These extracts serve to illustrate the sentiment largely prevailing "in the Northeast. There was a determined and obstinate hostility to Southern or Western expansion of territory, a feeling that such a policy would lessen the influence of the Northeastern States in the Union, and would retard their growth in population and wealth. They especially feared that the unimpeded navigation of the Mississippi would injure their commercial interests.
This sentiment was no sudden ebullition of party zeal. The jealousy was seen in the efforts of several of the States of this section, in the formation of the Union, to claim an interest in the Western lands as "a common stock," secured by "the blood and treasure of all. " Having been ceded and made "a common stock," its settlement and organization into states formed from this territory were now in alliance with the South, and had just aided in the triumph of the new party. Political power seemed to be slipping away from the Northeast. Ohio had just entered statehood and brought reinforcements to the Republicans, and now the Mississippi was crossed and the westward extension was boundless. Thus, in 1803, the feeling at the Northeast had reached a high point of irritation.[1]
That it was not suddenly allayed is established upon testimony which cannot be doubted. The continued op position to everything connected with the Louisiana purchase found eloquent expression in the famous words of Josiah Quincy, on the floor of Congress, as late as 1S11, when speaking on the bill for the admission of the Territory of Orleans as the State of Louisiana.
But this sentiment was not unanimous in New England.
There were a few men of influence who favored the
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- ↑ Mr. Fisk, in his admirable work, "The Critical Period," shows the prevalence of secession sentiments in the Southwest and the Northeast. Mr. Roosevelt, in the "Winning of the West," treats the subject in detail and with judicial fairness. Hon. J. L. M. Curry, in "The Southern States of the American Union," traces this sentiment through a series of years and portrays it vividly.
