demand for land and the love of wilderness freedom drew th frontier ever onward. The sectional aspects of the agricultu frontier demand historical study. The United States Depar ment of Agriculture has published two bulletins (Nos. 10 and 11, of the Division of Biological Survey), which give map showing the Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States and the Geographic Distribution of Cereals in North America The census volume on agriculture contains other maps showing the distribution of various crops and products. As the farmer frontier advanced westward it reached and traversed thes natural physiographic areas. The history of the farmer's frontier is in part a history of the struggle between these natural condi tions and the custom of the farmer to raise the crops and use the methods of the other regions which he has left. The tragedy of the occupation of the arid tract, where the optimism of the pioneer farmer met its first rude rebuff by nature itself, is a case in point.

Having now roughly outlined the various kinds of frontiers, and their modes of advance, chiefly from the point of view of the frontier itself, we next inquire what were the influences the East and on the Old World. A rapid enumeration of some of the more noteworthy effects is all that I have space for.

COMPOSITE NATIONALITY

on

First, we note that the frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people. The coast was preponderantly English, but the later tides of continental immigration flowed across to the free lands. This was the case from the early colonial days. The Scotch-Irish and the PalatineGermans, or "Pennsylvania Dutch," furnished the dominant element in the stock of the colonial frontier. With these peoples were also the freed indented servants, or redemptioners, who, at the expiration of their time of service, passed to the frontier. Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, writes, in 1717, "The inhabitants of our frontiers are composed generally of such as have been transported hither as servants, and, being out of their time,

le themselves where land is to be taken up and that will duce the necessarys of life with little labour."1 Very genlly these redemptioners were of non-English stock. In the cible of the frontier the immigrants were Americanized, erated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationty nor characteristics. The process has gone on from the rly days to our own. Burke and other writers in the middle the eighteenth century believed that Pennsylvania 2 was threatened with the danger of being wholly foreign in lanage, manners, and perhaps even inclinations." The German ad Scotch-Irish elements in the frontier of the South were only Ess great. In the middle of the present century the German ement in Wisconsin was already so considerable that leading ublicists looked to the creation of a German state out of the ommonwealth by concentrating their colonization. By the ensus of 1890 South Dakota had a percentage of persons of Dreign parentage to total population of sixty; Wisconsin, eventy-three; Minnesota, seventy-five; and North Dakota, eventy-nine. Such examples teach us to beware of misinterpretng the fact that there is a common English speech in America nto a belief that the stock is also English.

INDUSTRIAL INDEPENDENCE

In another way the advance of the frontier decreased our lependence on England. The coast, particularly of the South, acked diversified industries, and was dependent on England for the bulk of its supplies. In the South there was even a dependence on the northern colonies for articles of food. Governor Glenn, of South Carolina, writes in the middle of the eighteenth century: Our trade with New York and Philadelphia was of this sort, draining us of all the little money and bills we could gather from other places for their bread, flour, beer, hams, bacon, and other things of their produce, all which, except beer, our

1 Spotswood Papers, in Collections of Virginia Historical Society, Vols. I, II. 2 Burke, European Settlements, etc. [1765 ed.], II, 200.

3 Everest, in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XII, 7 ff.

new townships began to supply us with, which are settled with very industrious and thriving Germans. This no doubt diminishes the number of shipping and the appearance of our trade, but it is far from being a detriment to us." Before long the frontier created a demand for merchants. As it retreated from the coast it became less and less possible for England to bring her supplies directly to the consumers' wharfs, and carry away staple crops, and staple crops began to give way to diversified agriculture for a time. The effect of this phase of the frontier action upon the northern section is perceived when we realize how the advance of the frontier aroused seaboard cities like Boston, New York, and Baltimore, to engage in rivalry for what Washington called "the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire."

EFFECTS ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION

The legislation which most developed the powers of the national government, and played the largest part in its activity, was conditioned on the frontier. Writers have discussed the subjects of tariff, land, and internal improvement as subsidiary to the slavery question. But when American history comes to be rightly viewed it will be seen that the slavery question is an incident. In the period from the end of the first half of the present century to the close of the Civil War slavery rose to primary, but far from exclusive, importance. But this does not justify Dr. von Holst (to take an example) in treating our constitutional history in its formative period down to 1828 in a single volume, giving six volumes chiefly to the history of slavery from 1828 to 1861, under the title "Constitutional History of the United States." The growth of nationalism and the evolution of American political institutions were dependent on the advance of the frontier. Even so recent a writer as Rhodes, in his history of the United States since the compromise of 1850, has treated the legislation called out by the western advance as incidental to the slavery struggle.

1 Weston, Documents connected with History of South Carolina, p. 61.

This is a wrong perspective. The pioneer needed the goods of the coast, and so the grand series of internal improvement and railroad legislation began, with potent nationalizing effects. Over internal improvements occurred great debates, in which grave constitutional questions were discussed. Sectional groupings appear in the votes, profoundly significant for the historian. Loose construction increased as the nation marched westward.2 But the West was not content with bringing the farm to the factory. Under the lead of Clay · Harry of

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the West" protective tariffs were passed, with the cry of bringing the factory to the farm. The disposition of the public lands was a third important subject of national legislation influenced by the frontier.

EFFECTS ON INSTITUTIONS

It is hardly necessary to do more than mention the fact that the West was a field in which new political institutions were to be created. It offered a wide opportunity for speculative creation and for adjustment of old institutions to new conditions. The study of the evolution of western institutions shows how slight was the proportion of actual theoretic invention of institutions; but there is abundance of opportunity for study of the sources of the institutions actually chosen, the causes of the selection, the degree of transformation by the new conditions, and the new institutions actually produced by the new environment.

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

The public domain has been a force of profound importance in the nationalization and development of the government. The effects of the struggle of the landed and the landless states, and

1 Cf. Libby," Plea for the Study of Votes in Congress," in Report of American Historical Association for 1896, p. 223; Turner, Rise of the New West, Introduction.

2 See, for example, the speech of Clay, in the House of Representatives, January 30, 1824.

of the ordinance of 1787, need no discussion.1 Administratively the frontier called out some of the highest and most vitalizing activities of the general government. The purchase of Louisiana was perhaps the constitutional turning point in the history of the republic, inasmuch as it afforded both a new area for national legislation and the occasion of the downfall of the policy of strict construction. But the purchase of Louisiana was called out by frontier needs and demands. As frontier states accrued to the Union the national power grew. In a speech on the dedication of the Calhoun monument, Mr. Lamar explained, "In 1789 the states were the creators of the federal government; in 1861 the federal government was the creator of a large majority of the states."

When we consider the public domain from the point of view of the sale and disposal of the public lands,2 we are again brought face to face with the frontier. The policy of the United States in dealing with its lands is in sharp contrast with the European system of scientific administration. Efforts to make this domain a source of revenue, and to withhold it from emigrants in order that settlement might be compact, were in vain. The jealousy and the fears of the East were powerless in the face of the demands of the frontiersmen. John Quincy Adams was obliged to confess: "My own system of administration, which was to make the national domain the inexhaustible fund for progressive and unceasing internal improvement, has failed." The reason is obvious; a system of administration was not what the West demanded; it wanted land. Adams states the situation as follows: "The slaveholders of the South have bought the coöperation of the western country by the bribe of the western lands, abandoning to the new western states their own proportion of the public property and aiding them in the design of grasping all the lands into their own hands. Thomas H.

1 See the admirable monograph by Professor H. B. Adams, Maryland's Influence on the Land Cessions; and also President Welling, in Papers American Historical Association, III, 411; Barrett, Evolution of the Ordinance of 1787.

2 Sanborn, 66 Congressional Land Grants in Aid of Railroads," Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin; Donaldson, Public Domain.