panies, the Ohio and Scioto
associations, held great tracts of territory which the pioneers passed
by in their desire to get to lands which they could acquire in their own
right. This was one of the many bad effects which resulted from the
Government's policy of disposing of its land in large blocks to the
highest bidder, instead of allotting it, as has since been done, in
quarter sections to actual settlers. [Footnote: Mr. Eli Thayer, in his
various writings, has rightly laid especial stress on this point.]

Harrison, St. Clair, and Sargent.
Lessons Taught by Blount's Experience.

Harrison was thoroughly in sympathy with the Westerners. He had thrown
in his lot with theirs; he deemed himself one of them, and was accepted
by them as a fit representative. Accordingly he was very popular as
Governor of Indiana. St. Clair in Ohio and Sargent in Mississippi were
both extremely unpopular. They were appointed by Federalist
administrations, and were entirely out of sympathy with the Western
people among whom they lived. One was a Scotchman, and one a New
Englander. They were both high-minded men, with sound ideas on
governmental policy, though Sargent was the abler of the two; but they
were out of touch with the Westerners. They distrusted the frontier
folk, and were bitterly disliked in return. Each committed the
fundamental fault of trying to govern the Territory over which he had
been put in accordance with his own ideas, and heedless of the wishes
and prejudices of those under him. Doubtless each was conscientious in
what he did, and each of course considered the difficulties under which
he labored to be due solely to the lawlessness and the many shortcomings
of the settlers. But this was an error. The experience of Blount when he
occupied the exceedingly difficult position of Territorial Governor of
Tennessee showed that it was quite possible for a man of firm belief in
the Union to get into touch with the frontiersmen and to be accepted by
them as a worthy representative; but the virtues of St. Clair and
Sargent were so different from the backwoods virtues, and their habits
of thought were so alien, that they could not possibly get on with the
people among whom their lot had been cast. Neither of them in the end
took up his abode in the Territory of which he had been Governor, both
returning to the East. The code of laws which they enacted prior to the
Territories possessing a sufficient number of inhabitants to bec