The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1845-08-02
Vol. ii.


plished: America exists as a people,
gains unity as government, and takes
its place as nation among the powers
of the earth.
The next great office to be perform.
ed bv America, is the taking possession
Of the wilderness. The magnificent
western valley cried out to the civil
zation of popular power, that it must
be occupied by cultivated man.
Behold, then, our orphan hero, stern.
ly earnest. consecrated to humanity
from childhood by sorrow, having nei.
ther father, nor mother, nor sister, nor
surviving brother, so young and yet SO
solitary, and therefore bound the more
closely to collective man--behold him
elect for his lot to 60 forth and assist in
laying the foundations of society in the
great valley Of the Mississippi.
At the very time when Washington
was pledging his own and future gen.
erations to the support of the popular
institutions which were to be the light
of the human race-at the time when
the institutions of the Old World were
rocking to their centre, and the mighty
fabric that had come down from the
middle ages was falling in-the adven-
turous Jackson, in the radiant glory and
boundless hope and confident intrepid
tv Of twenty-one, plunged into the will
derness, crossed the great mountain
barrier that divides the western waters
from the Atlantic, followed the paths of
the early hunters and fugitives, and,
not content with the nearer neighbor-
hood TO his parent State, went still fur
ther and further to the west, till he
found his home in the most beautiful
region on the Cumberland. There,
from the first, he was recognised as the
great pioneer; under his courage, the
coming emigrants were sure to find a
shield.
The lovers of adventure began to
pour themselves into the territory,
whose delicious climate and fertile soil
invited the presence Of social man.
The hunter with his rifle and his axe,
attended by his wife and children; the
hcrdsman driving tie few cattle that
were to multiply as they browsed; the
cultivator of the soil--al came to the
inviting region. Wherever the bend
ing mountains opened a pass--wherev-
er the buflaloes and the beasts of the
forest had made a trace, these sons of
nature, children Of humanity, in the
highest sentiment Of personal freedom,
came to occupy the beautiful wilderness
whose prairies blossomed every where
profusely with wild flowers-whose
woods in spring put to shame, by their
magniicence, the cultivated gardens Of
man.
And now that these unlettered fugi-
tives, educated only by the spirit Of
freedom, destitute of dead letter erudi-
ton, but sharing the living ideas Of the
age, had made their homes in the West
what would follow? Would they
make the solitudes OF the desert excuses
for licentiousness9 Would the doc
Lrines Of freedom lead them to live in
lnorganized society, destitute Of laws
and fixed institutions?
AT time when European society
was becoming broken in pieces, scat
tered, disunited, and resolved into its
scene ensued in Tennessee,
than which nothing more beautifully
grand is recorded in the annals of the
race.
These adventurers in the wilderness
onged to come together in organized
society. The overshadowing genius
of their time inspired them with good
designs, and filled them with the coun-
sells of wisdom. Dwelers in the for
est, freest of The free, bound in the spir-
I, they came up by their representa-
ives, on foot. on horseback, through
he forest, along the streams, by ithe
buffalo traces, by the Indian paths, by |
he blazed forest avenues, to meet in
among the mountains at
Knoxville, and frame for themselves a
Andrew Jackson was
here, the greatest man of them ALL
bold, determined, demanding
lothing for himself, and shrinking from
nothing that his heart approved.
The convention came together on
he eleventh day of January, 1895, and
inished its work on the sixth day of
February. How had the wisdom Of the |
Did World vainly tasked itself to frame
constitutions, that could, at least.be the |
subject ofexperiment; the men often
lessee, in less than twenty five days,
perfected fabric, which, in its essen
ial forms, was to last forever. They
,ame together, full Of faith and rever-
nee, oflove to humanity of confidence
n truth. In the simplicity Of wisdom,
hey framed their constitution, acting