=345. Changes among the People.=—The new democracy was strong and honest, but very ignorant. It was controlled by clever politicians, who used the machinery of caucus, primary election, and nominating conventions, and also introduced the ideas of the supreme virtue of party fealty, and of the propriety of distributing the spoils of office to the victors in each successive election. In other words, men were being taught to distrust their individual judgment and to trust that of their party. These ideas were held in all honesty, and few persons had time to consider whither they would lead. Few saw that party loyalty was taking the place of patriotism, that desire for the gains of office was supplanting the spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice. The country had grown tremendously in area, in population, and in wealth. Steamers were running in every direction, and railroads were soon to be built. Religious and educational lethargy had been shaken, and new ideas were in the air. National democracy, with its theories of the right of all to aspire to office, and its businesslike way of rewarding its successful supporters, was itself, therefore, a part of a great transformation of three-fourths of the American people. PROGRESS OF THE NATION. =346. Growth of the Nation.=—It is difficult to realize the extent of this transformation. In 1789 Spain hemmed us in to the South and West and the British had not abandoned fortresses that belonged to us in the Northwest. Just beyond the Alleghanies the Indians were still a menace. Forty years later our domain stretched far beyond the Mississippi, Spain had yielded Florida, and Great Britain respected our rights. The Seminoles in Florida, and other tribes in the far West, were still to give trouble, but everywhere the wigwam was retreating before the log cabin. A generation before, the Atlantic seaboard had dominated the country in population, education, and wealth. Now the West was, not indeed the equal of the East, but a formidable rival. Since the War of 1812, the migration to Northwest and Southwest had been marvelous. The people seemed determined to fill up their more than two million square miles of territory. Emigrants from Europe had not begun to come over in great numbers, but American families were large and always ready to move to a favorable locality, especially from rugged New England to the fertile West. Improved roads, canals, and steamboats facilitated the movement of population, but even in the South, where roads were bad, enterprising families moved by thousands from Virginia and the Carolinas into Alabama and Mississippi, which with their rich lands invited the cotton planter and his slaves. Under these circumstances it is no wonder that by 1830 the population of the country had reached nearly thirteen millions, and that eleven new states had been added to the old thirteen.