West (United States)

“ He was ready for a war with Spain, believing that it would give the United States the Floridas and Cuba, "the geographical appurtenance of the valley of the Mississippi"; that it would free the New from the Old World; and that it would create a cordon of republics across the two continents of North and South America. He pointed to the west as the route to the east—the long-sought way to India; and, in imagination, he outlined the states to be laid off "from the center of the valley of the Mississippi to the foot of the shining mountains." ”

“ The comparison between the amount of sales of public lands within the last ten years, and the preceding forty years, shows that emigration to the West is increasing at a ratio beyond what is ordinarily supposed, and that the next ten years will find a majority of the population of the United States within this Great Valley. ”

“ The mere statement of the facts is enough to show the intrinsic worthlessness of the titles. The Northwest was acquired from France by Great Britain through conquest and treaty; in a precisely similar way—Clark taking the place of Wolfe—it was afterwards won from Britain by the United States. We gained it exactly as we afterwards gained Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, California, New Mexico, and Texas: partly by arms, partly by diplomacy, partly by the sheer growth and pressure of our spreading population. ”

“ During the last ten years, another cause has also largely contributed to the opening up of the great West. A dispute between the United States and Canada, as to the exact interpretation of the Treaty of 1818, led to the sending out of a joint commission to settle the matter, and mark out the boundary line between the north-west corner of the Lake of the Woods to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ The line between the East and the West, advancing from the Alleghanies to the Rockies112 and then part of the way back, has never stayed long enough in one zone to be precisely drawn, but it has always been sharply felt. Since Colonial times the East has meant many things—wealth, stability, contacts with Europe, refinement, industry, centralized finance—and the West has meant many things—hardship and adventure, El Dorado, outlawry, self-reliance, agriculture, vast enterprise ”

“ The West is now turning a little back toward the East, and I have found some people, who probably had some ancestral connection with New England, but whose birth, early residence, and business life were in the West, who have come back to the old home. All this is pleasant, all this is surety of the future of our country. It is pleasant to know that the South is being obliterated, that all that made it distinctive in the sense of separation or alienation is being gradually wiped out. ”

“ Towns and cities replaced crude settlements and provided secure bases from which to look out at the wonders of the land. The newly arrived settlers made the West their own. And, to compress time and events into a few words, some people began to think about protecting some of the uniqueness of the West. ”

“ The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War; indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. ”

“ The West would divide from the East, the Atlantic States from the Lake States, the Mississippi States from the Pacific, the North Pacific States from the South Pacific, and where would be the end? Already the great West has learned her own gigantic strength, which before she knew not that she possessed, and if the time should come when her interests should apparently point in a different direction from those of the East, with such a precedent before her, would she not avail herself of that new-found strength? ”

“ I told the Commissioner that the Indians were frequently off of their reservations out west, as I had a distinct remembrance of meeting them upon several occasions "on the war path," and furthermore I thought I was benefitting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen. ”

“ The able and enlightened remarks of that renowned general and eminent statesman, Washington, in his farewell address to the people of the United States, relative to the well-being of a nation, are equally applicable to the existence and prosperity of a Colony: ""Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity (he observed) , religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of men and citizens. ”

“ Here, in America, she might have a chance. He could see to it that she did have a chance. With those eyes and that hair and her voice, the stage would open its arms to her, and acting was a recognized and respectable profession. There might be other opportunities, also.
But the vendetta she would have to drop. In the Basses Pyrénées one might devote a life to hunting vengeance, but it wouldn’t do in the United States. If she found the man, by some freak of chance, what would she do with him? ”

“ As we find that it was the South that first marched westward, and a Southern man who first planned a great highway of iron into the West, we may state with equal pleasure and confidence that it was the East, and an Eastern man, that made the South a portion of the West, and both a part of a united America. ”

“ Our Federal Constitution provides that no State shall make or enforce a law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States and that no state shall deny any person the equal protection of the laws or permit the taking of property without due process of law. ”

“ Under the caption of The West, we arbitrarily are grouping all of the states lying west of a line running north and south from the western borders of the Dakotas to the eastern edge of New Mexico. This excludes part of that great region long known in America as the Great West,—a country that is no more, and never again can be on the face of this earth, unless war and pestilence one day shall quite remove our present human population. ”

“ THE FATE OF LOVEJOY'S PRINTING-PRESS
Ever since the thirteen colonies that lay along the Atlantic coast had become a nation ambitious men had heard the call, "Go West, young man, go West!" There was plenty of fertile land in the country beyond the Alleghany Mountains, and it was free to any who would settle on it. Adventure beckoned men to come and help in founding new states, and many, who thought the villages of New England already overcrowded, betook themselves to the inviting West. ”

“ To the wild and half-savage trapper, who may be said to exemplify the energy, enterprise, and hardihood characteristic of the American people, divested of all the false and vicious glare with which a high state of civilisation, too rapidly attained, has obscured their real and genuine character, in which the above traits are eminently prominent—to these men alone is due the empire of the West—destined in a few short years to become the most important of those confederate states composing the mighty union of North America. ”

“ Powers of government in citizens. The powers of government reside in all the citizens of the state, and can be rightfully exercised only in accordance with their will and appointment.
2-3. Requisites of citizenship. All persons residing in this state, born, or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens of this state. ”

“ This is the heart of what may be called the Old West, which we now call the Middle West, using the term to denote that great group of rich and powerful States which literally forms the [2] heart of the country. It is a region whose people are distinctively American in all their thoughts, in all their ways of looking at life ”

“ Every person elected or appointed to any office, before proceeding to exercise the authority, or discharge the duties thereof, shall make oath or affirmation that he will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of this state, and that he will faithfully discharge the duties of his said office to the best of his skill and judgment ”

“ The East and the West are fundamentally closer together than ever before. Using the word “West” in the old sense, as meaning the country west of the Alleghanies, it is of course perfectly obvious that it is the West which will shape the destinies of this nation. The great group of wealthy and powerful States about the Upper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Missouri, and their tributaries, will have far more weight than any other section in deciding the fate of the Republic in the centuries that are opening. ”

“ The transformation of the west from a rude and boisterous frontier to a group of states, soon rivaling their parent communities in population and wealth, was not unlike the process through which Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia passed as colonies, except that the inland people accepted ideals and standards originally English, but worked out and put into shape by their colonist fathers. ”

“ Two decades hence no man will question the quality of Northwestern civilization. If the East is losing something of its distinctive Americanism through the influx of foreign elements and the decay of its old-time farming communities, the growth of the Northwest, largely upon the basis of New England blood and New England ideas, will make full compensation. ”

“ The fortunes of the West are guided by emigrants and the descendants of emigrants from New England, the Middle and the border States, and while adopted citizens, nearly all of a desirable class, are in a majority in many parts of the West, most of the western men and women also, of national fame, can trace an American pedigree for several generations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And of this new territory Jackson was made Governor.
Meanwhile more states were being added to the Union.
After the War was over, hundreds of families had found a new home, and a new life, in the unknown wilderness of the West. Indeed, so many people moved westward that the people in the East began to grow anxious. For it seemed to them that soon the eastern states would be left desolate, and they asked their State Governments to stop the people going west. "Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward," said one man. ”

“ How the North and the South have grown since the war; the great West.—Since the war the united North and South have grown and prospered [1] as never before. At the South many new and flourishing towns and cities have sprung up. Mines of coal and iron have been opened, hundreds of cotton-mills and factories have been built, and long lines of railroads have been constructed.
At the West changes equally great have taken place. Cities have risen up in the wilderness, mines of silver and gold have been opened, and immense farms and cattle ranches [2] produce food enough to feed all America. ”

“ She has sought to make no gain of it; on the contrary individuals may have felt undoubtedly some natural regret, at finding the relative importance of their own states diminished, by the growth of the west. But New England has regarded that as in the natural course of things and has never complained of it. Let me see sir, any one measure favorable to the west which has been opposed by New England since the government bestowed its attention to these western improvements. ”

“ People in the West are apt to form an entirely erroneous impression of Eastern States. The word, "East," to them conveys an impression of dense population, overcrowding, and manufacturing activity. That there are thousands and thousands of acres of scenic grandeur, as well as farm lands, in some of the most crowded States, is not realized, and that this is the case will be news to many. ”

“ The United States alone uses at the present time about 40,000,000,000 feet of timber a year, besides 118,000,000 hewn ties, 15,000,000 staves, over 133,000,000 sets of headings, nearly 500,000,000 barrel hoops, 3,00,00 cords of native pulp wood, 165,000,000 cubic feet of mine timbers, 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation, and 90,000,000 cords of firewood. ”

“ We met many travellers and emigrants from the east, going with their families and goods to the western states, to settle there. The western states appear to the inhabitants of the eastern and northern states, in the same light in which Europeans, and particularly the Germans, view the United States in general. They expect to find here the land of promise, where milk and honey flows, and are sometimes much disappointed; though many, however, derive great advantage from the change. ”

“ 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. ”