That spirit was not found along the
Atlantic coast, whose inhabitants were embittered and blinded by party
and sectional prejudices. It was resident in the newer states of the
West and the Southwest. A genuine American national democracy was coming
into existence in that part of the country--a democracy which was as
democratic as it knew how to be, while at the same time loyal and
devoted to the national government. The pioneers had in a measure
outgrown the colonialism of the thirteen original commonwealths. They
occupied a territory which had in the beginning been part of the
national domain. Their local commonwealths had not antedated the
Federal Union, but were in a way children of the central government; and
they felt that they belonged to the Union in a way that was rarely
shared by an inhabitant of Massachusetts or South Carolina. Their
national feeling did not prevent them from being in some respects
extremely local and provincial in their point of view. It did not
prevent them from resenting with the utmost energy any interference of
the Federal government in what they believed to be their local affairs.
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