volved 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 m