often ignorant, but hardy in body and in temper. They joined hospitality
to strangers with suspicion of them. They were essentially warlike in
spirit, and yet utterly unmilitary in all their training and habits of
thought. They prized beyond measure their individual liberty and their
collective freedom, and were so jealous of governmental control that
they often, to their own great harm, fatally weakened the very
authorities whom they chose to act over them. The peculiar circumstances
of their lives forced them often to act in advance of action by the law,
and this bred a lawlessness in certain matters which their children
inherited for generations; yet they knew and appreciated the need of
obedience to the law, and they thoroughly respected the law.

Decadence of Separatist Feeling.

The separatist agitations had largely died out. In 1798 and 1799
Kentucky divided with Virginia the leadership of the attack on the Alien
and Sedition laws; but her extreme feelings were not shared by the other
Westerners, and she acted not as a representative of the West, but on a
footing of equality with Virginia. Tennessee sympathized as little with
the nullification movement of these two States at this time as she
sympathized with South Carolina in her nullification movement a
generation later. With the election of Jefferson the dominant political
party in the West became in sympathy with the party in control of the
nation, and the West became stoutly loyal to the National Government.

Importance of the West.

The West had thus achieved a greater degree of political solidarity,
both as within itself and with the nation as a whole, than ever before.
Its wishes were more powerful with the East. The pioneers stood for an
extreme Americanism, in social, political, and religious matters alike.
The trend of American thought was toward them, not away from them. More
than ever before, the Westerners were able to make their demands felt at
home, and to make their force felt in the event of a struggle with a
foreign power.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA; AND BURR'S CONSPIRACY, 1803-1807.

A great and growing race may acquire vast stretches of scantily peopled
territory in any one of several ways. Often the statesman, no less than
the soldier, plays an all-important part in winning the new land;
nevertheless, it is usually true that the diplomatists who by treaty
ratify the acquisition usurp a prominence in history