To this day the
two great divisions have never wholly come together in their ways
of thinking.
But neither of these western segments was itself entirely a unit.
The Northwest, in particular, had been settled by people drawn
from every older portion of the country, and as the frontier
receded and society took on a more matured aspect, differences of
habits and ideas were accentuated rather than obscured. Men can
get along very well with one another so long as they live apart
and do not try to regulate their everyday affairs on common
lines.
The great human streams that poured into the Northwest flowed
from two main sources--the nearer South and New England. Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois were first peopled by men and women of
Southern stock. Some migrated directly from Virginia, the
Carolinas, and even Georgia. But most came from Kentucky and
Tennessee and represented the second generation of white people
in those States, now impelled to move on to a new frontier by the
desire for larger and cheaper farms. Included in this Southern
element were many representatives of the well-to-do classes, who
were drawn to the new territories by the opportunity for
speculation in land and for political preferment, and by the
opening which the fast-growing communities afforded for lawyers,
doctors, and members of other professions.
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