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Jefferson refused to countenance any proposal to take prompt possession of Louisiana by force or to assemble an army which could act with immediate vigor in time of need; and as he was the idol of the Southwesterners, who were bitterly anti-federalist in sympathy, he was able to prevent any violent action on their part until events rendered this violence unnecessary.
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 the arms of the Democratic party. Peace. However, peace was finally wrung from the Indians, and by the beginning of 1796 the outrages ceased.
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. They owed still less to the Northeasterners, or indeed to any of the men of the eastern seaboard; the benefits arising from Pinckney's treaty form the only exception. This neglect brought its own punishment.
We had a number of first-class young fellows from the East, most of them from colleges like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; but the great majority of the men were Southwesterners, from the then territories of Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Arizona, and New Mexico.
In the Southwest the early settlers acted as their own army, and supplied both leaders and men. Sevier, Robertson, Clark, and Boon led their fellow pioneers to battle, as Jackson did afterwards, and as Houston did later still. Indeed the Southwesterners not only won their own soil for themselves, but they were the chief instruments in the original acquisition of the Northwest also.
All but the first two are in the Southwest, and of these two one was first taken and governed by Southwesterners. On the other hand, the Northwestern cities, from Cincinnati and Chicago to Helena and Portland, were founded by our own people, by the people who now have possession of them. The Southwest was conquered only after years of hard fighting with the original owners.
The colored cavalry-men had already so accepted me; in return, the Rough Riders, although for the most part Southwesterners, who have a strong color prejudice, grew to accept them with hearty good-will as comrades, and were entirely willing, in their own phrase, "to drink out of the same canteen."
All of our territory lying beyond the Alleghanies, north and south, was first won for us by the Southwesterners, fighting for their own hand.
He was on record as believing, in common with most southwesterners, that Georgia had a rightful jurisdiction over her Indian lands; and his Secretary of War, Eaton, was instructed to say to the Cherokee representatives that their people would be expected either to yield to Georgia's authority or to remove beyond the Mississippi.
They were a splendid set of men, these Southwesterners tall and sinewy, with resolute, weather-beaten faces, and eyes that looked a man straight in the face without flinching.