As an instance of the rapid growth of civilization in the wilderness of the West, we will give a few sentences from the graphic pen of Judge Hall, when speaking of this very region in the year of Black Hawk’s death. “The country,” says he, “over which Black Hawk, with a handful of followers, badly mounted and destitute of stores or munitions of war, roamed for hundreds of miles, driving off the scattered inhabitants, is now covered with flourishing settlements, with substantial houses and large farms—not with the cabins and clearings of border-men, but with the comfortable dwellings and the well-tilled fields of independent farmers. Organised counties and all the subordination of social life are there; and there are the noisy school-house, the decent church, the mill, the country store, the fat ox and the sleek plough-horse. The Yankee is there with his notions and his patent-rights, and the travelling agent with his subscription book; there are merchandise from India and from England, and in short all the luxuries of life. And all this within six years. Six years ago the Indian warrior ranged over that fertile region which is now covered with an industrious population, while the territories of Wisconsin and Iowa and vast settlements in Missouri have since grown up, beyond the regions which was then the frontier and the seat of war.” Such was the state of the West in 1832. Now in twenty years from that time the white population has advanced still farther and farther westward, removing at every step the Indian frontier. Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin have now taken their position as states of the Union, and religion and education are establishing true civilization in the former wilderness, and may atone to heaven for the wrongs done to the Indian on this very soil. But we must now return to the events of our general history. The tariff bill, which passed into operation at the close of the session of 1832, caused, as we have said, great excitement in the southern states. South Carolina was the head-quarters of the opposition; and the party adverse to the bill called themselves the State-rights party, afterwards “nullifiers,” because having in November held a convention at Columbia, they issued an ordinance in the name of the people, declaring that congress had exceeded its powers in laying on protective duties, and that all such acts should from that time be utterly _null_ and _void_. And finally they declared, that should congress attempt by force to bring their act into operation, the people would not submit; and that any act of congress authorising the employment of a naval or military force against the state, should be _null_ and _void_; and that in such case the people would hold themselves absolved from any political connexion with the other states, and would forthwith proceed to organise a separate government, and do all other acts and deeds which a sovereign and independent state has a right to do.