Teddy Roosevelt

He is right in recognizing the fact that in the war, as a whole, justice was on the side of the frontiersmen.

He was doubtless, on the whole, a brave, good-hearted man--quite as good as the average borderer; but nevertheless apt to be drawn into deeds that were the reverse of creditable.

The settlers were perfectly right in feeling that they had a right to settle on the vast stretches of unoccupied ground, however wrong some of their individual deeds may have been.

The chief offence of the whites was that they trespassed upon uninhabited lands, which they forthwith proceeded to cultivate, instead of merely roaming over them to hunt the game and butcher one another.

The Virginians were the only foes the western Indians really dreaded; for their backwoodsmen were of warlike temper, and had learned to fight effectively in the forest.

In almost every case where I have personally known it exercised, the character of the individual ordered off justified the act.

A right the exercise of which is of course susceptible to great abuse, but, nevertheless, is often absolutely necessary to the well-being of a frontier community.

It is extraordinary that any author should be willing to put his name to such reckless misstatements, in what purports to be a history and not a book of fiction.

Had Sevier done any such deeds all the colonies would have rung with his exploits, instead of their remaining utterly unknown for a hundred and twenty-five years.

Gilmore describes, on the contrary, the skirmishes in which he may have been engaged were of such small importance that no record remains concerning them.

Gilmore forgets that we have numerous histories of the war in which Sevier is supposed to have distinguished himself, and that in not one of them is there a syllable hinting at what he says.

The first settlers on Holston River were a remarkable race of people for their intelligence, enterprise, and hardy adventure.

They tamed the rugged and shaggy wilderness, they bid defiance to outside foes, and they successfully solved the difficult problem of self-government.

Looked at relatively, it must also be said that we have done better than any other nation or race working under our conditions.

It is a good thing for us at times to compare what we have done with what we could have done, had we been better and wiser; it may make us try in the future to raise our abilities to the level of our opportunities.

None but heroes can succeed wholly in the work.

The truth is, that in starting a new nation in a new country, as we have done, while there are exceptional chances to be taken advantage of, there are also exceptional dangers and difficulties to be overcome.

The Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the French, not to speak of the Russians in Siberia, have all enjoyed, and yet have failed to make good use of, the same advantages which we have turned to good account.

But what nation ever has done all that was possible with the chances offered it?

Undoubtedly our opportunities have been great; undoubtedly we have often and lamentably failed in taking advantage of them.

It has often been said that we owe all our success to our surroundings; that any race with our opportunities could have done as well as we have done.

But he was a man who never rushed heedlessly into purposeless peril, and never flinched from a danger which there was an object in encountering.

They were the first men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on the continent.

It is this fact of the early independence and self-government of the settlers along the head-waters of the Tennessee that gives to their history its peculiar importance.

He intended to have a home where he could bring up his family, and, if possible, he wished to find rich lands, with good springs, whereto he might lead those of his neighbors who, like himself, eagerly desired to rise in the world, and to…