is the influence of the
Ohio Valley in the promotion of democracy. On this I shall, by reason of
lack of time, be obliged merely to point out that the powerful group of
Ohio Valley States, which sprang out of the democracy of the backwoods,
and which entered the Union one after the other with manhood suffrage,
greatly recruited the effective forces of democracy in the Union. Not
only did they add new recruits, but by their competitive pressure for
population they forced the older States to break down their historic
restraints upon the right of voting, unless they were to lose their
people to the freer life of the West.

But in the era of Jacksonian democracy, Henry Clay and his followers
engaged the great Tennesseean in a fierce political struggle out of
which was born the rival Whig and Democratic parties. This struggle was
in fact reflective of the conditions which had arisen in the Ohio
Valley. As the section had grown in population and wealth, as the trails
changed into roads, the cabins into well-built houses, the clearings
into broad farms, the hamlets into towns; as barter became commerce and
all the modern processes of industrial development began to operate in
this rising region, the Ohio Valley broke apart into the rival interests
of the industrial forces (the town-makers and the business builders), on
the one side and the old rural democracy of the uplands on the other.
This division was symbolical of national processes. In the contest
between these forces, Andrew Jackson was the champion of the cause of
the upland democracy. He denounced the money power, banks and the whole
credit system and sounded a fierce tocsin of danger against the
increasing influence of wealth in politics. Henry Clay, on the other
hand, represented the new industrial forces along the Ohio. It is
certainly significant that in the rivalry between the great Whig of the
Ohio Valley and the great Democrat of its Tennessee tributary lay the
issues of American politics almost until the slavery struggle. The
responsiveness of the Ohio Valley to leadership and its enthusiasm in
action are illustrated by the Harrison campaign of 1840; in that "log
cabin campaign" when the Whigs "stole the thunder" of pioneer Jacksonian
democracy for another backwoods hero, the Ohio Valley carried its spirit
as well as its political favorite throughout the nation.

Meanwhile, on each side of the Ohio Valley, other sections were forming.
New England and the chil