; the seizure of the territory contiguous to the western
frontier, even at the cost of war with Mexico and England; the giving of
free homesteads to all who would go West and join in the upbuilding of
the Mississippi Commonwealths; and the improvement of roadways at
national expense in order that Western products might find better
markets. These were the things which the Westerners ardently desired and
which it was hoped the new President would be able to obtain for them.
Incidentally, he was expected to set up the rule of the people in the
national capital, and to substitute a more simple life and etiquette for
the formal and fashionable manners which had come into vogue with Monroe
and his Cabinet.

The strength of the Western people was great, and to the East it
appeared ominous. They numbered in 1830 nearly 4,000,000 souls as
compared with 12,500,000 for the country as a whole, and their increase
in the preceding decade had run from 22 per cent in Kentucky to 185 per
cent in Illinois. In the National House of Representatives the West cast
47 votes in a total of 213; in the Senate their strength was 18 in a
total of 48. But this does not fairly represent their influence. In
western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia there were more than a
million people who counted themselves Westerners, while in the Carolinas
and Georgia a majority, or more than another half-million, must be
reckoned as adherents of the cause of the "Trans-alleghany." Thus about
6,000,000 of the total 12,500,000 were Western in character and ideals,
to say nothing of the large frontier element in New England.

In economic strength, however, these Jackson States and communities were
much weaker. They were isolated. Their surplus crops had no value save
as they were produced within reach of navigable rivers. Of these the
5,500,000 people living in the region drained by the Mississippi and the
other streams which fall into the Gulf of Mexico, exported about
$17,800,000 worth of commodities in 1830, a _per capita_ value of less
than $4. And most of this surplus output came from the cotton counties
of the lower South, where only a small proportion of the population of
the West dwelt. Still, the herds of cattle and droves of swine that were
driven southward to the cotton communities or over the mountains to
Eastern cities, and the large quantities of grain which, after 1825,
found its way to market through the Erie Canal, added greatly to and
perhaps d