Even the men who had too much good
sense to share these fears, even men as broadly patriotic as Jay, could
not realize the extreme rapidity of western growth. Kentucky and
Tennessee grew much faster than any of the old frontier colonies had
ever grown; and from sheer lack of experience, eastern statesmen could
not realize that this rapidity of growth made the navigation of the
Mississippi a matter of immediate and not of future interest to the
West.
Failure to Perceive Truths Now Regarded as Self-Evident.
In short, these good people were learning with reluctance and difficulty
to accept as necessary certain facts which we regard as part of the
order of our political nature. We look at territorial expansion, and the
admission of new States, as part of a process as natural as it is
desirable. To our forefathers the process was novel, and, in some of its
features, repugnant. Many of them could not divest themselves of the
feeling that the old States ought to receive more consideration than the
new; whereas nowadays it would never occur to anyone that Pennsylvania
and Georgia ought to stand either above or below California and Montana.
It is an inestimable boon to all four States to be in the Union, but
this is because the citizens of all of them are on a common footing.
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