The men who did this sane, wholesome political thinking were quite right
in scorning and condemning the crude unreason, often silly, often
vicious, which characterized so much of the political thought of their
opponents. The strength of these opponents was largely derived from the
ignorance and suspicion of the raw country districts, and from the sour
jealousy with which the backwoodsmen regarded the settled regions of the
seaboard.
But when these sound political thinkers permitted their distrust of
certain sections of the country to lead them into doing injustice to
those sections, they in their turn deserved the same condemnation which
should be meted to so many of their political foes. When they allowed
their judgment to become so warped by their dissatisfaction with the
traits inevitably characteristic of the earlier stages of frontier
development that they became opposed to all extension of the frontier;
when they allowed their liking for the well-ordered society of their own
districts to degenerate into indifference to or dislike of the growth of
the United States towards continental greatness; then they themselves
sank into the position of men who in cold selfishness sought to mar the
magnificent destiny of their own people.
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