They were, as a rule, too
shortsighted to see that the only permanent remedy for their troubles
was their own absorption into a solid and powerful Union. Therefore they
were always ready either to join a movement against Spain, or else to
join one which seemed to promise the acquisition of special privileges
from Spain.
Robertson Talks of Disunion.
The separatist feeling, and the desire to sunder the West from the East,
and join hands with Spain or Britain, were not confined to Kentucky. In
one shape or another, and with varying intensity, separatist agitations
took place in all portions of the West. In Cumberland, on the Holston,
among the western mountains of Virginia proper, and in Georgia--which
was practically a frontier community--there occurred manifestations of
the separatist spirit. A curious feature of these various agitations was
the slight extent to which a separatist movement in any one of these
localities depended upon or sympathized with a similar movement in any
other. The national feeling among the separatists was so slight that the
very communities which wished to break off from the Atlantic States were
also quite indifferent to the deeds and fates of one another.
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