44 North American Forests and Forestry 



it is coming to be better understood that the 

 great central fact of the first century of our na- 

 tional existence was the conquest of the continent, 

 not the slavery struggle. Even in the latter epi- 

 sode, the backwoodsmen exercised the greatest 

 influence, for their sympathies were about equally 

 with the South and the North, and wholly for the 

 Union ; thereby the long era of compromise and 

 delay was made possible, during which the strength 

 of the North grew so much beyond that of the 

 South that the final result could not be but what it 

 was. 



The culmination period of the backwoods type 

 of American may be held to be the time from the 

 Revolutionary War to the close of the War of 1812. 

 By this time the various nationalities represented 

 among the western settlers had been welded into 

 homogeneity, and numbers of people had grown 

 up that had never known any life but that of the 

 forest. During this period men springing from 

 pioneer stock first assumed leading positions, which 

 they continued to hold long after the conditions 

 that created them had been much modified. He 

 who does not understand the backwoods type and 

 sympathize with its primitive strength, notwith- 

 standing all its crudeness, will never comprehend 

 why Clay and Jackson, Benton, Cass, and scores of 

 similar leaders during half a century commanded 

 the admiration and affection of the greater por- 

 tion of the American people, and why at the same 

 time the eastern commercial and professional classes 



