1 82 The Winning of the West 



Americans of the North and the Spanish-speaking 

 races of the South. 



In their purposes and in the popular sentiment to 

 which they have appealed, our separatist leaders of 

 every generation have borne an ominous likeness to 

 the horde of dictators and half-military, half-politi 

 cal adventurers who for three-quarters of a century 

 have wrought such harm in the lands between the 

 Argentine and Mexico; but the men who brought 

 into being and preserved the Union have had no 

 compeers in Southern America. The North Amer 

 ican colonies wrested their independence from Great 

 Britain as the colonies of South America wrested 

 theirs from Spain; but whereas the United States 

 grew with giant strides into a strong and orderly 

 nation, Spanish-America has remained split into a 

 dozen turbulent States, and has become a byword 

 for anarchy and weakness. 



The separatist feeling has at times been strong 

 in almost every section of the Union, although in 

 some regions it has been much stronger than in oth 

 ers. Calhoun and Pickering, Jefferson and Gouver- 

 neur Morris, Wendell Phillips and William Taney, 

 Aaron Burr and Jefferson Davis these and many 

 other leaders of thought and action, East and West, 

 North and South, at different periods of the nation's 

 growth, and at different stages of their own ca 

 reers, have, for various reasons, and with widely 

 varying purity of motive, headed or joined in sep 

 aratist movements. Many of these men were act 

 uated by high-minded, though narrow, patriotism; 



