Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/31

 Sonic Political Aspects of Homestead Legislation 2 1 when the Confederation was considering plans for the administra- tion of the lands acquired by the state cessions, this division of feel- ing regarding the West began to appear, the North wishing to re- tard emigration thither, while the South was inclined to favor it.' Such a feeling cannot be said to have been strong, but it continued for nearly fifty years, and during the period from the adoption of the Constitution down to the election of Andrew Jackson it was the South which understood and sympathized with the growing West. The exhibitions of hostility which the West was prone to cite were fancied rather than real, but there can be no doubt that the West was right when it felt that it must turn to the South for aid in its pet enterprises and that the North did not look with favor on its rapid growth. The causes which led to this connection between the South and West were physiographic. The easiest route across the Appa- lachian system was from Virginia, through the Great Valley and into Tennessee, or, turning to the northward, down the Kanawha to the Ohio. It was because of this greater ease of communication that the settlers in the West were predominantly Southern until after the war of 1812.^ And after the emigrants had reached the new country the natural line of traffic from the West to the sea was down the Mississippi and thus through Southern territory. It was not until the advent of the great railroad systems extending from the valley of the Mississippi to the Atlantic coast, after 1850, that this north-and-south route of commerce was changed for an east-and- west one. Nor was it to the economic advantage of the North, de- voted as it was to manufacturing, to encourage the emigration which at last began. But to the agricultural South, on the other hand, the spreading and dispersion of population were especially welcome. The movement for gratuitous distribution of the public lands did not begin until after 1820. Up to that year the minimum price had been $2 an acre, with liberal terms of credit, and this fig- ure was found to be low enough, especially as the money was fre- 1 Life of Manasseh Cutler, I. 135-136. The original plan of the Ordinance of 1785 for the disposal of each township in its entirety before the next could be offered for sale was not embodied in the final form of that document. It has frequently been stated that this plan was strongly favored at the North, and the charges of New England hostility to the West were partly b^sed on such an assumption, but there is nothing in the action of Congress to point to such a conclusion. This clause was struck out on motion of a Southern delegate (McHenry, of Maryland), but there was only one Northern vote (from Rhode Island) in favor of its retention. A later motion to re-insert the provision re- ceived one vote from Ivlassachusetts, two from Connecticut, one from New York and one from South Carolina. Journals of Congress, IV. 513-515, 519. 2 See Roosevelt, Winning of the West, IV. 220-221.