longer a remote
vision and a symbol of the
unchanging, but borne as by mirage close to
our shores and raising grave
questions of the common destiny of the people
of the ocean. The dreams
of Benton and of Seward of a regenerated Orient,
when the long march of
westward civilization should complete its
circle, seem almost to be in
process of realization. The age of the Pacific
Ocean begins, mysterious
and unfathomable in its meaning for our own
future.
Turning to view the interior, we see the same
picture of change. When
the Superintendent of the Census in 1890 declared
the frontier line no
longer traceable, the beginning of the rush
into Oklahoma had just
occurred. Here where the broken fragments
of Indian nations from the
East had been gathered and where the wilder
tribes of the Southwest were
being settled, came the rush of the land-hungry
pioneer. Almost at a
blow the old Indian territory passed away,
populous cities came into
being and it was not long before gushing oil
wells made a new era of
sudden wealth. The farm lands of the Middle
West taken as free
homesteads or bought for a mere pittance,
have risen so in value that
the original owners have in an increasing
degree either sold them in
order to reinvest in the newer cheap lands
of the West, or have moved
into the town and have left the tillage to
tenant farmers. The growth of
absentee ownership of the soil is producing
a serious problem in the
former centers of the Granger and the Populist.
Along the Old Northwest
the Great Lakes are becoming a new Mediterranean
Sea joining the realms
of wheat and iron ore, at one end with the
coal and furnaces of the
forks of the Ohio, where the most intense
and wide-reaching center of
industrial energy exists. City life like that
of the East, manufactures
and accumulated capital, seem to be reproducing
in the center of the
Republic the tendencies already so plain on
the Atlantic Coast.
Across the Great Plains where buffalo and
Indian held sway successive
industrial waves are passing. The old free
range gave place to the
ranch, the ranch to the homestead and now
in places in the arid lands
the homestead is replaced by the ten or twenty
acre irrigated fruit
farm. The age of cheap land, cheap corn and
wheat, and cheap cattle has
gone forever. The federal government has undertaken
vast paternal
enterprises of reclamation of the desert.
In the Rocky Mountains where at the time of
Civil War, the first
important rushes to gold and silver mines
carried the frontier backward
on a march toward the east, the most amazing
transformations have
occurred. Here, where prospectors made new
trails, and lived the wild
free life of mountain men, here where the
human spirit seemed likely to
attain the largest measure of individual freedom,
and where fortune
beckoned to the common man, have come revolutions
wrought by the demand
for organized industry and capital. In the
regions where the popular
tribunal and the free competitive life flourished,
we have seen law and
order break down in the unmitigated collision
of great aggregations of
capital, with each other and with organized
socialistic labor. The
Cripple Creek strikes, the contests at Butte,
the Goldfield mobs, the
recent Colorado fighting, all tell a similar
story,--the solid impact of
contending forces in regions where civic power
and loyalty to the State
have never fully developed. Like the Grand
Cañon, where in dazzling
light the huge geologic history is written
so large that none may fail
to read it, so in the Rocky Mountains the
dangers of modern American
industrial tendencies have been exposed.
As we crossed the Cascades on our way to Seattle,
one of the passengers
was moved to explain his feeling on the excellence
of Puget Sound in
contrast with the remaining visible Universe.
He did it well in spite of
irreverent interruptions from those fellow
travelers who were
unconverted children of the East, and at last
he broke forth in
passionate challenge, "Why should I not love
Seattle! It took me from
the slums of the Atlantic Coast, a poor Swedish
boy with hardly fifteen
dollars in my pocket. It gave me a home by
the beautiful sea; it spread
before my eyes a vision of snow-capped peaks
and smiling fields; it
brought abundance and a new life to me and
my children and I love it, I
love it! If I were a multi-millionaire I would
charter freight cars and
carry away from the crowded tenements and
noisome alleys of the eastern
cities and the Old World the toiling masses,
and let them loose in our
vast forests and ore-laden mountains to learn
what life really is!" And
my heart was stirred by his words and by the
whirling spaces of woods
and peaks through which we passed.
But as I looked and listened to this passionate
outcry, I remembered the
words of Talleyrand, the exiled Bishop of
Autun, in Washington's
administration. Looking down from an eminence
not far from Philadelphia
upon a wilderness which is now in the heart
of that huge industrial
society where population presses on the means
of life, even the
cold-blooded and cynical Talleyrand, gazing
on those unpeopled hills and
forests, kindled with the vision of coming
clearings, the smiling farms
and grazing herds that were to be, the populous
towns that should be
built, the newer and finer social organization
that should there arise.
And then I remembered the hall in Harvard's
museum of social ethics
through which I pass to my lecture room when
I speak on the history of
the Westward movement. That hall is covered
with an exhibit of the work
in Pittsburgh steel mills, and of the congested
tenements. Its charts
and diagrams tell of the long hours of work,
the death rate, the
relation of typhoid to the slums, the gathering
of the poor of all
Southeastern Europe to make a civilization
at that center of American
industrial energy and vast capital that is
a social tragedy. As I enter
my lecture room through that hall, I speak
of the young Washington
leading his Virginia frontiersmen to the magnificent
forest at the
forks of the Ohio. Where Braddock and his
men, "carving a cross on the
wilderness rim," were struck by the painted
savages in the primeval
woods, huge furnaces belch forth perpetual
fires and Huns and Bulgars,
Poles and Sicilians struggle for a chance
to earn their daily bread, and
live a brutal and degraded life. Irresistibly
there rushed across my
mind the memorable words of Huxley:
"Even the best of modern civilization appears
to me to exhibit
a condition of mankind which neither embodies
any worthy ideal
nor even possesses the merit of stability.
I do not hesitate
to express the opinion that, if there is no
hope of a large
improvement of the condition of the greater
part of the human
family; if it is true that the increase of
knowledge, the
winning of a greater dominion over Nature,
which is its
consequence, and the wealth which follows
upon that dominion,
are to make no difference in the extent and
the intensity of
Want, with its concomitant physical and moral
degradation,
among the masses of the people, I should hail
the advent of
some kindly comet, which would sweep the whole
affair away, as
a desirable consummation."
But if there is disillusion and shock and
apprehension as we come to
realize these changes, to strong men and women
there is challenge and
inspiration in them too. In place of old frontiers
of wilderness, there
are new frontiers of unwon fields of science,
fruitful for the needs of
the race; there are frontiers of better social
domains yet unexplored.
Let us hold to our attitude of faith and courage,
and creative zeal.
Let us dream as our fathers dreamt and let
us make our dreams come
true.
"Daughters of Time, the hypocritic days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bear diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that hold
them all.
I, in my pleachéd garden watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples and the day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet, saw the scorn!"
What were America's "morning wishes"? From
the beginning of that long
westward march of the American people America
has never been the home of
mere contented materialism. It has continuously
sought new ways and
dreamed of a perfected social type.
In the fifteenth century when men dealt with
the New World which
Columbus found, the ideal of discovery was
dominant. Here was placed
within the reach of men whose ideas had been
bounded by the Atlantic,
new realms to be explored. America became
the land of European dreams,
its Fortunate Islands were made real, where,
in the imagination of old
Europe, peace and happiness, as well as riches
and eternal youth, were
to be found. To Sir Edwin Sandys and his friends
of the London Company,
Virginia offered an opportunity to erect the
Republic for which they had
longed in vain in England. To the Puritans,
New England was the new land
of freedom, wherein they might establish the
institutions of God,
according to their own faith. As the vision
died away in Virginia toward
the close of the seventeenth century, it was
taken up anew by the fiery
Bacon with his revolution to establish a real
democracy in place of the
rule of the planter aristocracy, that formed
along the coast. Hardly
had he been overthrown when in the eighteenth
century, the democratic
ideal was rejuvenated by the strong frontiersmen,
who pressed beyond the
New England Coast into the Berkshires and
up the valleys of the Green
Mountains of Vermont, and by the Scotch-Irish
and German pioneers who
followed the Great Valley from Pennsylvania
into the Upland South. In
both the Yankee frontiersmen and the Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians of the
South, the Calvinistic conception of the importance
of the individual,
bound by free covenant to his fellow men and
to God, was a compelling
influence, and all their wilderness experience
combined to emphasize the
ideals of opening new ways, of giving freer
play to the individual, and
of constructing democratic society.
When the backwoodsmen crossed the Alleghanies
they put between
themselves and the Atlantic Coast a barrier
which seemed to separate
them from a region already too much like the
Europe they had left, and
as they followed the courses of the rivers
that flowed to the
Mississippi, they called themselves "Men of
the Western Waters," and
their new home in the Mississippi Valley was
the "Western World." Here,
by the thirties, Jacksonian democracy flourished,
strong in the faith of
the intrinsic excellence of the common man,
in his right to make his own
place in the world, and in his capacity to
share in government. But
while Jacksonian democracy demanded these
rights, it was also loyal to
leadership as the very name implies. It was
ready to follow to the
uttermost the man in whom it placed its trust,
whether the hero were
frontier fighter or president, and it even
rebuked and limited its own
legislative representatives and recalled its
senators when they ran
counter to their chosen executive. Jacksonian
democracy was essentially
rural. It was based on the good fellowship
and genuine social feeling of
the frontier, in which classes and inequalities
of fortune played
little part. But it did not demand equality
of condition, for there was
abundance of natural resources and the belief
that the self-made man had
a right to his success in the free competition
which western life
afforded, was as prominent in their thought
as was the love of
democracy. On the other hand, they viewed
governmental restraints with
suspicion as a limitation on their right to
work out their own
individuality.
For the banking institutions and capitalists
of the East they had an
instinctive antipathy. Already they feared
that the "money power" as
Jackson called it, was planning to make hewers
of wood and drawers of
water of the common people.
In this view they found allies among the labor
leaders of the East, who
in the same period began their fight for better
conditions of the wage
earner. These Locofocos were the first Americans
to demand fundamental
social changes for the benefit of the workers
in the cities. Like the
Western pioneers, they protested against monopolies
and special
privilege. But they also had a constructive
policy, whereby society was
to be kept democratic by free gifts of the
public land, so that surplus
labor might not bid against itself, but might
find an outlet in the
West. Thus to both the labor theorist and
the practical pioneer, the
existence of what seemed inexhaustible cheap
land and unpossessed
resources was the condition of democracy.
In these years of the thirties
and forties, Western democracy took on its
distinctive form. Travelers
like De Tocqueville and Harriet Martineau,
came to study and to report
it enthusiastically to Europe.
Side by side with this westward marching army
of individualistic
liberty-loving democratic backwoodsmen, went
a more northern stream of
pioneers, who cherished similar ideas, but
added to them the desire to
create new industrial centers, to build up
factories, to build
railroads, and to develop the country by founding
cities and extending
prosperity. They were ready to call upon legislatures
to aid in this, by
subscriptions to stock, grants of franchises,
promotion of banking and
internal improvements. These were the Whig
followers of that other
Western leader, Henry Clay, and their early
strength lay in the Ohio
Valley, and particularly among the well-to-do.
In the South their
strength was found among the aristocracy of
the Cotton Kingdom.
Both of these Western groups, Whigs and Democrats
alike, had one common
ideal: the desire to leave their children
a better heritage than they
themselves had received, and both were fired
with devotion to the ideal
of creating in this New World a home more
worthy of mankind. Both were
ready to break with the past, to boldly strike
out new lines of social
endeavor, and both believed in American expansion.
Before these tendencies had worked themselves
out, three new forces
entered. In the sudden extension of our boundaries
to the Pacific Coast,
which took place in the forties, the nation
won so vast a domain that
its resources seemed illimitable and its society
seemed able to throw
off all its maladies by the very presence
of these vast new spaces. At
the same period the great activity of railroad
building to the
Mississippi Valley occurred, making these
lands available and diverting
attention to the task of economic construction.
The third influence was
the slavery question which, becoming acute,
shaped the American ideals
and public discussion for nearly a generation.
Viewed from one angle,
this struggle involved the great question
of national unity. From
another it involved the question of the relations
of labor and capital,
democracy and aristocracy. It was not without
significance that Abraham
Lincoln became the very type of American pioneer
democracy, the first
adequate and elemental demonstration to the
world that that democracy
could produce a man who belonged to the ages.
After the war, new national energies were
set loose, and new
construction and development engaged the attention
of the Westerners as
they occupied prairies and Great Plains and
mountains. Democracy and
capitalistic development did not seem antagonistic.
With the passing of the frontier, Western
social and political ideals
took new form. Capital began to consolidate
in even greater masses, and
increasingly attempted to reduce to system
and control the processes of
industrial development. Labor with equal step
organized its forces to
destroy the old competitive system. It is
not strange that the Western
pioneers took alarm for their ideals of democracy
as the outcome of the
free struggle for the national resources became
apparent. They espoused
the cause of governmental activity.
It was a new gospel, for the Western radical
became convinced that he
must sacrifice his ideal of individualism
and free competition in order
to maintain his ideal of democracy. Under
this conviction the Populist
revised the pioneer conception of government.
He saw in government no
longer something outside of him, but the people
themselves shaping their
own affairs. He demanded therefore an extension
of the powers of
governments in the interest of his historic
ideal of democratic society.
He demanded not only free silver, but the
ownership of the agencies of
communication and transportation, the income
tax, the postal savings
bank, the provision of means of credit for
agriculture, the construction
of more effective devices to express the will
of the people, primary
nominations, direct elections, initiative,
referendum and recall. In a
word, capital, labor, and the Western pioneer,
all deserted the ideal of
competitive individualism in order to organize
their interests in more
effective combinations. The disappearance
of the frontier, the closing
of the era which was marked by the influence
of the West as a form of
society, brings with it new problems of social
adjustment, new demands
for considering our past ideals and our present
needs.
Let us recall the conditions of the foreign
relations along our borders,
the dangers that wait us if we fail to unite
in the solution of our
domestic problems. Let us recall those internal
evidences of the
destruction of our old social order. If we
take to heart this warning,
we shall do well also to recount our historic
ideals, to take stock of
those purposes, and fundamental assumptions
that have gone to make the
American spirit and the meaning of America
in world history.
First of all, there was the ideal of discovery,
the courageous
determination to break new paths, indifference
to the dogma that because
an institution or a condition exists, it must
remain. All American
experience has gone to the making of the spirit
of innovation; it is in
the blood and will not be repressed.
Then, there was the ideal of democracy, the
ideal of a free
self-directing people, responsive to leadership
in the forming of
programs and their execution, but insistent
that the procedure should be
that of free choice, not of compulsion.
But there was also the ideal of individualism.
This democratic society
was not a disciplined army, where all must
keep step and where the
collective interests destroyed individual
will and work. Rather it was a
mobile mass of freely circulating atoms, each
seeking its own place and
finding play for its own powers and for its
own original initiative. We
cannot lay too much stress upon this point,
for it was at the very heart
of the whole American movement. The world
was to be made a better world
by the example of a democracy in which there
was freedom of the
individual, in which there was the vitality
and mobility productive of
originality and variety.
Bearing in mind the far-reaching influence
of the disappearance of
unlimited resources open to all men for the
taking, and considering the
recoil of the common man when he saw the outcome
of the competitive
struggle for these resources as the supply
came to its end over most of
the nation, we can understand the reaction
against individualism and in
favor of drastic assertion of the powers of
government. Legislation is
taking the place of the free lands as the
means of preserving the ideal
of democracy. But at the same time it is endangering
the other pioneer
ideal of creative and competitive individualism.
Both were essential and
constituted what was best in America's contribution
to history and to
progress. Both must be preserved if the nation
would be true to its
past, and would fulfil its highest destiny.
It would be a grave
misfortune if these people so rich in experience,
in self-confidence and
aspiration, in creative genius, should turn
to some Old World discipline
of socialism or plutocracy, or despotic rule,
whether by class or by
dictator. Nor shall we be driven to these
alternatives. Our ancient
hopes, our courageous faith, our underlying
good humor and love of fair
play will triumph in the end. There will be
give and take in all
directions. There will be disinterested leadership,
under loyalty to the
best American ideals. Nowhere is this leadership
more likely to arise
than among the men trained in the Universities,
aware of the promise of
the past and the possibilities of the future.
The times call for new
ambitions and new motives.
In a most suggestive essay on the Problems
of Modern Democracy, Mr.
Godkin has said:
M. de Tocqueville and all his followers take
it for granted
that the great incentive to excellence, in
all countries in
which excellence is found, is the patronage
and encouragement
of an aristocracy; that democracy is generally
content with
mediocrity. But where is the proof of this?
The incentive to
exertion which is widest, most constant, and
most powerful in
its operations in all civilized countries,
is the desire of
distinction; and this may be composed either
of love of fame
or love of wealth or of both. In literary
and artistic and
scientific pursuits, sometimes the strongest
influence is
exerted by a love of the subject. But it may
safely be said
that no man has ever labored in any of the
higher colleges to
whom the applause and appreciation of his
fellows was not one
of the sweetest rewards of his exertions.
What is there we would ask, in the nature
of democratic
institutions, that should render this great
spring of action
powerless, that should deprive glory of all
radiance, and put
ambition to sleep? Is it not notorious, on
the contrary, that
one of the most marked peculiarities of democratic
society, or
of a society drifting toward democracy, is
the fire of
competition which rages in it, the fevered
anxiety which
possesses all its members to rise above the
dead level to
which the law is ever seeking to confine them,
and by some
brilliant stroke become something higher and
more remarkable
than their fellows? The secret of that great
restlessness
which is one of the most disagreeable accompaniments
of life
in democratic countries, is in fact due to
the eagerness of
everybody to grasp the prizes of which in
aristocratic
countries, only the few have much chance.
And in no other
society is success more worshiped, is distinction
of any kind
more widely flattered and caressed.
In democratic societies, in fact, excellence
is the first
title to distinction; in aristocratic ones
there are two or
three others which are far stronger and which
must be stronger
or aristocracy could not exist. The moment
you acknowledge
that the highest social position ought to
be the reward of the
man who has the most talent, you make aristocratic
institutions impossible.
All that was buoyant and creative in American
life would be lost if we
gave up the respect for distinct personality,
and variety in genius, and
came to the dead level of common standards.
To be "socialized into an
average" and placed "under the tutelage of
the mass of us," as a recent
writer has put it, would be an irreparable
loss. Nor is it necessary in
a democracy, as these words of Godkin well
disclose. What is needed is
the multiplication of motives for ambition
and the opening of new lines
of achievement for the strongest. As we turn
from the task of the first
rough conquest of the continent there lies
before us a whole wealth of
unexploited resources in the realm of the
spirit. Arts and letters,
science and better social creation, loyalty
and political service to the
commonweal,--these and a thousand other directions
of activity are open
to the men, who formerly under the incentive
of attaining distinction by
amassing extraordinary wealth, saw success
only in material display.
Newer and finer careers will open to the ambitious
when once public
opinion shall award the laurels to those who
rise above their fellows in
these new fields of labor. It has not been
the gold, but the getting of
the gold, that has caught the imaginations
of our captains of industry.
Their real enjoyment lay not in the luxuries
which wealth brought, but
in the work of construction and in the place
which society awarded them.
A new era will come if schools and universities
can only widen the
intellectual horizon of the people, help to
lay the foundations of a
better industrial life, show them new goals
for endeavor, inspire them
with more varied and higher ideals.
The Western spirit must be invoked for new
and nobler achievements. Of
that matured Western spirit, Tennyson's Ulysses
is a symbol.
". . . I am become a name
For always roaming with an hungry heart,
Much have I seen and known . . .
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch, where thro'
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin
fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
* * * * *
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a shining star
Beyond the utmost hound of human thought.
. . . Come my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the Western stars until I die
* * * * *
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."
FOOTNOTES:
[290:1] Commencement Address, University of
Washington, June 17, 1914.
Reprinted by permission from _The Washington
Historical Quarterly_,
October, 1914.
XII
SOCIAL FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY[311:1]
The transformations through which the United
States is passing in our
own day are so profound, so far-reaching,
that it is hardly an
exaggeration to say that we are witnessing
the birth of a new nation in
America. The revolution in the social and
economic structure of this
country during the past two decades is comparable
to what occurred when
independence was declared and the constitution
was formed, or to the
changes wrought by the era which began half
a century ago, the era of
Civil War and Reconstruction.
These changes have been long in preparation
and are, in part, the result
of world-wide forces of reorganization incident
to the age of steam
production and large-scale industry, and,
in part, the result of the
closing of the period of the colonization
of the West. They have been
prophesied, and the course of the movement
partly described by students
of American development; but after all, it
is with a shock that the
people of the United States are coming to
realize that the fundamental
forces which have shaped their society up
to the present are
disappearing. Twenty years ago, as I have
before had occasion to point
out, the Superintendent of the Census declared
that the frontier line,
which its maps had depicted for decade after
decade of the westward
march of the nation, could no longer be described.
To-day we must add
that the age of free competition of individuals
for the unpossessed
resources of the nation is nearing its end.
It is taking less than a
generation to write the chapter which began
with the disappearance of
the line of the frontier--the last chapter
in the history of the
colonization of the United States, the conclusion
to the annals of its
pioneer democracy.
It is a wonderful chapter, this final rush
of American energy upon the
remaining wilderness. Even the bare statistics
become eloquent of a new
era. They no longer derive their significance
from the exhibit of vast
proportions of the public domain transferred
to agriculture, of
wildernesses equal to European nations changed
decade after decade into
the farm area of the United States. It is
true there was added to the
farms of the nation between 1870 and 1880
a territory equal to that of
France, and between 1880 and 1900 a territory
equal to the European area
of France, Germany, England, and Wales combined.
The records of 1910 are
not yet available, but whatever they reveal
they will not be so full of
meaning as the figures which tell of upleaping
wealth and organization
and concentration of industrial power in the
East in the last decade. As
the final provinces of the Western empire
have been subdued to the
purposes of civilization and have yielded
their spoils, as the spheres
of operation of the great industrial corporations
have extended, with
the extension of American settlement, production
and wealth have
increased beyond all precedent.
The total deposits in all national banks have
more than trebled in the
present decade; the money in circulation has
doubled since 1890. The
flood of gold makes it difficult to gage the
full meaning of the
incredible increase in values, for in the
decade ending with 1909 over
41,600,000 ounces of gold were mined in the
United States alone. Over
four million ounces have been produced every
year since 1905, whereas
between 1880 and 1894 no year showed a production
of two million ounces.
As a result of this swelling stream of gold
and instruments of credit,
aided by a variety of other causes, prices
have risen until their height
has become one of the most marked features
and influential factors in
American life, producing social readjustments
and contributing
effectively to party revolutions.
But if we avoid those statistics which require
analysis because of the
changing standard of value, we still find
that the decade occupies an
exceptional place in American history. More
coal was mined in the United
States in the ten years after 1897 than in
all the life of the nation
before that time.[313:1] Fifty years ago we
mined less than fifteen
million long tons of coal. In 1907 we mined
nearly 429,000,000. At the
present rate it is estimated that the supply
of coal would be exhausted
at a date no farther in the future than the
formation of the
constitution is in the past. Iron and coal
are the measures of
industrial power. The nation has produced
three times as much iron ore
in the past two decades as in all its previous
history; the production
of the past ten years was more than double
that of the prior decade.
Pig-iron production is admitted to be an excellent
barometer of
manufacture and of transportation. Never until
1898 had this reached an
annual total of ten million long tons. But
in the five years beginning
with 1904 it averaged over twice that. By
1907 the United States had
surpassed Great Britain, Germany, and France
combined in the production
of pig-iron and steel together, and in the
same decade a single great
corporation has established its domination
over the iron mines and steel
manufacture of the United States. It is more
than a mere accident that
the United States Steel Corporation with its
stocks and bonds
aggregating $1,400,000,000 was organized at
the beginning of the present
decade. The former wilderness about Lake Superior
has, principally in
the past two decades, established its position
as overwhelmingly the
preponderant source of iron ore, present and
prospective, in the United
States--a treasury from which Pittsburgh has
drawn wealth and extended
its unparalleled industrial empire in these
years. The tremendous
energies thus liberated at this center of
industrial power in the United
States revolutionized methods of manufacture
in general, and in many
indirect ways profoundly influenced the life
of the nation.
Railroad statistics also exhibit unprecedented
development, the
formation of a new industrial society. The
number of passengers carried
one mile more than doubled between 1890 and
1908; freight carried one
mile has nearly trebled in the same period
and has doubled in the past
decade. Agricultural products tell a different
story. The corn crop has
only risen from about two billion bushels
in 1891 to two and
seven-tenths billions in 1909; wheat from
six hundred and eleven million
bushels in 1891 to only seven hundred and
thirty-seven million in 1909;
and cotton from about nine million bales in
1891 to ten and three-tenths
million bales in 1909. Population has increased
in the United States
proper from about sixty-two and one-half millions
in 1890 to
seventy-five and one-half millions in 1900
and to over ninety millions
in 1910.
It is clear from these statistics that the
ratio of the nation's
increased production of immediate wealth by
the enormously increased
exploitation of its remaining natural resources
vastly exceeds the ratio
of increase of population and still more strikingly
exceeds the ratio of
increase of agricultural products. Already
population is pressing upon
the food supply while capital consolidates
in billion-dollar
organizations. The "Triumphant Democracy"
whose achievements the
iron-master celebrated has reached a stature
even more imposing than he
could have foreseen; but still less did he
perceive the changes in
democracy itself and the conditions of its
life which have accompanied
this material growth.
Having colonized the Far West, having mastered
its internal resources,
the nation turned at the conclusion of the
nineteenth and the beginning
of the twentieth century to deal with the
Far East to engage in the
world-politics of the Pacific Ocean. Having
continued its historic
expansion into the lands of the old Spanish
empire by the successful
outcome of the recent war, the United States
became the mistress of the
Philippines at the same time that it came
into possession of the
Hawaiian Islands, and the controlling influence
in the Gulf of Mexico.
It provided early in the present decade for
connecting its Atlantic and
Pacific coasts by the Isthmian Canal, and
became an imperial republic
with dependencies and protectorates--admittedly
a new world-power, with
a potential voice in the problems of Europe,
Asia, and Africa.
This extension of power, this undertaking
of grave responsibilities in
new fields, this entry into the sisterhood
of world-states, was no
isolated event. It was, indeed, in some respects
the logical outcome of
the nation's march to the Pacific, the sequence
to the era in which it
was engaged in occupying the free lands and
exploiting the resources of
the West. When it had achieved this position
among the nations of the
earth, the United States found itself confronted,
also, with the need of
constitutional readjustment, arising from
the relations of federal
government and territorial acquisitions. It
was obliged to reconsider
questions of the rights of man and traditional
American ideals of
liberty and democracy, in view of the task
of government of other races
politically inexperienced and undeveloped.
If we turn to consider the effect upon American
society and domestic
policy in these two decades of transition
we are met with palpable
evidences of the invasion of the old pioneer
democratic order. Obvious
among them is the effect of unprecedented
immigration to supply the
mobile army of cheap labor for the centers
of industrial life. In the
past ten years, beginning with 1900, over
eight million immigrants have
arrived. The newcomers of the eight years
since 1900 would, according to
a writer in 1908, "repopulate all the five
older New England States as
they stand to-day; or, if properly disseminated
over the newer parts of
the country they would serve to populate no
less than nineteen states of
the Union as they stand." In 1907 "there were
one and one-quarter
million arrivals. This number would entirely
populate both New Hampshire
and Maine, two of our oldest States." "The
arrivals of this one year
would found a State with more inhabitants
than any one of twenty-one of
our other existing commonwealths which could
be named." Not only has the
addition to the population from Europe been
thus extraordinary, it has
come in increasing measure from southern and
eastern Europe. For the
year 1907, Professor Ripley,[316:1] whom I
am quoting, has redistributed
the incomers on the basis of physical type
and finds that one-quarter of
them were of the Mediterranean race, one-quarter
of the Slavic race,
one-eighth Jewish, and only one-sixth of the
Alpine, and one-sixth of
the Teutonic. In 1882 Germans had come to
the amount of 250,000; in 1907
they were replaced by 330,000 South Italians.
Thus it is evident that
the ethnic elements of the United States have
undergone startling
changes; and instead of spreading over the
nation these immigrants have
concentrated especially in the cities and
great industrial centers in
the past decade. The composition of the labor
class and its relation to
wages and to the native American employer
have been deeply influenced
thereby; the sympathy of the employers with
labor has been unfavorably
affected by the pressure of great numbers
of immigrants of alien
nationality and of lower standards of life.
The familiar facts of the massing of population
in the cities and the
contemporaneous increase of urban power, and
of the massing of capital
and production in fewer and vastly greater
industrial units, especially
attest the revolution. "It is a proposition
too plain to require
elucidation," wrote Richard Rush, Secretary
of the Treasury, in his
report of 1827, "that the creation of capital
is retarded rather than
accelerated by the diffusion of a thin population
over a great surface
of soil."[317:1] Thirty years before Rush
wrote these words Albert
Gallatin declared in Congress that "if the
cause of the happiness of
this country were examined into, it would
be found to arise as much from
the great plenty of land in proportion to
the inhabitants which their
citizens enjoyed as from the wisdom of their
political institutions."
Possibly both of these Pennsylvania financiers
were right under the
conditions of the time; but it is at least
significant that capital and
labor entered upon a new era as the end of
the free lands approached. A
contemporary of Gallatin in Congress had replied
to the argument that
cheap lands would depopulate the Atlantic
coast by saying that if a law
were framed to prevent ready access to western
lands it would be
tantamount to saying that there is some class
which must remain "and by
law be obliged to serve the others for such
wages as they pleased to
give." The passage of the arable public domain
into private possession
has raised this question in a new form and
has brought forth new
answers. This is peculiarly the era when competitive
individualism in
the midst of vast unappropriated opportunities
changed into the
monopoly of the fundamental industrial processes
by huge aggregations of
capital as the free lands disappeared. All
the tendencies of the
large-scale production of the twentieth century,
all the trend to the
massing of capital in large combinations,
all of the energies of the age
of steam, found in America exceptional freedom
of action and were
offered regions of activity equal to the states
of all Western Europe.
Here they reached their highest development.
The decade following 1897 is marked by the
work of Mr. Harriman and his
rivals in building up the various railroads
into a few great groups, a
process that had gone so far that before his
death Mr. Harriman was
ambitious to concentrate them all under his
single control. High finance
under the leadership of Mr. Morgan steadily
achieved the consolidation
of the greater industries into trusts or combinations
and effected a
community of interests between them and a
few dominant banking
organizations, with allied insurance companies
and trust companies. In
New York City have been centered, as never
before, the banking reserves
of the nation, and here, by the financial
management of capital and
speculative promotion, there has grown up
a unified control over the
nation's industrial life. Colossal private
fortunes have arisen. No
longer is the per capita wealth of the nation
a real index to the
prosperity of the average man. Labor on the
other hand has shown an
increasing self-consciousness, is combining
and increasing its demands.
In a word, the old pioneer individualism is
disappearing, while the
forces of social combination are manifesting
themselves as never before.
The self-made man has become, in popular speech,
the coal baron, the
steel king, the oil king, the cattle king,
the railroad magnate, the
master of high finance, the monarch of trusts.
The world has never
before seen such huge fortunes exercising
combined control over the
economic life of a people, and such luxury
as has come out of the
individualistic pioneer democracy of America
in the course of
competitive evolution.
At the same time the masters of industry,
who control interests which
represent billions of dollars, do not admit
that they have broken with
pioneer ideals. They regard themselves as
pioneers under changed
conditions, carrying on the old work of developing
the natural resources
of the nation, compelled by the constructive
fever in their veins, even
in ill-health and old age and after the accumulation
of wealth beyond
their power to enjoy, to seek new avenues
of action and of power, to
chop new clearings, to find new trails, to
expand the horizon of the
nation's activity, and to extend the scope
of their dominion. "This
country," said the late Mr. Harriman in an
interview a few years ago,
"has been developed by a wonderful people,
flush with enthusiasm,
imagination and speculative bent. . . . They
have been magnificent
pioneers. They saw into the future and adapted
their work to the
possibilities. . . . Stifle that enthusiasm,
deaden that imagination and
prohibit that speculation by restrictive and
cramping conservative law,
and you tend to produce a moribund and conservative
people and country."
This is an appeal to the historic ideals of
Americans who viewed the
republic as the guardian of individual freedom
to compete for the
control of the natural resources of the nation.
On the other hand, we have the voice of the
insurgent West, recently
given utterance in the New Nationalism of
ex-President Roosevelt,
demanding increase of federal authority to
curb the special interests,
the powerful industrial organizations, and
the monopolies, for the sake
of the conservation of our natural resources
and the preservation of
American democracy.
The past decade has witnessed an extraordinary
federal activity in
limiting individual and corporate freedom
for the benefit of society. To
that decade belong the conservation congresses
and the effective
organization of the Forest Service, and the
Reclamation Service. Taken
together these developments alone would mark
a new era, for over three
hundred million acres are, as a result of
this policy, reserved from
entry and sale, an area more than equal to
that of all the states which
established the constitution, if we exclude
their western claims; and
these reserved lands are held for a more beneficial
use of their
forests, minerals, arid tracts, and water
rights, by the nation as a
whole. Another example is the extension of
the activity of the
Department of Agriculture, which seeks the
remotest regions of the earth
for crops suitable to the areas reclaimed
by the government, maps and
analyzes the soils, fosters the improvement
of seeds and animals, tells
the farmer when and how and what to plant,
and makes war upon diseases
of plants and animals and insect pests. The
recent legislation for pure
food and meat inspection, and the whole mass
of regulative law under the
Interstate Commerce clause of the constitution,
further illustrates the
same tendency.
Two ideals were fundamental in traditional
American thought, ideals that
developed in the pioneer era. One was that
of individual freedom to
compete unrestrictedly for the resources of
a continent--the squatter
ideal. To the pioneer government was an evil.
The other was the ideal of
a democracy--"government of the people, by
the people and for the
people." The operation of these ideals took
place contemporaneously with
the passing into private possession of the
free public domain and the
natural resources of the United States. But
American democracy was based
on an abundance of free lands; these were
the very conditions that
shaped its growth and its fundamental traits.
Thus time has revealed
that these two ideals of pioneer democracy
had elements of mutual
hostility and contained the seeds of its dissolution.
The present finds
itself engaged in the task of readjusting
its old ideals to new
conditions and is turning increasingly to
government to preserve its
traditional democracy. It is not surprising
that socialism shows
noteworthy gains as elections continue; that
parties are forming on new
lines; that the demand for primary elections,
for popular choice of
senators, initiative, referendum, and recall,
is spreading, and that the
regions once the center of pioneer democracy
exhibit these tendencies in
the most marked degree. They are efforts to
find substitutes for that
former safeguard of democracy, the disappearing
free lands. They are the
sequence to the extinction of the frontier.
It is necessary next to notice that in the
midst of all this national
energy, and contemporaneous with the tendency
to turn to the national
government for protection to democracy, there
is clear evidence of the
persistence and the development of sectionalism.[321:1]
Whether we
observe the grouping of votes in Congress
and in general elections, or
the organization and utterances of business
leaders, or the association
of scholars, churches, or other representatives
of the things of the
spirit, we find that American life is not
only increasing in its
national intensity but that it is integrating
by sections. In part this
is due to the factor of great spaces which
make sectional rather than
national organization the line of least resistance;
but, in part, it is
also the expression of the separate economic,
political, and social
interests and the separate spiritual life
of the various geographic
provinces or sections. The votes on the tariff,
and in general the
location of the strongholds of the Progressive
Republican movement,
illustrate this fact. The difficulty of a
national adjustment of railway
rates to the diverse interests of different
sections is another
example. Without attempting to enter upon
a more extensive discussion of
sectionalism, I desire simply to point out
that there are evidences that
now, as formerly, the separate geographical
interests have their leaders
and spokesmen, that much Congressional legislation
is determined by the
contests, triumphs, or compromises between
the rival sections, and that
the real federal relations of the United States
are shaped by the
interplay of sectional with national forces
rather than by the relation
of State and Nation. As time goes on and the
nation adjusts itself more
durably to the conditions of the differing
geographic sections which
make it up, they are coming to a new self-consciousness
and a revived
self-assertion. Our national character is
a composite of these
sections.[322:1]
Obviously in attempting to indicate even a
portion of the significant
features of our recent history we have been
obliged to take note of a
complex of forces. The times are so close
at hand that the relations
between events and tendencies force themselves
upon our attention. We
have had to deal with the connections of geography,
industrial growth,
politics, and government. With these we must
take into consideration the
changing social composition, the inherited
beliefs and habitual attitude
of the masses of the people, the psychology
of the nation and of the
separate sections, as well as of the leaders.
We must see how these
leaders are shaped partly by their time and
section, and how they are in
part original, creative, by virtue of their
own genius and initiative.
We cannot neglect the moral tendencies and
the ideals. All are related
parts of the same subject and can no more
be properly understood in
isolation than the movement as a whole can
be understood by neglecting
some of these important factors, or by the
use of a single method of
investigation. Whatever be the truth regarding
European history,
American history is chiefly concerned with
social forces, shaping and
reshaping under the conditions of a nation
changing as it adjusts to its
environment. And this environment progressively
reveals new aspects of
itself, exerts new influences, and calls out
new social organs and
functions.
I have undertaken this rapid survey of recent
history for two purposes.
First, because it has seemed fitting to emphasize
the significance of
American development since the passing of
the frontier, and, second,
because in the observation of present conditions
we may find assistance
in our study of the past.
It is a familiar doctrine that each age studies
its history anew and
with interests determined by the spirit of
the time. Each age finds it
necessary to reconsider at least some portion
of the past, from points
of view furnished by new conditions which
reveal the influence and
significance of forces not adequately known
by the historians of the
previous generation. Unquestionably each investigator
and writer is
influenced by the times in which he lives
and while this fact exposes
the historian to a bias, at the same time
it affords him new instruments
and new insight for dealing with his subject.
If recent history, then, gives new meaning
to past events, if it has to
deal with the rise into a commanding position
of forces, the origin and
growth of which may have been inadequately
described or even overlooked
by historians of the previous generation,
it is important to study the
present and the recent past, not only for
themselves but also as the
source of new hypotheses, new lines of inquiry,
new criteria of the
perspective of the remoter past. And, moreover,
a just public opinion
and a statesmanlike treatment of present problems
demand that they be
seen in their historical relations in order
that history may hold the
lamp for conservative reform.
Seen from the vantage-ground of present developments
what new light
falls upon past events! When we consider what
the Mississippi Valley has
come to be in American life, and when we consider
what it is yet to be,
the young Washington, crossing the snows of
the wilderness to summon the
French to evacuate the portals of the great
valley, becomes the herald
of an empire. When we recall the huge industrial
power that has centered
at Pittsburgh, Braddock's advance to the forks
of the Ohio takes on new
meaning. Even in defeat, he opened a road
to what is now the center of
the world's industrial energy. The modifications
which England proposed
in 1794 to John Jay in the northwestern boundary
of the United States
from the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi,
seemed to him, doubtless,
significant chiefly as a matter of principle
and as a question of the
retention or loss of beaver grounds. The historians
hardly notice the
proposals. But they involved, in fact, the
ownership of the richest and
most extensive deposits of iron ore in America,
the all-important source
of a fundamental industry of the United States,
the occasion for the
rise of some of the most influential forces
of our time.
What continuity and meaning are furnished
by the outcome in present
times of the movements of minor political
parties and reform agitations!
To the historian they have often seemed to
be mere curious side eddies,
vexatious distractions to the course of his
literary craft as it
navigated the stream of historical tendency.
And yet, by the revelation
of the present, what seemed to be side eddies
have not seldom proven to
be the concealed entrances to the main current,
and the course which
seemed the central one has led to blind channels
and stagnant waters,
important in their day, but cut off like oxbow
lakes from the mighty
river of historical progress by the mere permanent
and compelling forces
of the neglected currents.
We may trace the contest between the capitalist
and the democratic
pioneer from the earliest colonial days. It
is influential in colonial
parties. It is seen in the vehement protests
of Kentucky frontiersmen in
petition after petition to the Congress of
the Confederation against the
"nabobs" and men of wealth who took out titles
to the pioneers' farms
while they themselves were too busy defending
those farms from the
Indians to perfect their claims. It is seen
in the attitude of the Ohio
Valley in its backwoods days before the rise
of the Whig party, as when
in 1811 Henry Clay denounced the Bank of the
United States as a
corporation which throve on special privileges--"a
special association
of favored individuals taken from the mass
of society, and invested with
exemptions and surrounded by immunities and
privileges." Benton voiced
the same contest twenty years later when he
denounced the bank as
a company of private individuals, many of
them foreigners, and
the mass of them residing in a remote and
narrow corner of the
Union, unconnected by any sympathy with the
fertile regions of
the Great Valley in which the natural power
of this Union, the
power of numbers, will be found to reside
long before the
renewed term of the second charter would expire.
"And where," he asked, "would all this power
and money center? In the
great cities of the Northeast, which have
been for forty years and that
by force of federal legislation, the lion's
den of Southern and Western
money--that den into which all the tracks
point inward; from which the
returning track of a solitary dollar has never
yet been seen."
Declaring, in words that have a very modern
sound, that the bank tended
to multiply nabobs and paupers, and that "a
great moneyed power is
favorable to great capitalists, for it is
the principle of capital to
favor capital," he appealed to the fact of
the country's extent and its
sectional divergences against the nationalizing
of capital.
What a condition for a confederacy of states!
What grounds for
alarm and terrible apprehension when in a
confederacy of such
vast extent, so many rival commercial cities,
so much
sectional jealousy, such violent political
parties, such
fierce contests for power, there should be
but one moneyed
tribunal before which all the rival and contending
elements
must appear.
Even more vehement were the words of Jackson
in 1837. "It is now plain,"
he wrote, "that the war is to be carried on
by the monied aristocracy of
the few against the democracy of numbers;
the [prosperous] to make the
honest laborers hewers of wood and drawers
of water through the credit
and paper system."
Van Buren's administration is usually passed
hastily over with hardly
more than mention of his Independent Treasury
plan, and with particular
consideration of the slavery discussion. But
some of the most important
movements in American social and political
history began in these years
of Jackson and Van Buren. Read the demands
of the obscure labor papers
and the reports of labor's open-air meetings
anew, and you will find in
the utterances of so-called labor visionaries
and the Locofoco champions
of "equal rights for all and special privileges
for none," like Evans
and Jacques, Byrdsall and Leggett, the finger
points to the currents
that now make the main channel of our history;
you will find in them
some of the important planks of the platforms
of the triumphant parties
of our own day. As Professor Commons has shown
by his papers and the
documents which he has published on labor
history, an idealistic but
widespread and influential humanitarian movement,
strikingly similar to
that of the present, arose in the years between
1830 and 1850, dealing
with social forces in American life, animated
by a desire to apply the
public lands to social amelioration, eager
to find new forms of
democratic development. But the flood of the
slavery struggle swept all
of these movements into its mighty inundation
for the time. After the
war, other influences delayed the revival
of the movement. The railroads
opened the wide prairies after 1850 and made
it easy to reach them; and
decade after decade new sections were reduced
to the purposes of
civilization and to the advantages of the
common man as well as the
promotion of great individual fortunes. The
nation centered its
interests in the development of the West.
It is only in our own day that
this humanitarian democratic wave has reached
the level of those earlier
years. But in the meantime there are clear
evidences of the persistence
of the forces, even though under strange guise.
Read the platforms of
the Greenback-Labor, the Granger, and the
Populist parties, and you will
find in those platforms, discredited and reprobated
by the major parties
of the time, the basic proposals of the Democratic
party after its
revolution under the leadership of Mr. Bryan,
and of the Republican
party after its revolution by Mr. Roosevelt.
The Insurgent movement is
so clearly related to the areas and elements
that gave strength to this
progressive assertion of old democratic ideals
with new weapons, that it
must be regarded as the organized refusal
of these persistent
tendencies to be checked by the advocates
of more moderate measures.
I have dealt with these fragments of party
history, not, of course, with
the purpose of expressing any present judgment
upon them, but to
emphasize and give concreteness to the fact
that there is disclosed by
present events a new significance to these
contests of radical democracy
and conservative interests; that they are
rather a continuing expression
of deep-seated forces than fragmentary and
sporadic curios for the
historical museum.
If we should survey the history of our lands
from a similar point of
view, considering the relations of legislation
and administration of the
public domain to the structure of American
democracy, it would yield a
return far beyond that offered by the formal
treatment of the subject in
most of our histories. We should find in the
squatter doctrines and
practices, the seizure of the best soils,
the taking of public timber on
the theory of a right to it by the labor expended
on it, fruitful
material for understanding the atmosphere
and ideals under which the
great corporations developed the West. Men
like Senator Benton and
Delegate Sibley in successive generations
defended the trespasses of the
pioneer and the lumberman upon the public
forest lands, and denounced
the paternal government that "harassed" these
men, who were engaged in
what we should call stealing government timber.
It is evident that at
some time between the middle of the nineteenth
century and the present
time, when we impose jail sentences upon Congressmen
caught in such
violations of the land laws, a change came
over the American conscience
and the civic ideals were modified. That our
great industrial
enterprises developed in the midst of these
changing ideals is important
to recall when we write the history of their
activity.
We should find also that we cannot understand
the land question without
seeing its relations to the struggle of sections
and classes bidding
against each other and finding in the public
domain a most important
topic of political bargaining. We should find,
too, that the settlement
of unlike geographic areas in the course of
the nation's progress
resulted in changes in the effect of the land
laws; that a system
intended for the humid prairies was ill-adjusted
to the grazing lands
and coal fields and to the forests in the
days of large-scale
exploitation by corporations commanding great
capital. Thus changing
geographic factors as well as the changing
character of the forces which
occupied the public domain must be considered,
if we would understand
the bearing of legislation and policy in this
field.[329:1] It is
fortunate that suggestive studies of democracy
and the land policy have
already begun to appear.
The whole subject of American agriculture
viewed in relation to the
economic, political, and social life of the
nation has important
contributions to make. If, for example, we
study the maps showing the
transition of the wheat belt from the East
to the West, as the virgin
soils were conquered and made new bases for
destructive competition with
the older wheat States, we shall see how deeply
they affected not only
land values, railroad building, the movement
of population, and the
supply of cheap food, but also how the regions
once devoted to single
cropping of wheat were forced to turn to varied
and intensive
agriculture and to diversified industry, and
we shall see also how these
transformations affected party politics and
even the ideals of the
Americans of the regions thus changed. We
shall find in the
over-production of wheat in the provinces
thus rapidly colonized, and in
the over-production of silver in the mountain
provinces which were
contemporaneously exploited, important explanations
of the peculiar
form which American politics took in the period
when Mr. Bryan mastered
the Democratic party, just as we shall find
in the opening of the new
gold fields in the years immediately following,
and in the passing of
the era of almost free virgin wheat soils,
explanations of the more
recent period when high prices are giving
new energy and aggressiveness
to the demands of the new American industrial
democracy.
Enough has been said, it may be assumed, to
make clear the point which I
am trying to elucidate, namely that a comprehension
of the United States
of to-day, an understanding of the rise and
progress of the forces which
have made it what it is, demands that we should
rework our history from
the new points of view afforded by the present.
If this is done, it will
be seen, for example, that the progress of
the struggle between North
and South over slavery and the freed negro,
which held the principal
place in American interest in the two decades
after 1850, was, after
all, only one of the interests in the time.
The pages of the
Congressional debates, the contemporary newspapers,
the public documents
of those twenty years, remain a rich mine
for those who will seek
therein the sources of movements dominant
in the present day.
The final consideration to which I ask your
attention in this discussion
of social forces in American life, is with
reference to the mode of
investigating them and the bearing of these
investigations upon the
relations and the goal of history. It has
become a precedent, fairly
well established by the distinguished scholars
who have held the office
which I am about to lay down, to state a position
with reference to the
relations of history and its sister-studies,
and even to raise the
question of the attitude of the historian
toward the laws of
thermodynamics and to seek to find the key
of historical development or
of historical degradation. It is not given
to all to bend the bow of
Ulysses. I shall attempt a lesser task.
We may take some lessons from the scientist.
He has enriched knowledge
especially in recent years by attacking the
no-man's lands left
unexplored by the too sharp delimitation of
spheres of activity. These
new conquests have been especially achieved
by the combination of old
sciences. Physical chemistry, electro-chemistry,
geo-physics,
astro-physics, and a variety of other scientic
unions have led to
audacious hypotheses, veritable flashes of
vision, which open new
regions of activity for a generation of investigators.
Moreover they
have promoted such investigations by furnishing
new instruments of
research. Now in some respects there is an
analogy between geology and
history. The new geologist aims to describe
the inorganic earth
dynamically in terms of natural law, using
chemistry, physics,
mathematics, and even botany and zoölogy
so far as they relate to
paleontology. But he does not insist that
the relative importance of
physical or chemical factors shall be determined
before he applies the
methods and data of these sciences to his
problem. Indeed, he has
learned that a geological area is too complex
a thing to be reduced to a
single explanation. He has abandoned the single
hypothesis for the
multiple hypothesis. He creates a whole family
of possible explanations
of a given problem and thus avoids the warping
influence of partiality
for a simple theory.
Have we not here an illustration of what is
possible and necessary for
the historian? Is it not well, before attempting
to decide whether
history requires an economic interpretation,
or a psychological, or any
other ultimate interpretation, to recognize
that the factors in human
society are varied and complex; that the political
historian handling
his subject in isolation is certain to miss
fundamental facts and
relations in his treatment of a given age
or nation; that the economic
historian is exposed to the same danger; and
so of all of the other
special historians?
Those who insist that history is simply the
effort to tell the thing
exactly as it was, to state the facts, are
confronted with the
difficulty that the fact which they would
represent is not planted on
the solid ground of fixed conditions; it is
in the midst and is itself a
part of the changing currents, the complex
and interacting influences of
the time, deriving its significance as a fact
from its relations to the
deeper-seated movements of the age, movements
so gradual that often only
the passing years can reveal the truth about
the fact and its right to a
place on the historian's page.
The economic historian is in danger of making
his analysis and his
statement of a law on the basis of present
conditions and then passing
to history for justificatory appendixes to
his conclusions. An American
economist of high rank has recently expressed
his conception of "the
full relation of economic theory, statistics,
and history" in these
words:
A principle is formulated by _a priori_ reasoning
concerning
facts of common experience; it is then tested
by statistics
and promoted to the rank of a known and acknowledged
truth;
illustrations of its action are then found
in narrative
history and, on the other hand, the economic
law becomes the
interpreter of records that would otherwise
be confusing and
comparatively valueless; the law itself derives
its final
confirmation from the illustrations of its
working which the
records afford; but what is at least of equal
importance is
the parallel fact that the law affords the
decisive test of
the correctness of those assertions concerning
the causes and
the effects of past events which it is second
nature to make
and which historians almost invariably do
make in connection
with their narrations.[333:1]
There is much in this statement by which the
historian may profit, but
he may doubt also whether the past should
serve merely as the
"illustration" by which to confirm the law
deduced from common
experience by _a priori_ reasoning tested
by statistics. In fact the
pathway of history is strewn with the wrecks
of the "known and
acknowledged truths" of economic law, due
not only to defective analysis
and imperfect statistics, but also to the
lack of critical historical
methods, of insufficient historical-mindedness
on the part of the
economist, to failure to give due attention
to the relativity and
transiency of the conditions from which his
laws were deduced.
But the point on which I would lay stress
is this. The economist, the
political scientist, the psychologist, the
sociologist, the geographer,
the student of literature, of art, of religion--all
the allied laborers
in the study of society--have contributions
to make to the equipment of
the historian. These contributions are partly
of material, partly of
tools, partly of new points of view, new hypotheses,
new suggestions of
relations, causes, and emphasis. Each of these
special students is in
some danger of bias by his particular point
of view, by his exposure to
see simply the thing in which he is primarily
interested, and also by
his effort to deduce the universal laws of
his separate science. The
historian, on the other hand, is exposed to
the danger of dealing with
the complex and interacting social forces
of a period or of a country,
from some single point of view to which his
special training or interest
inclines him. If the truth is to be made known,
the historian must so
far familiarize himself with the work, and
equip himself with the
training of his sister-subjects that he can
at least avail himself of
their results and in some reasonable degree
master the essential tools
of their trade. And the followers of the sister-studies
must likewise
familiarize themselves and their students
with the work and the methods
of the historians, and coöperate in the difficult
task.
It is necessary that the American historian
shall aim at this equipment,
not so much that he may possess the key to
history or satisfy himself in
regard to its ultimate laws. At present a
different duty is before him.
He must see in American society with its vast
spaces, its sections equal
to European nations, its geographic influences,
its brief period of
development, its variety of nationalities
and races, its extraordinary
industrial growth under the conditions of
freedom, its institutions,
culture, ideals, social psychology, and even
its religions forming and
changing almost under his eyes, one of the
richest fields ever offered
for the preliminary recognition and study
of the forces that operate and
interplay in the making of society.
FOOTNOTES:
[311:1] Annual address as the president of
the American Historical
Association, delivered at Indianapolis, December
28, 1910. Reprinted by
permission from _The American Historical Review_,
January, 1911.
[313:1] Van Hise, "Conservation of Natural
Resources," pp. 23, 24.
[316:1] _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1908,
vii, p. 745.
[317:1] [Although the words of these early
land debates are quoted above
in Chapter VI, they are repeated because of
the light they cast upon the
present problem.]
[321:1] [I have outlined this subject in various
essays, including the
article on "Sectionalism" in McLaughlin and
Hart, "Cyclopedia of
Government."]
[322:1] [It is not impossible that they may
ultimately replace the State
as the significant administrative and legislative
units. There are
strong evidences of this tendency, such as
the organization of the
Federal Reserve districts, and proposals for
railroad administration by
regions.]
[329:1] [See R. G. Wellington, "Public Lands,
1820-1840"; G. M.
Stephenson, "Public Lands, 1841-1862"; J.
Ise, "Forest Policy."]
[333:1] Professor J. B. Clark, in Commons,
ed., "Documentary History of
American Industrial Society," I. 43-44.
XIII
MIDDLE WESTERN PIONEER DEMOCRACY[335:1]
In time of war, when all that this nation
has stood for, all the things
in which it passionately believes, are at
stake, we have met to dedicate
this beautiful home for history.
There is a fitness in the occasion. It is
for historic ideals that we
are fighting. If this nation is one for which
we should pour out our
savings, postpone our differences, go hungry,
and even give up life
itself, it is not because it is a rich, extensive,
well-fed and populous
nation; it is because from its early days
America has pressed onward
toward a goal of its own; that it has followed
an ideal, the ideal of a
democracy developing under conditions unlike
those of any other age or
country.
We are fighting not for an Old World ideal,
not for an abstraction, not
for a philosophical revolution. Broad and
generous as are our
sympathies, widely scattered in origin as
are our people, keenly as we
feel the call of kinship, the thrill of sympathy
with the stricken
nations across the Atlantic, we are fighting
for the historic ideals of
the United States, for the continued existence
of the type of society in
which we believe, because we have proved it
good, for the things which
drew European exiles to our shores, and which
inspired the hopes of the
pioneers.
We are at war that the history of the United
States, rich with the
record of high human purposes, and of faith
in the destiny of the common
man under freedom, filled with the promises
of a better world, may not
become the lost and tragic story of a futile
dream.
Yes, it is an American ideal and an American
example for which we fight;
but in that ideal and example lies medicine
for the healing of the
nations. It is the best we have to give to
Europe, and it is a matter of
vital import that we shall safeguard and preserve
our power to serve the
world, and not be overwhelmed in the flood
of imperialistic force that
wills the death of democracy and would send
the freeman under the yoke.
Essential as are our contributions of wealth,
the work of our
scientists, the toil of our farmers and our
workmen in factory and
shipyard, priceless as is the stream of young
American manhood which we
pour forth to stop the flood which flows like
moulten lava across the
green fields and peaceful hamlets of Europe
toward the sea and turns to
ashes and death all that it covers, these
contributions have their
deeper meaning in the American spirit. They
are born of the love of
Democracy.
Long ago in prophetic words Walt Whitman voiced
the meaning of our
present sacrifices:
"Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present
only,
The Past is also stored in thee,
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone,
not of the Western
Continent alone,
Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel,
O ship, is steadied by
thy spars,
With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent
nations sink or
swim with thee,
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs,
heroes, epics, wars,
thou bear'st the other continents,
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port
triumphant."
Shortly before the Civil War, a great German,
exiled from his native
land for his love of freedom, came from his
new home among the pioneers
of the Middle West to set forth in Faneuil
Hall, the "cradle of
liberty," in Boston, his vision of the young
America that was forming in
the West, "the last depository of the hopes
of all true friends of
humanity." Speaking of the contrast between
the migrations to the
Mississippi Valley and those of the Old World
in other centuries, he
said:
It is now not a barbarous multitude pouncing
upon old and
decrepit empires, not a violent concussion
of tribes
accompanied by all the horrors of general
destruction, but we
see the vigorous elements--peaceably congregating
and mingling
together on virgin soil--; led together by
the irresistible
attraction of free and broad principles; undertaking
to
commence a new era in the history of the world,
without first
destroying the results of the progress of
past periods;
undertaking to found a cosmopolitan nation
without marching
over the dead bodies of slain millions.
If Carl Schurz had lived to see the outcome
of that Germany from which
he was sent as an exile, in the days when
Prussian bayonets dispersed
the legislatures and stamped out the beginnings
of democratic rule in
his former country, could he have better pictured
the contrasts between
the Prussian and the American spirit? He went
on to say:
Thus was founded the _great colony of free
humanity_, which
has not old England alone, but the _world_
for its mother
country. And in the colony of free humanity,
whose mother
country is the world, they established the
Republic of equal
rights where the title of manhood is the title
to citizenship.
My friends, if I had a thousand tongues, and
a voice as strong
as the thunder of heaven, they would not be
sufficient to
impress upon your minds forcibly enough the
greatness of this
idea, the overshadowing glory of this result.
This was the
dream of the truest friends of man from the
beginning; for
this the noblest blood of martyrs has been
shed; for this has
mankind waded through seas of blood and tears.
There it is
now; there it stands, the noble fabric in
all the splendor of
reality.
It is in a solemn and inspiring time, therefore,
that we meet to
dedicate this building, and the occasion is
fitting to the time. We may
now see, as never before, the deeper significance,
the larger meaning of
these pioneers, whose plain lives and homely
annals are glorified as a
part of the story of the building of a better
system of social justice
under freedom, a broader, and as we fervently
hope, a more enduring
foundation for the welfare and progress under
individual liberty of the
common man, an example of federation, of peaceful
adjustments by
compromise and concession under a self-governing
Republic, where
sections replace nations over a Union as large
as Europe, where party
discussions take the place of warring countries,
where the _Pax
Americana_ furnishes an example for a better
world.
As our forefathers, the pioneers, gathered
in their neighborhood to
raise the log cabin, and sanctified it by
the name of home, the dwelling
place of pioneer ideals, so we meet to celebrate
the raising of this
home, this shrine of Minnesota's historic
life. It symbolizes the
conviction that the past and the future of
this people are tied
together; that this Historical Society is
the keeper of the records of a
noteworthy movement in the progress of mankind;
that these records are
not unmeaning and antiquarian, but even in
their details are worthy of
preservation for their revelation of the beginnings
of society in the
midst of a nation caught by the vision of
a better future for the world.
Let me repeat the words of Harriet Martineau,
who portrayed the American
of the thirties:
I regard the American people as a great embryo
poet, now
moody, now wild, but bringing out results
of absolute good
sense; restless and wayward in action, but
with deep peace at
his heart; exulting that he has caught the
true aspect of
things past and the depth of futurity which
lies before him,
wherein to create something so magnificent
as the world has
scarcely begun to dream of. There is the strongest
hope of a
nation that is capable of being possessed
with an idea.
And recall her appeal to the American people
to "cherish their high
democratic hope, their faith in man. The older
they grow the more they
must reverence the dreams of their youth."
The dreams of their youth! Here they shall
be preserved, and the
achievements as well as the aspirations of
the men who made the State,
the men who built on their foundations, the
men with large vision and
power of action, the lesser men in the mass,
the leaders who served the
State and nation with devotion to the cause.
Here shall be preserved the
record of the men who failed to see the larger
vision and worked
impatiently with narrow or selfish or class
ends, as well as of those
who labored with patience and sympathy and
mutual concession, with
readiness to make adjustments and to subordinate
their immediate
interests to the larger good and the immediate
safety of the nation.
In the archives of such an old institution
as that of the Historical
Society of Massachusetts, whose treasures
run to the beginnings of the
Puritan colonization, the students cannot
fail to find the evidence that
a State Historical Society is a Book of Judgment
wherein is made up the
record of a people and its leaders. So, as
time unfolds, shall be the
collections of this Society, the depository
of the material that shall
preserve the memory of this people. Each section
of this widely extended
and varied nation has its own peculiar past,
its special form of
society, its traits and its leaders. It were
a pity if any section left
its annals solely to the collectors of a remote
region, and it were a
pity if its collections were not transformed
into printed documents and
monographic studies which can go to the libraries
of all the parts of
the Union and thus enable the student to see
the nation as a whole in
its past as well as in its present.
This Society finds its special field of activity
in a great State of the
Middle West, so new, as history reckons time,
that its annals are still
predominantly those of the pioneers, but so
rapidly growing that already
the era of the pioneers is a part of the history
of the past, capable of
being handled objectively, seen in a perspective
that is not possible to
the observer of the present conditions.
Because of these facts I have taken as the
special theme of this address
the Middle Western Pioneer Democracy, which
I would sketch in some of
its outstanding aspects, and chiefly in the
generation before the Civil
War, for it was from those pioneers that the
later colonization to the
newer parts of the Mississippi Valley derived
much of their traits, and
from whom large numbers of them came.
The North Central States as a whole is a region
comparable to all of
Central Europe. Of these States, a large part
of the old
Northwest,--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan
and Wisconsin; and their
sisters beyond the Mississippi--Missouri,
Iowa and Minnesota--were
still, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
the home of an
essentially pioneer society. Within the lifetime
of many living men,
Wisconsin was called the "Far West," and Minnesota
was a land of the
Indian and the fur traders, a wilderness of
forest and prairie beyond
the "edge of cultivation." That portion of
this great region which was
still in the pioneering period of settlement
by 1850 was alone about as
extensive as the old thirteen States, or Germany
and Austria-Hungary
combined. The region was a huge geographic
mold for a new society,
modeled by nature on the scale of the Great
Lakes, the Ohio Valley, the
upper Mississippi and the Missouri. Simple
and majestic in its vast
outlines it was graven into a variety that
in its detail also had a
largeness of design. From the Great Lakes
extended the massive glacial
sheet which covered that mighty basin and
laid down treasures of soil.
Vast forests of pine shrouded its upper zone,
breaking into hardwood and
the oak openings as they neared the ocean-like
expanses of the prairies.
Forests again along the Ohio Valley, and beyond,
to the west, lay the
levels of the Great Plains. Within the earth
were unexploited treasures
of coal and lead, copper and iron in such
form and quantity as were to
revolutionize the industrial processes of
the world. But nature's
revelations are progressive, and it was rather
the marvelous adaptation
of the soil to the raising of corn and wheat
that drew the pioneers to
this land of promise, and made a new era of
colonization. In the unity
with variety of this pioneer empire and in
its broad levels we have a
promise of its society.
First had come the children of the interior
of the South, and with ax
and rifle in hand had cut their clearings
in the forest, raised their
log cabins, fought the Indians and by 1830
had pushed their way to the
very edge of the prairies along the Ohio and
Missouri Valleys, leaving
unoccupied most of the Basin of the Great
Lakes.
These slashers of the forest, these self-sufficing
pioneers, raising the
corn and live stock for their own need, living
scattered and apart, had
at first small interest in town life or a
share in markets. They were
passionately devoted to the ideal of equality,
but it was an ideal which
assumed that under free conditions in the
midst of unlimited resources,
the homogeneous society of the pioneers _must_
result in equality. What
they objected to was arbitrary obstacles,
artificial limitations upon
the freedom of each member of this frontier
folk to work out his own
career without fear or favor. What they instinctively
opposed was the
crystallization of differences, the monopolization
of opportunity and
the fixing of that monopoly by government
or by social customs. The road
must be open. The game must be played according
to the rules. There must
be no artificial stifling of equality of opportunity,
no closed doors to
the able, no stopping the free game before
it was played to the end.
More than that, there was an unformulated,
perhaps, but very real
feeling, that mere success in the game, by
which the abler men were able
to achieve preëminence gave to the successful
ones no right to look down
upon their neighbors, no vested title to assert
superiority as a matter
of pride and to the diminution of the equal
right and dignity of the
less successful.
If this democracy of Southern pioneers, this
Jacksonian democracy, was,
as its socialist critics have called it, in
reality a democracy of
"expectant capitalists," it was not one which
expected or acknowledged
on the part of the successful ones the right
to harden their triumphs
into the rule of a privileged class. In short,
if it is indeed true that
the backwoods democracy was based upon equality
of opportunity, it is
also true that it resented the conception
that opportunity under
competition should result in the hopeless
inequality, or rule of class.
Ever a new clearing must be possible. And
because the wilderness seemed
so unending, the menace to the enjoyment of
this ideal seemed rather to
be feared from government, within or without,
than from the operations
of internal evolution.
From the first, it became evident that these
men had means of
supplementing their individual activity by
informal combinations. One of
the things that impressed all early travelers
in the United States was
the capacity for extra-legal, voluntary association.[343:1]
This was
natural enough; in all America we can study
the process by which in a
new land social customs form and crystallize
into law. We can even see
how the personal leader becomes the governmental
official. This power of
the newly arrived pioneers to join together
for a common end without the
intervention of governmental institutions
was one of their marked
characteristics. The log rolling, the house-raising,
the husking bee,
the apple paring, and the squatters' associations
whereby they protected
themselves against the speculators in securing
title to their clearings
on the public domain, the camp meeting, the
mining camp, the vigilantes,
the cattle-raisers' associations, the "gentlemen's
agreements," are a
few of the indications of this attitude. It
is well to emphasize this
American trait, because in a modified way
it has come to be one of the
most characteristic and important features
of the United States of
to-day. America does through informal association
and understandings on
the part of the people many of the things
which in the Old World are and
can be done only by governmental intervention
and compulsion. These
associations were in America not due to immemorial
custom of tribe or
village community. They were extemporized
by voluntary action.
The actions of these associations had an authority
akin to that of law.
They were usually not so much evidences of
a disrespect for law and
order as the only means by which real law
and order were possible in a
region where settlement and society had gone
in advance of the
institutions and instrumentalities of organized
society.
Because of these elements of individualistic
competition and the power
of spontaneous association, pioneers were
responsive to leadership. The
backwoodsmen knew that under the free opportunities
of his life the
abler man would reveal himself, and show them
the way. By free choice
and not by compulsion, by spontaneous impulse,
and not by the domination
of a caste, they rallied around a cause, they
supported an issue. They
yielded to the principle of government by
agreement, and they hated the
doctrine of autocracy even before it gained
a name.
They looked forward to the extension of their
American principles to the
Old World and their keenest apprehensions
came from the possibility of
the extension of the Old World's system of
arbitrary rule, its class
wars and rivalries and interventions to the
destruction of the free
States and democratic institutions which they
were building in the
forests of America.
If we add to these aspects of early backwoods
democracy, its spiritual
qualities, we shall more easily understand
them. These men were
emotional. As they wrested their clearing
from the woods and from the
savages who surrounded them, as they expanded
that clearing and saw the
beginnings of commonwealths, where only little
communities had been, and
as they saw these commonwealths touch hands
with each other along the
great course of the Mississippi River, they
became enthusiastically
optimistic and confident of the continued
expansion of this democracy.
They had faith in themselves and their destiny.
And that optimistic
faith was responsible both for their confidence
in their own ability to
rule and for the passion for expansion. They
looked to the future.
"Others appeal to history: an American appeals
to prophecy; and with
Malthus in one hand and a map of the back
country in the other, he
boldly defies us to a comparison with America
as she is to be," said a
London periodical in 1821. Just because, perhaps,
of the usual isolation
of their lives, when they came together in
associations whether of the
camp meeting or of the political gathering,
they felt the influence of a
common emotion and enthusiasm. Whether Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian,
Baptist, or Methodist, these people saturated
their religion and their
politics with feeling. Both the stump and
the pulpit were centers of
energy, electric cells capable of starting
widespreading fires. They
_felt_ both their religion and their democracy,
and were ready to fight
for it.
This democracy was one that involved a real
feeling of social
comradeship among its widespread members.
Justice Catron, who came from
Arkansas to the Supreme Court in the presidency
of Jackson, said: "The
people of New Orleans and St. Louis are next
neighbors--if we desire to
know a man in any quarter of the union we
inquire of our next neighbor,
who but the other day lived by him." Exaggerated
as this is, it
nevertheless had a surprising measure of truth
for the Middle West as
well. For the Mississippi River was the great
highway down which groups
of pioneers like Abraham Lincoln, on their
rafts and flat boats, brought
the little neighborhood surplus. After the
steamboat came to the western
waters the voyages up and down by merchants
and by farmers shifting
their homes, brought people into contact with
each other over wide
areas.
This enlarged neighborhood democracy was determined
not by a reluctant
admission that under the law one man is as
good as another; it was based
upon "good fellowship," sympathy and understanding.
They were of a
stock, moreover, which sought new trails and
were ready to follow where
the trail led, innovators in society as well
as finders of new lands.
By 1830 the Southern inundation ebbed and
a different tide flowed in
from the northeast by way of the Erie Canal
and steam navigation on the
Great Lakes to occupy the zone unreached by
Southern settlement. This
new tide spread along the margins of the Great
Lakes, found the oak
openings and small prairie islands of Southern
Michigan and Wisconsin;
followed the fertile forested ribbons along
the river courses far into
the prairie lands; and by the end of the forties
began to venture into
the margin of the open prairie.
In 1830 the Middle West contained a little
over a million and a half
people; in 1840, over three and a third millions;
in 1850, nearly five
and a half millions. Although in 1830 the
North Atlantic States numbered
between three and four times as many people
as the Middle West, yet in
those two decades the Middle West made an
actual gain of several hundred
thousand more than did the old section. Counties
in the newer states
rose from a few hundred to ten or fifteen
thousand people in the space
of less than five years. Suddenly, with astonishing
rapidity and volume,
a new people was forming with varied elements,
ideals and institutions
drawn from all over this nation and from Europe.
They were confronted
with the problem of adjusting different stocks,
varied customs and
habits, to their new home.
In comparison with the Ohio Valley, the peculiarity
of the occupation of
the northern zone of the Middle West, lay
in the fact that the native
element was predominantly from the older settlements
of the Middle West
itself and from New York and New England.
But it was from the central
and western counties of New York and from
the western and northern parts
of New England, the rural regions of declining
agricultural prosperity,
that the bulk of this element came.
Thus the influence of the Middle West stretched
into the Northeast, and
attracted a farming population already suffering
from western
competition. The advantage of abundant, fertile,
and cheap land, the
richer agricultural returns, and especially
the opportunities for youth
to rise in all the trades and professions,
gave strength to this
competition. By it New England was profoundly
and permanently modified.
This Yankee stock carried with it a habit
of community life, in contrast
with the individualistic democracy of the
Southern element. The
colonizing land companies, the town, the school,
the church, the feeling
of local unity, furnished the evidences of
this instinct for
communities. This instinct was accompanied
by the creation of cities,
the production of a surplus for market, the
reaching out to connections
with the trading centers of the East, the
evolution of a more complex
and at the same time a more integrated industrial
society than that of
the Southern pioneer.
But they did not carry with them the unmodified
New England institutions
and traits. They came at a time and from a
people less satisfied with
the old order than were their neighbors in
the East. They were the young
men with initiative, with discontent; the
New York element especially
was affected by the radicalism of Locofoco
democracy which was in
itself a protest against the established order.
The winds of the prairies swept away almost
at once a mass of old habits
and prepossessions. Said one of these pioneers
in a letter to friends in
the East:
If you value ease more than money or prosperity,
don't
come. . . . Hands are too few for the work,
houses for the
inhabitants, and days for the day's work to
be done. . . .
Next if you can't stand seeing your old New
England ideas,
ways of doing, and living and in fact, all
of the good old
Yankee fashions knocked out of shape and altered,
or thrown by
as unsuited to the climate, don't be caught
out here. But if
you can bear grief with a smile, can put up
with a scale of
accommodations ranging from the soft side
of a plank before
the fire (and perhaps three in a bed at that)
down through the
middling and inferior grades; if you are never
at a loss for
ways to do the most unpracticable things without
tools; if you
can do all this and some more come on. . . . It
is a universal
rule here to help one another, each one keeping
an eye single
to his own business.
They knew that they were leaving many dear
associations of the old home,
giving up many of the comforts of life, sacrificing
things which those
who remained thought too vital to civilization
to be left. But they were
not mere materialists ready to surrender all
that life is worth for
immediate gain. They were idealists themselves,
sacrificing the ease of
the immediate future for the welfare of their
children, and convinced of
the possibility of helping to bring about
a better social order and a
freer life. They were social idealists. But
they based their ideals on
trust in the common man and the readiness
to make adjustments, not on
the rule of a benevolent despot or a controlling
class.
The attraction of this new home reached also
into the Old World and gave
a new hope and new impulses to the people
of Germany, of England, of
Ireland, and of Scandinavia. Both economic
influences and revolutionary
discontent promoted German migration at this
time; economic causes
brought the larger volume, but the quest for
liberty brought the
leaders, many of whom were German political
exiles. While the latter
urged, with varying degrees of emphasis, that
their own contribution
should be preserved in their new surroundings,
and a few visionaries
even talked of a German State in the federal
system, what was noteworthy
was the adjustment of the emigrants of the
thirties and forties to
Middle Western conditions; the response to
the opportunity to create a
new type of society in which all gave and
all received and no element
remained isolated. Society was plastic. In
the midst of more or less
antagonism between "bowie knife Southerners,"
"cow-milking Yankee
Puritans," "beer-drinking Germans," "wild
Irishmen," a process of mutual
education, a giving and taking, was at work.
In the outcome, in spite of
slowness of assimilation where different groups
were compact and
isolated from the others, and a certain persistence
of inherited
_morale_, there was the creation of a new
type, which was neither the
sum of all its elements, nor a complete fusion
in a melting pot. They
were American pioneers, not outlying fragments
of New England, of
Germany, or of Norway.
The Germans were most strongly represented
in the Missouri Valley, in
St. Louis, in Illinois opposite that city,
and in the Lake Shore
counties of eastern Wisconsin north from Milwaukee.
In Cincinnati and
Cleveland there were many Germans, while in
nearly half the counties of
Ohio, the German immigrants and the Pennsylvania
Germans held nearly or
quite the balance of political power. The
Irish came primarily as
workers on turnpikes, canals and railroads,
and tended to remain along
such lines, or to gather in the growing cities.
The Scandinavians, of
whom the largest proportion were Norwegians,
founded their colonies in
Northern Illinois, and in Southern Wisconsin
about the Fox and the head
waters of Rock River, whence in later years
they spread into Iowa,
Minnesota and North Dakota.
By 1850 about one-sixth of the people of the
Middle West were of North
Atlantic birth, about one-eighth of Southern
birth, and a like fraction
of foreign birth, of whom the Germans were
twice as numerous as the
Irish, and the Scandinavians only slightly
more numerous than the Welsh,
and fewer than the Scotch. There were only
a dozen Scandinavians in
Minnesota. The natives of the British Islands,
together with the natives
of British North America in the Middle West,
numbered nearly as many as
the natives of German lands. But in 1850 almost
three-fifths of the
population were natives of the Middle West
itself, and over a third of
the population lived in Ohio. The cities were
especially a mixture of
peoples. In the five larger cities of the
section natives and foreigners
were nearly balanced. In Chicago the Irish,
Germans and natives of the
North Atlantic States about equaled each other.
But in all the other
cities, the Germans exceeded the Irish in
varying proportions. There
were nearly three to one in Milwaukee.
It is not merely that the section was growing
rapidly and was made up of
various stocks with many different cultures,
sectional and European;
what is more significant is that these elements
did not remain as
separate strata underneath an established
ruling order, as was the case
particularly in New England. All were accepted
and intermingling
components of a forming society, plastic and
absorptive. This
characteristic of the section as "a good mixer"
became fixed before the
large immigrations of the eighties. The foundations
of the section were
laid firmly in a period when the foreign elements
were particularly free
and eager to contribute to a new society and
to receive an impress from
the country which offered them a liberty denied
abroad. Significant as
is this fact, and influential in the solution
of America's present
problems, it is no more important than the
fact that in the decade
before the Civil War, the Southern element
in the Middle West had also
had nearly two generations of direct association
with the Northern, and
had finally been engulfed in a tide of Northeastern
and Old World
settlers.
In this society of pioneers men learned to
drop their old national
animosities. One of the Immigrant Guides of
the fifties urged the
newcomers to abandon their racial animosities.
"The American laughs at
these steerage quarrels," said the author.
Thus the Middle West was teaching the lesson
of national
cross-fertilization instead of national enmities,
the possibility of a
newer and richer civilization, not by preserving
unmodified or isolated
the old component elements, but by breaking
down the line-fences, by
merging the individual life in the common
product--a new product, which
held the promise of world brotherhood. If
the pioneers divided their
allegiance between various parties, Whig,
Democrat, Free Soil or
Republican, it does not follow that the western
Whig was like the
eastern Whig. There was an infiltration of
a western quality into all of
these. The western Whig supported Harrison
more because he was a pioneer
than because he was a Whig. It saw in him
a legitimate successor of
Andrew Jackson. The campaign of 1840 was a
Middle Western camp meeting
on a huge scale. The log cabins, the cider
and the coonskins were the
symbols of the triumph of Middle Western ideas,
and were carried with
misgivings by the merchants, the bankers and
the manufacturers of the
East. In like fashion, the Middle Western
wing of the Democratic party
was as different from the Southern wing wherein
lay its strength, as
Douglas was from Calhoun. It had little in
common with the slaveholding
classes of the South, even while it felt the
kinship of the pioneer with
the people of the Southern upland stock from
which so many Westerners
were descended.
In the later forties and early fifties most
of the Middle Western States
made constitutions. The debates in their conventions
and the results
embodied in the constitutions themselves tell
the story of their
political ideals. Of course, they based the
franchise on the principle
of manhood suffrage. But they also provided
for an elective judiciary,
for restrictions on the borrowing power of
the State, lest it fall under
the control of what they feared as the money
power, and several of them
either provided for the extinguishment of
banks of issue, or rigidly
restrained them. Some of them exempted the
homestead from forced sale
for debt; married women's legal rights were
prominent topics in the
debates of the conventions, and Wisconsin
led off by permitting the
alien to vote after a year's residence. It
welcomed the newcomer to the
freedom and to the obligations of American
citizenship.
Although this pioneer society was preponderantly
an agricultural society
it was rapidly learning that agriculture alone
was not sufficient for
its life. It was developing manufactures,
trade, mining, the
professions, and becoming conscious that in
a progressive modern state
it was possible to pass from one industry
to another and that all were
bound by common ties. But it is significant
that in the census of 1850,
Ohio, out of a population of two millions,
reported only a thousand
servants, Iowa only ten in two hundred thousand
and Minnesota fifteen
in its six thousand.
In the intellectual life of this new democracy
there was already the
promise of original contributions even in
the midst of the engrossing
toil and hard life of the pioneer.
The country editor was a leader of his people,
not a patent-insides
recorder of social functions, but a vigorous
and independent thinker and
writer. The subscribers to the newspaper published
in the section were
higher in proportion to population than in
the State of New York and not
greatly inferior to those of New England,
although such eastern papers
as the _New York Tribune_ had an extensive
circulation throughout the
Middle West. The agricultural press presupposed
in its articles and
contributions a level of general intelligence
and interest above that of
the later farmers of the section, at least
before the present day.
Farmer boys walked behind the plow with their
book in hand and sometimes
forgot to turn at the end of the furrow; even
rare boys, who, like the
young Howells, "limped barefoot by his father's
side with his eyes on
the cow and his mind on Cervantes and Shakespeare."
Periodicals flourished and faded like the
prairie flowers. Some of
Emerson's best poems first appeared in one
of these Ohio Valley
magazines. But for the most part the literature
of the region and the
period was imitative or reflective of the
common things in a not
uncommon way. It is to its children that the
Middle West had to look for
the expression of its life and its ideals
rather than to the busy
pioneer who was breaking a prairie farm or
building up a new community.
Illiteracy was least among the Yankee pioneers
and highest among the
Southern element. When illiteracy is mapped
for 1850 by percentages
there appears two distinct zones, the one
extending from New England,
the other from the South.
The influence of New England men was strong
in the Yankee regions of
the Middle West. Home missionaries, and representatives
of societies for
the promotion of education in the West, both
in the common school and
denominational colleges, scattered themselves
throughout the region and
left a deep impress in all these States. The
conception was firmly fixed
in the thirties and forties that the West
was the coming power in the
Union, that the fate of civilization was in
its hands, and therefore
rival sects and rival sections strove to influence
it to their own
types. But the Middle West shaped all these
educational contributions
according to her own needs and ideals.
The State Universities were for the most part
the result of agitation
and proposals of men of New England origin;
but they became
characteristic products of Middle Western
society, where the community
as a whole, rather than wealthy benefactors,
supported these
institutions. In the end the community determined
their directions in
accord with popular ideals. They reached down
more deeply into the ranks
of the common people than did the New England
or Middle State Colleges;
they laid more emphasis upon the obviously
useful, and became
coëducational at an early date. This dominance
of the community ideals
had dangers for the Universities, which were
called to raise ideals and
to point new ways, rather than to conform.
Challenging the spaces of the West, struck
by the rapidity with which a
new society was unfolding under their gaze,
it is not strange that the
pioneers dealt in the superlative and saw
their destiny with optimistic
eyes. The meadow lot of the small intervale
had become the prairie,
stretching farther than their gaze could reach.
All was motion and change. A restlessness
was universal. Men moved, in
their single life, from Vermont to New York,
from New York to Ohio,
from Ohio to Wisconsin, from Wisconsin to
California, and longed for the
Hawaiian Islands. When the bark started from
their fence rails, they
felt the call to change. They were conscious
of the mobility of their
society and gloried in it. They broke with
the Past and thought to
create something finer, more fitting for humanity,
more beneficial for
the average man than the world had ever seen.
"With the Past we have literally nothing to
do," said B. Gratz Brown in
a Missouri Fourth of July oration in 1850,
"save to dream of it. Its
lessons are lost and its tongue is silent.
We are ourselves at the head
and front of all political experience. Precedents
have lost their virtue
and all their authority is gone. . . . Experience
can profit us only to
guard from antequated delusions."
"The yoke of opinion," wrote Channing to a
Western friend, speaking of
New England, "is a heavy one, often crushing
individuality of judgment
and action," and he added that the habits,
rules, and criticisms under
which he had grown up had not left him the
freedom and courage which are
needed in the style of address best suited
to the Western people.
Channing no doubt unduly stressed the freedom
of the West in this
respect. The frontier had its own conventions
and prejudices, and New
England was breaking its own cake of custom
and proclaiming a new
liberty at the very time he wrote. But there
was truth in the Eastern
thought of the West, as a land of intellectual
toleration, one which
questioned the old order of things and made
innovation its very creed.
The West laid emphasis upon the practical
and demanded that ideals
should be put to work for useful ends; ideals
were tested by their
direct contributions to the betterment of
the average man, rather than
by the production of the man of exceptional
genius and distinction.
For, in fine this was the goal of the Middle
West, the welfare of the
average man; not only the man of the South,
or of the East, the Yankee,
or the Irishman, or the German, but all men
in one common fellowship.
This was the hope of their youth, of that
youth when Abraham Lincoln
rose from rail-splitter to country lawyer,
from Illinois legislator to
congressman and from congressman to President.
It is not strange that in all this flux and
freedom and novelty and vast
spaces, the pioneer did not sufficiently consider
the need of
disciplined devotion to the government which
he himself created and
operated. But the name of Lincoln and the
response of the pioneer to the
duties of the Civil War,--to the sacrifices
and the restraints on
freedom which it entailed under his presidency,
reminds us that they
knew how to take part in a common cause, even
while they knew that war's
conditions were destructive of many of the
things for which they worked.
There are two kinds of governmental discipline:
that which proceeds from
free choice, in the conviction that restraint
of individual or class
interests is necessary for the common good;
and that which is imposed by
a dominant class, upon a subjected and helpless
people. The latter is
Prussian discipline, the discipline of a harsh
machine-like, logical
organization, based on the rule of a military
autocracy. It assumes that
if you do not crush your opponent first, he
will crush you. It is the
discipline of a nation ruled by its General
Staff, assuming war as the
normal condition of peoples, and attempting
with remorseless logic to
extend its operations to the destruction of
freedom everywhere. It can
only be met by the discipline of a people
who use their own government
for worthy ends, who preserve individuality
and mobility in society and
respect the rights of others, who follow the
dictates of humanity and
fair play, the principles of give and take.
The Prussian discipline is
the discipline of Thor, the War God, against
the discipline of the White
Christ.
Pioneer democracy has had to learn lessons
by experience: the lesson
that government on principles of free democracy
can accomplish many
things which the men of the middle of the
nineteenth century did not
realize were even possible. They have had
to sacrifice something of
their passion for individual unrestraint;
they have had to learn that
the specially trained man, the man fitted
for his calling by education
and experience, whether in the field of science
or of industry, has a
place in government; that the rule of the
people is effective and
enduring only as it incorporates the trained
specialist into the
organization of that government, whether as
umpire between contending
interests or as the efficient instrument in
the hands of democracy.
Organized democracy after the era of free
land has learned that popular
government to be successful must not only
be legitimately the choice of
the whole people; that the offices of that
government must not only be
open to all, but that in the fierce struggle
of nations in the field of
economic competition and in the field of war,
the salvation and
perpetuity of the republic depend upon recognition
of the fact that
specialization of the organs of the government,
the choice of the fit
and the capable for office, is quite as important
as the extension of
popular control. When we lost our free lands
and our isolation from the
Old World, we lost our immunity from the results
of mistakes, of waste,
of inefficiency, and of inexperience in our
government.
But in the present day we are also learning
another lesson which was
better known to the pioneers than to their
immediate successors. We are
learning that the distinction arising from
devotion to the interests of
the commonwealth is a higher distinction than
mere success in economic
competition. America is now awarding laurels
to the men who sacrifice
their triumphs in the rivalry of business
in order to give their service
to the cause of a liberty-loving nation, their
wealth and their genius
to the success of her ideals. That craving
for distinction which once
drew men to pile up wealth and exhibit power
over the industrial
processes of the nation, is now finding a
new outlet in the craving for
distinction that comes from service to the
Union, in satisfaction in the
use of great talent for the good of the republic.
And all over the nation, in voluntary organizations
for aid to the
government, is being shown the pioneer principle
of association that was
expressed in the "house raising." It is shown
in the Red Cross, the Y.
M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the councils
and boards of science,
commerce, labor, agriculture; and in all the
countless other types, from
the association of women in their kitchen
who carry out the
recommendations of the Food Director and revive
the plain living of the
pioneer, to the Boy Scouts who are laying
the foundations for a
self-disciplined and virile generation worthy
to follow the trail of the
backwoodsmen. It is an inspiring prophecy
of the revival of the old
pioneer conception of the obligations and
opportunities of
neighborliness, broadening to a national and
even to an international
scope. The promise of what that wise and lamented
philosopher, Josiah
Royce called, "the beloved community." In
the spirit of the pioneer's
"house raising" lies the salvation of the
Republic.
This then is the heritage of pioneer experience,--a
passionate belief
that a democracy was possible which should
leave the individual a part
to play in free society and not make him a
cog in a machine operated
from above; which trusted in the common man,
in his tolerance, his
ability to adjust differences with good humor,
and to work out an
American type from the contributions of all
nations--a type for which
he would fight against those who challenged
it in arms, and for which in
time of war he would make sacrifices, even
the temporary sacrifice of
individual freedom and his life, lest that
freedom be lost forever.
