The cry of the east for protection to infant industries was
swelled by the little cities of the west, and the demand for a home
market found its strongest support beyond the Alleghenies. Internal
improvements and lower rates of transportation were essential to the
prosperity of the westerners. Largely a debtor class, in need of
capital, credit, and an expansion of the currency, they resented
attempts to restrain the reckless state banking which their optimism
fostered.
But the political ideals and actions of the west are explained by
social quite as much as by economic forces. It was certain that this
society, where equality and individualism flourished, where
assertive democracy was supreme, where impatience with the old order
of things was a ruling passion, would demand control of the
government, would resent the rule of the trained statesmen and
official classes, and would fight nominations by congressional
caucus and the continuance of presidential dynasties. Besides its
susceptibility to change, the west had generated, from its Indian
fighting, forest-felling, and expansion, a belligerency and a
largeness of outlook with regard to the nation's territorial
destiny.
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