They did not
themselves form the armies which met and overthrew the Indians. The
regular forces led the way in the country north of the Ohio. The Federal
forts were built first; it was only afterwards that the small towns
sprang up in their shadow. The Federal troops formed the vanguard of the
white advance. They were the mainstay of the force behind which, as
behind a shield, the founders of the commonwealths did their work.
Unquestionably many of the settlers did their full share in the
fighting; and they and their descendants, on many a stricken field, and
through many a long campaign, proved that no people stood above them in
hardihood and courage; but the land on which they settled was won less
by themselves than by the statesmen who met in the national capital, and
the scarred soldiers who on the frontier upbore the national colors.
Moreover, instead of being absolutely free to choose their own form of
government, and shape their own laws and social conditions untrammelled
by restrictions, the Northwesterners were allowed to take the land only
upon certain definite conditions. The National Government ceded to
settlers part of its own domain, and provided the terms upon which
states of the Union should afterwards be made out of this domain; and
with a wisdom and love of righteousness which have been of incalculable
consequence to the whole nation, it stipulated that slavery should never
exist in the States thus formed.
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