32 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



The legislation which most developed the powers of the na- 

 tional government, and played the largest part in its activity, 

 was conditioned on the frontier. The growth of nationalism 

 and the evolution of American political institutions were de- 

 pendent on the advance of the frontier. The pioneer needed 

 the goods of the coast, and so the grand series of internal im- 

 provement and railroad legislation began, with potent nationaliz- 

 ing effects. Over internal improvements occurred great de- 

 bates, in which grave constitutional questions were discussed. 

 Sectional groupings appear in the votes, profoundly significant 

 for the historian. Loose construction increased as the nation 

 marched westward. But the West was not content with brinjr- 

 ing the farm to the factory. Under the lead of Clay "Harry 

 of the West," protective tariffs were passed, with the cry of 

 bringing the factory to the farm. The disposition of the public 

 lands was a third important subject of national legislation in- 

 fluenced by the frontier. "No subject," said Henry Clay, 

 "which has presented itself to the present, or perhaps any pre- 

 ceding, Congress, is of greater magnitude than that of the pub- 

 lic lands." When we consider the far-reaching effects of the 

 government's land policy upon political, economic, and social 

 aspects of American life, we are disposed to agree with him. 

 But this legislation was framed under frontier influences, and 

 under the lead of western statesmen like Benton and Jackson. 

 Said Senator Scott, of Indiana, in 1841: "I consider the pre- 

 emption law merely declaratory of the custom of common law of 

 the settlers." 



But it was not merely in legislative action that the frontier 

 worked against the sectionalism of the coast. The economic and 

 social characteristics of the frontier worked against sectionalism. 

 The men of the frontier had closer resemblances to the middle 

 region than to either of the other sections. Pennsylvania had 

 been the seed plot of frontier emigration, and, although she 

 passed on her settlers along the Great Valley into the west of 

 Virginia and the Carolinas, yet the industrial society of these 

 southern frontiersmen was always more like that of the Middle 

 region than like that of the tidewater portions of the South, 

 which later came to spread the industrial type throughout the 

 South. 





