ST

When the West under the guidance and tutelage of Jackson, Calhoun, and
Benton took possession of the national administration in 1829, the older
and more cultured elements and classes of the East trembled for their
country and for the institutions they held dear. The day was dark to
John Quincy Adams and his followers, not only because they had been
deprived of power, but because the rural sections of the East, the towns
and villages which had been active and prosperous from 1783 to 1807,
showed almost as many signs of stagnation and premature decay as did the
Old Dominion, where public men were in a state of alarm and dismay. For
fifteen years the highways of New York and Pennsylvania had borne their
burden of New England emigrants, laden with their meager belongings, as
they journeyed westward to the Mohawk country, western Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and other rising communities of the West. Between 1820 and 1830
the population of New England as a whole increased but slightly, while
in many counties of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut there
was an actual decline. Ambitious young men or discouraged heads of
families moved northeastward to the freer lands of Maine or to the Far
West, without seeming love for the older haunts or thought for the
fortunes of the Commonwealths which had given them birth. And New York,
whose population increased from 1,400,000 in 1820 to 2,400,000 in 1840,
drew heavily upon her eastern neighbors; Pennsylvania, of more steady
habits, drew less from New England than her immediate neighbors, though
both New York and Pennsylvania gave freely to the West. There was thus a
steady drift of the people from their Eastern homes to the better
opportunities of the Middle States, while from these, in turn, large
numbers joined the more courageous who were never content until they
built their cabins along the river borders or on the prairies of the
Northwest.

The total population of the country in 1830 was nearly 13,000,000, while
that of the East, including New England, the Middle States, and
Maryland, was a little more than 6,000,000. Between 1820 and 1840 the
population of the country increased from 9,654,000 to 17,669,000; that
of the East increased from 4,850,000 to 7,350,000, of which 650,000 had
come from Europe. This represented a growth of only fifty per cent in
twenty years. But the rival South, as a whole, and this includes
Kentucky and Missouri, had increased her population during