it actually lasted, had the jangling States
and their governments, as well as the Continental Congress, backed him
up half as effectively as the Confederate people and government backed
up Lee, or as the Northerners and the Washington administration backed
up McClellan--still more as they backed up Grant. The whole of our
Revolutionary history is a running commentary on the anarchic weakness
of disunion, and the utter lack of liberty that follows in its train.]
It was impossible to state with more straightforward clearness the fact
that Kentucky owed the unprotected condition in which she was left, to
the divided or States-rights system of government that then existed; and
that she would have had ample protection--and incidentally greater
liberty--had the central authority been stronger.

Why his Efforts were Baffled.

At last, Clark was empowered to raise the men he wished, and he passed
and repassed from Fort Pitt to the Falls of the Ohio and thence to the
Illinois in the vain effort to get troops. The inertness and
shortsightedness of the frontiersmen, above all the exhaustion of the
States, and their timid selfishness and inability to enforce their
commands, baffled all of Clark's efforts. In his letters to Washington
he bitterly laments his enforced dependence upon "persuasive arguments
to draw the inhabitants of the country into the field." [Footnote: State
Department MSS. Letters to Washington, Vol. 49, p. 235, May 21, 1781.
The entire history of the western operations shows the harm done by the
weak and divided system of government that obtained at the time of the
Revolution, and emphasizes our good fortune in replacing it by a strong
and permanent Union.] The Kentuckians were anxious to do all in their
power, but of course only a comparatively small number could be spared
for so long a campaign from their scattered stockades. Around Pittsburg,
where he hoped to raise the bulk of his forces, the frontiersmen were
split into little factions by their petty local rivalries, the envy
their leaders felt of Clark himself, and the never-ending jealousies and
bickerings between the Virginians and Pennsylvanians. [Footnote:
Calendar of Virginia State Papers, I., pp. 502, 597, etc.; II., pp. 108,
116, 264, 345. The Kentuckians were far more eager for action than the
Pennsylvanians.]

The fort at the Falls, where Clark already had some troops, was
appointed as a gathering-place for the different detachments that were