THE POLITICAL BALANCE IN THE OLD 
NORTHWEST, 18204860 
The first three states created from the Old Northwest Terri- 
tory came into the Union after the overthrow of the Federal- 
ist party. Their political history from the second election 
of James Monroe until the organization of an opposition party 
in the middle thirties was characterized by Democratic 
solidarity and personal politics. Then for almost two decades 
ensued a struggle for political supremacy between Whigs and 
Democrats, a struggle complicated by newer immigration, 
economic sectionalism, and the rising slavery question. Mich- 
igan and Wisconsin, admitted under Democratic control, 
eventually threw their weight into the balance with northern 
Ohio and Illinois against the old Democracy and, with the 
organization of the Republican party, brought the section 
as a unit to the side of Lincoln in 1860. 
In 1820 there were about 792,000 inhabitants in the Old 
Northwest. Excepting the 8,765 persons in Michigan Terri- 
tory, the rest were included in the states of Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois. The frontier line extended from the lower 
Illinois River east halfway across the state, south in a sharp 
loop, north and east across central Indiana to Ohio, then across 
northwestern Ohio in a broad curve to meet Lake Erie not 
far from its western end. The population south and east of 
this line was of varied origin, but southern and middle states 
elements predominated. Ohio, due to its location and earlier 
settlement, presented the most varied population. There were 
Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky, 
Germans from Pennsylvania, and Quakers from Virginia and 
North Carolina. New Englanders settled around Marietta and 
on the Western Reserve, and people from New Jersey and 
Kentucky around Cincinnati. In Indiana and Illinois the main 
streams of settlement flowed in from the South, and, excepting 
the old French communities, there were no parts of southern 
Indiana and Illinois which were not dominated by the ad- 
vancing army of Carolinians, Virginians, and Kentuckians. 
( 407 ) 
