234 The Winning of the West 



War, they saw clearly that their best allies were the 

 separatists, the disunionists, and they sought to en- 

 courage in every way the party which, in a spirit of 

 sectionalism, wished to bring about a secession of 

 one part of the country and the erection of a separate 

 government. The secessionists then, as always, 

 played into the hands of the men who wished the 

 new republic ill. In the last decade of the eighteenth 

 century the acute friction was not between North 

 and South, but between East and West. The men 

 who, from various motives, wished to see a new re- 

 public created, hoped that this republic would take 

 in all the people of the Western waters. These men 

 never actually succeeded in carrying the West with 

 them. At the pinch the majority of the Westerners 

 remained loyal to the idea of national unity; but 

 there was a very strong separatist party, and there 

 were very many men who, though not separatists, 

 were disposed to grumble loudly about the short- 

 comings of the Federal Government. 



These men were especially numerous and power- 

 ful in Kentucky, and they had as their organ the sole 

 newspaper of the State, the "Kentucky Gazette." It 

 was filled with fierce attacks, not only upon the Gen- 

 eral Government, but upon Washington himself. 

 Sometimes these attacks were made on the author- 

 ity of the "Gazette" ; at other times they appeared in 

 the form of letters from outsiders, or of resolutions 

 by the various Democratic societies and political 

 clubs. They were written with a violence which, 

 in striving after forcefulness, became feeble. They 



