right to the North Atlantic fisheries than of
our ownership of the Mississippi valley; they were more interested in
the fate of a bank or a tariff than in the settlement of the Oregon
boundary. Most contemporary writers showed similar shortcomings in
their sense of historic perspective. The names of Ethan Allen and
Marion are probably better known than is that of George Rogers Clark;
yet their deeds, as regards their effects, could no more be compared
to his, than his could be compared to Washington's. So it was with
Houston. During his lifetime there were probably fifty men who, east
of the Mississippi, were deemed far greater than he was. Yet in most
cases their names have already almost faded from remembrance, while
his fame will grow steadily brighter as the importance of his deeds is
more thoroughly realized. Fortunately, in the long run, the mass of
easterners always backed up their western brethren.

The kind of colonizing conquest, whereby the people of the United
States have extended their borders, has much in common with the
similar movements in Canada and Australia, all of them, standing in
sharp contrast to what has gone on in Spanish-American lands. But of
course each is marked out in addition by certain peculiarities of its
own. Moreover, even in the United States, the movement falls naturally
into two divisions, which on several points differ widely from each
other.

The way in which the southern part of our western country--that is,
all the land south of the Ohio, and from thence on to the Rio Grande
and the Pacific--was won and settled, stands quite alone. The region
north of it was filled up in a very different manner. The Southwest,
including therein what was once called simply the West, and afterwards
the Middle West, was won by the people themselves, acting as
individuals, or as groups of individuals, who hewed out their own
fortunes in advance of any governmental action. On the other hand, the
Northwest, speaking broadly, was acquired by the government, the
settlers merely taking possession of what the whole country guaranteed
them. The Northwest is essentially a national domain; it is fitting
that it should be, as it is, not only by position but by feeling, the
heart of the nation.

North of the Ohio the regular army went first. The settlements grew up
behind the shelter of the federal troops of Harmar, St. Claire, and
Wayne, and of their successors even to our own day. The wars in which
the b