Those primitive democratic and individualistic conditions had not yet been seriously changed when, in that bit of the valley which lies in the dim background of my own memory, there had developed a form of government more stern and uncaressing. But there was not a pauper in all the township for its stigmatizing care. There was not an orphan who did not have a home; there was not a person in prison; there was only one insane person, so far as the public knew, and she was cared for in her own home. The National Government was represented by the postmaster miles away; the State government by the tax assessor, a neighbor who came only once a year, if he came at all, to inquire about one's earthly belongings, which could not then be concealed in any way; and the local government by the school- teacher, who was usually a man incapacitated for able-bodied labor or an unmarried woman. The citizens made and mended the public roads, looked after the sick in a neighborly way, bought their children's schoolbooks, and buried their own dead. I can remember distinctly wondering what a "poor officer" was, for there were no poor in that society where none was rich. It was a community of high social consistency, promoted not by a conscious, disinterested devotion to the common welfare but by the common, eagerly interested pursuit of the same individual welfares, where there was room enough for all. It is well contended in a recent and most profound discussion of this subject by Professor Turner (of whom I spoke as born on a portage) that this homogeneity of feeling was the most promising and valuable characteristic of that American democracy. [Footnote: See his "Significance of the Mississippi Valley in American History."] And it was, indeed, prolific of mighty consequences: First of all, it made it possible for the United States to accept Napoleon's proffer of Louisiana. Second, it compelled the War of 1812 and so confirmed to the United States the fruits of the purchase, demonstrating at the same time that the "abiding-place" of the national spirit was in the west. And, third, that spirit of nationalism took into its hands the reins of action in the time when nationality was in peril. Before the end of the Civil War the west was represented in the National Government by the President, the Vice-President, the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the House, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Postmaster-General, the Attorney-General, the General of the Army, and the Admiral of the Navy. And it furnished, as Turner adds in summary, the "national hero, the flower of frontier training and ideals."