The history of the United States is the history of a growing nation. Every period of its life is a transitional period, but that from the close of the War of 1812 to the election of Andrew Jackson was peculiarly one of readjustment. It was during this time that the new republic gave clear evidence that it was throwing off the last remnants of colonial dependence. The Revolution had not fully severed the United States from the European state system; but now the United States attained complete independence and asserted its predominance in the western continent. It was in this period that the nation strengthened its hold on the Gulf of Mexico by the acquisition of Florida, recognized the independence of the revolting Spanish-American colonies, and took the leadership of the free sisterhood of the New World under the terms of the Monroe Doctrine.

Excerpt from Rise of the New West 1819-1829 In a way the west is simply a broader east, for up to the end of the period covered by this volume most of the grown men and women in the west came across the mountains to found new homes the new-englander in western New York; the Penn sylvanian diverging westward and southwestward; the Virginian in Kentucky; the north-carolinian in Tennessee and Missouri and, along with the South Carolinian and Georgian, in the new southwestern states; while north of the Ohio River the principal element up to 1830 was southern. To describe such a movement and its effects, Pro fessor Turner has the advantage to be a descendant Of new-yorkers, of New England stock, but native to the west, and living alongside the most complete collection of materials upon the west which has ever been brought together - the Library of the Wisconsin State Historical Society. His point of View is that the west and east were always interdependent, and that the rising power of the western states in na tional affairs was a wholesome and natural outcome of forces at work for half a century. The trans formation of the west from a rude and boisterous frontier to a group of states, soon rivalling their parent communities in population and wealth, was not unlike the process through which Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia passed as colonies, except that the inland people accepted Ideals and standards originally English, but worked out and put into shape by their colonist fathers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.