So rapidly did the people take possession of this heritage of the Revolutionary struggle that within fifteen years the eastern part was ready to claim the promise of statehood. Eight years later, this new State, Ohio, had passed in rank of population the older trans-Alleghanian States of Kentucky and Tennessee. Blessed with contiguous waterways lying in the line of travel, forming the gateway into the West by the down-thrusting arm of Canada, the first State to be created out of the public domain, with definite land surveys instead of tomahawk marks, with an endowed system of public schools, Ohio gained a political pre-eminence among the newer States and a national prestige which has scarcely yet been rivalled. The solution of the problem of the frontier was thus so easily and permanently solved by the Central Government in its home-making policy that one scarcely appreciates the fear of Washington and others interested in the back country lest it become a refuge for outlaws and banditti. Mingling with the savages, it was feared that these outcasts would create a constant menace to the advance of civilisation. Colonial governors had much difficulty in controlling the "lawless banditti of the borders." The first settlers across the mountains were considered in England as "uncultivated banditti" and as "fanatical and hungry republicans" and the "overplus of Ireland's population." So late as 1835, De Tocqueville, the French commentator on America, declared that Americans who quit the posts of the Atlantic to plunge into the western wilderness were adventurers, impatient of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men expelled from the State in which they were born. But he had no doubt that in time society would assume as much stability and regularity in the remote West as it had done upon the coast of the Atlantic ocean. At the time, the action of Congress called fresh attention to the attractiveness of the back country and the possibilities there when population should warrant the erection of States. Stanzas of Philip Freneau represent the feeling of the day: "What wonders there shall Freedom show, What mighty _States_ successive grow. What charming scenes attract the eye On wild Ohio's savage stream. Here Nature reigns, whose works outvie The boldest pattern art can frame. The _East_ is half to slaves consigned, And half to slavery more refined." CHAPTER IV FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERACY