president of their nomination, and learn from them whether they are willing to serve in the said offices, respectively. BENJAMIN RUGGLES, Chairman.

E. COLLINS, Secretary.

Niles' Register, Vol. XXV, pp. 388-390.

The general assembly of the State of Tennessee has taken into consideration the practice which, on former occasions, has prevailed at the City of Washington, of members of the Congress of the United States meeting in caucus, and nominating persons to be voted for as president and vice-president of the United States: and, upon the best view of the subject which this general assembly has been enabled to take, it is believed that the practice of congressional nominations is a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.

That instrument provides that there shall be three separate and distinct departments of the government, and great care and caution seems to have been exercised by its framers to prevent any one department from exercising the smallest degree of influence over another; and such solicitude was felt on this subject, that, in the second section of the second article, it is expressly declared, "That no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector." From this provision, it is apparent that the convention intended that the members of Congress should not be the principal and primary agents or actors in electing the president and vice-president of the United States so far from it, they are expressly disqualified from being placed in a situation to vote for those high officers. Is there not more danger of undue influence to be apprehended, when the members of Congress meet in caucus and mutually and solemnly pledge themselves to support the individuals who may have the highest number of votes in such meeting, than there would be in permitting them

to be eligible to the appointment of electors? In the latter case, a few characters, rendered ineligible by the Constitution, might succeed; but in the former, a powerful combination of influential men is formed, who may fix upon the American people their highest officers against the consent of a clear majority of the people themselves; and this may be done by the very men whom the Constitution intended to prohibit from acting on the subject. Upon an examination of the Constitution of the United States, there is but one case in which the members of Congress are permitted to act, which is in the event of a failure to make an election by the electoral colleges; and then the members of the House of Representatives vote by States. With what propriety the same men, who, in the year 1825, may be called on to discharge a constitutional duty, can, in the year 1824, go into a caucus and pledge themselves to support the men then nominated, cannot be discerned, especially when it might so happen that the persons thus nominated, could, under any circumstances, obtain a single vote from the State whose members stand pledged to support them. . . .

This practice is considered objectionable on other accounts so long as Congress is considered as composed of the individuals on whom the election depends, the executive will is subjected to the control of that body, and it ceases, in some degree, to be a separate and independent branch of the government; and an expectation of executive patronage may have an unhappy influence on the deliberations of Congress.

Upon a review of the whole question, the following reasons which admit of much amplification and enlargement, more than has been urged in the foregoing, might be conclusively relied on, to prove the impolicy and unconstitutionality of the Congressional nominations of candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States: Ist. A caucus nomination is against the spirit of the Constitution. 2nd. It is both inexpedient and im

politic. 3rd. Members of Congress may become the final electors, and therefore ought not to prejudge the case by pledging themselves previously to support particular candidates. 4th. It violates the equality intended to be secured by the Constitution to the weaker States. 5th. Caucus nominations may, in time (by the interference of the States), acquire the force of precedents and become authoritative, and thereby endanger the liberties of the American people.

Niles' Register, Vol. XXV, pp. 137-8. November 1, 1823.

QUESTIONS

How could the Caucus be said to violate the Constitution in so far as that document has provided for three distinct departments of government? What chances of control of the executive by the legislative did it afford? Might the members of the House of Representatives be called on to choose a president? How was the president elected in 1824-25? Was it in any way improper for the Congressmen to nominate if they also might be called on to choose the president? Does the protest against the nomination by office holders indicate a rising feeling of self-confidence on the part of the people? Is the nomination of officials one of the duties and responsibilities of popular government or does popular government begin and end with casting ballots at an election?

PART IV

THE NEW WEST

XXIII

COLONIZATION OF THE WEST

One of the great tasks of the American people and one of their accomplishments has been-perhaps we should say was, for the work is largely finished - to people the continent from sea to sea. The movement into the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley in the two decades after the war of 1812 was of great importance. We should notice that there was, moreover, movement within the valley from the older settled regions into the unsettled portions. In the selection given below we have a vigorous description of the movement and indications of its significance.

The rise of the new West was the most significant fact in American history in the years immediately following the War of 1812. Ever since the beginnings of settlement on the Atlantic coast a frontier of settlement had advanced, cutting into the forest, pushing back the Indian, and steadily widening the area of settlement and civilization in its rear. There had been a West even in early colonial days; but then it lay close to the coast. By the middle of the eighteenth century the West was to be found beyond tide-water, passing toward the Allegheny Mountains. When this barrier was crossed and the lands on the other side of the mountains were won, in the days of the Revolution, a new and greater West, more influential on the nation's destiny, was created. The men of the "Western Waters" or the "Western World," as they loved to call themselves, developed under conditions of

separation from the older settlements and from Europe. The lands, practically free, in this vast area not only attracted the settler, but furnished opportunity for all men to hew out their own careers. The wilderness ever opened a gate of escape to the poor, the discontented, and the oppressed. If social conditions tended to crystallize in the East, beyond the Alleghenies there was freedom. Grappling with new problems, under these conditions, the society that spread into this region developed inventiveness and resourcefulness; the restraints of custom were broken, and new activities, new lines of growth, new institutions were produced. Mr. Bryce has well declared that "the West is the most American part of America. . . . What Europe is to Asia, what England is to the rest of Europe, what America is to England, that the Western States and Territories are to the Atlantic States." The American spirit the traits that have come to be recognized as the most characteristic was developed in the new commonwealths that sprang into life beyond the seaboard. In these new western lands Americans achieved a boldness of conception of the country's destiny, and democracy. The ideal of the West was its emphasis upon the worth and possibilities of the common man, its belief in the right of every man to rise to the full measure of his own nature, under conditions of social mobility. Western democracy was no theorist's dream. It came, stark and strong and full of life, from the American forest.

The time had now come when this section was to make itself felt as a dominant force in American life. Already it had shown its influence upon the older sections. By its competition, by its attractions for settlers, it reacted on the East and gave added impulse to the democratic movement in New England and New York. The struggle of Baltimore, New York City, and Philadelphia for the rising commerce of the interior was a potent factor in the development of the Middle Region. In the South the spread of the cotton plant and the new form which slavery took were