They showed little self-control, little
willingness to wait with patience until it was possible to remedy any of
the real or fancied wrongs of which they complained. They made no
allowance for the difficulties so plentifully strewn in the path of the
Federal authorities. They clamored for prompt and effective action, and
yet clamored just as loudly against the men who sought to create a
national executive with power to take this prompt and effective action.
They demanded that the United States wrest from the British the Lake
Posts, and from the Spaniards the navigation of the Mississippi. Yet
they seemed incapable of understanding that if they separated from the
Union they would thereby forfeit all chance of achieving the very
purposes they had in view, because they would then certainly be at the
mercy of Britain, and probably, at least for some time, at the mercy of
Spain also. They opposed giving the United States the necessary civil
and military power, although it was only by the possession and exercise
of such power that it would be possible to secure for the westerners
what they wished. In all human probability, the whole country round the
Great Lakes would still be British territory, and the mouth of the
Mississippi still in the hands of some European power, had the folly of
the separatists won the day and had the West been broken up into
independent States.
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