They for the moment adopted towards the West a
position not wholly unlike that which England had held towards the
American colonies as a whole. They came dangerously near repeating, in
their feeling towards their younger brethren on the Ohio, the very
blunder committed in reference to themselves by their elder brethren in
Britain. For some time they seemed, like the British, unable to grasp
the grandeur of their race's imperial destiny. They hesitated to throw
themselves with hearty enthusiasm into the task of building a nation
with a continent as its base. They rather shrank from the idea as
implying a lesser weight of their own section in the nation; not yet
understanding that to an American the essential thing was the growth and
well-being of America, while the relative importance of the locality
where he dwelt was a matter of small moment.
Eastern Efforts to Shear the West's Strength.
The extreme representatives of this northeastern sectionalism not only
objected to the growth of the West at the time now under consideration,
but even avowed a desire to work it harm, by shutting the Mississippi,
so as to benefit the commerce of the Atlantic States--a manifestation of
cynical and selfish disregard of the rights of their fellow-countrymen
quite as flagrant as any piece of tyranny committed or proposed by King
George's ministers in reference to America.
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