But when these sound political thinkers permitted their distrust of
certain sections of the country to lead them into doing injustice to
those sections, they in their turn deserved the same condemnation which
should be meted to so many of their political foes. When they allowed
their judgment to become so warped by their dissatisfaction with the
traits inevitably characteristic of the earlier stages of frontier
development that they became opposed to all extension of the frontier;
when they allowed their liking for the well-ordered society of their own
districts to degenerate into indifference to or dislike of the growth of
the United States towards continental greatness; then they themselves
sank into the position of men who in cold selfishness sought to mar the
magnificent destiny of their own people.

Blindness of the New Englanders as Regards the West.

In the northeastern States, and in New England especially, this feeling
showed itself for two generations after the close of the Revolutionary
War. On the whole the New Englanders have exerted a more profound and
wholesome influence upon the development of our common country than has
ever been exerted by any other equally numerous body of our people. They
have led the nation in the path of civil liberty and sound governmental
administration. But too often they have viewed the nation's growth and
greatness from a narrow and provincial standpoint, and have grudgingly
acquiesced in, rather than led the march towards, continental supremacy.
In shaping the nation's policy for the future their sense of historic
perspective seemed imperfect. They could not see the all-importance of
the valley of the Ohio, or of the valley of the Columbia, to the
Republic of the years to come. The value of a county in Maine offset in
their eyes the value of these vast, empty regions. Indeed, in the days
immediately succeeding the Revolution, their attitude towards the
growing West was worse than one of mere indifference; it was one of
alarm and dislike. They for the moment adopted towards the West a
position not wholly unlike that which England had held towards the
American colonies as a whole. They came dangerously near repeating, in
their feeling towards their younger brethren on the Ohio, the very
blunder committed in reference to themselves by their elder brethren in
Britain. For some time they seemed, like the British, unable to grasp
the grandeur of their race's imperial destiny.