The people of Tennessee were the wronged, and not the wrongdoers, and it was upon them that the heaviest strokes of the Indians fell.

A more shameful letter was never written, and it was sufficient of itself to show Pickering's conspicuous incapacity for the position he held.

The trouble was that he represented not very unfairly the sentiment of a large portion of the Eastern, and especially the Northeastern, people.

This was the more inexcusable in view of the fact that, thanks to the example of Blount, Sevier, and Robertson, the Tennesseeans, alone among the frontiersmen, showed an intelligent appreciation of the benefits of the Union and a readiness…

The Southwesterners owed thanks to General Wayne and his army and to their own strong right hands; but they had small cause for gratitude to the Federal Government.

Blount and Sevier were naturally inclined to Federalism, and it was probably only the supineness of the Federal Government in failing to support the Southwesterners against the Indians which threw Tennessee, when it became a State, into…

His chance of success arose from the fact that there were on the frontier many men of restless, adventurous, warlike type, who felt a spirit of unruly defiance toward the home government and who greedily eyed the rich Spanish lands.

He hated England, sympathized with France, and did not possess sufficient political good sense to appreciate either the benefits of the Central Government or the need of preserving order.

The Spanish Government knew it would be beaten if the issue once came to open war, and, true to the instincts of a weak and corrupt power, it chose as its weapons delay, treachery, and intrigue.

To individual Americans the Spaniards often behaved with arrogance and brutality; but they feared to give too serious offence to the American people as a whole.

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…

The separatist agitators failed to see that they could obtain the objects they sought, the opening of the Mississippi and the acquisition of Louisiana, only through the Federal Government, and only by giving that Government full powers.

Standing alone the Kentuckians would have been laughed to scorn not only by England and France, but even by Spain.

It was the existence of these Western separatists, nominally the fiercest foes of Spain, that in reality gave Spain the one real hope of staying the western advance.

This shows conclusively that Washington's administration was in error in not acting with greater decision about the Spanish posts.

As so often in our history, we erred, not through a spirit of over-aggressiveness, but through a willingness to trust to peaceful measures instead of proceeding to assert our rights by force.

Nevertheless, although it was his own friend who had been murdered, Innes refused to try the murderers, on the ground that they were Spanish subjects; a reason which was simply nonsensical.

He could not afford to have the murderers of his friend and agent tried lest they should disclose his own black infamy.

The conduct of Judge Innes is difficult to explain on any ground consistent with his integrity and with the official propriety of his actions.

The Jeffersonians believed that the Westerners should be allowed to govern themselves precisely as other citizens of the United States did, and should be given their full share in the management of national affairs.

The essential point was that they had to be given the right of self-government.

Like other Americans, they had to be left to strike out for themselves and to sink or swim according to the measure of their own capacities.

The people were entirely unable to realize that, so far as their discontent with the Governor's actions was reasonable, it arose from the fact that he was appointed, not by themselves, but by some body or person not in sympathy with them.

They failed to grasp the seemingly self-evident truth that a governor, one man elected by the people, is just as much their representative and is just as certain to carry out their ideas as is a legislature, a body of men elected by the…

The perils that threatened them were lawlessness, lack of order, and lack of capacity to concentrate their efforts in time of danger from within or from an external enemy; and against these perils they made no provision whatever.