| | 1 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Prairie  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Much was said and written, at the time, concerning
the policy of adding the vast regions of Louisiana, to
the, already, immense and but half-tenanted territories
of the United States. As the warmth of controversy,
however, subsided, and personal considerations
gave place to more liberal views, the wisdom of the
measure began to be, generally, conceded. It soon
became apparent to the meanest capacity, that, while
nature had placed a barrier of desert to the extension
of our population in the west, the measure had made
us the masters of a belt of fertile country, which, in
the revolutions of the day, might have become the
property of a rival nation. It gave us the sole command
of the great thoroughfare of the interior, and
placed the countless tribes of savages, who lay along
our borders, entirely, within our control; it reconciled
conflicting rights, and quieted national distrusts;
it opened a thousand avenues to the inland trade, and
to the waters of the Pacific; and, if ever time or necessity
should require a peaceful division of this vast
empire, it assures us of a neighbour that would possess
our language, our religion, our institutions, and
it is also to be hoped, our sense of political justice. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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