This indifference on the part of individuals to the growth of the race
is often nearly as marked in new as in old communities, although the
very existence of these new communities depends upon that growth. It is
strange to see now the new settlers in the new land tend to turn their
faces, not towards the world before them, but towards the world they
have left behind. Many of them, perhaps most, wish rather to take parts
in the struggles of the old civilized powers, than to do their share in
laying the obscure but gigantic foundations of the empires of the
future. The New Englander who was not personally interested in the lands
beyond the Alleghanies often felt indifferent or hostile to the growth
of the trans-montane America; and in their turn these over-mountain men,
these Kentuckians and Tennesseans, were concerned to obtain a port at
the mouth of the Mississippi rather than the right to move westward to
the Pacific. There were more men in the new communities than in the old
who saw, however imperfectly, the grandeur of the opportunity and of the
race-destiny: but there were always very many who did their share in
working out their destiny grudgingly and under protest.

The Race Grows because its Interests Happen to be Identical with
those of the Individual.

The race as a whole, in its old homes and its new, learns the lesson
with such difficulty that it can scarcely be said to be learnt at all
until success or interests failure has done away with the need of
learning it. But in the case of our own people it has fortunately
happened that the concurrence of the interests of the individual and of
the whole organism has been normal throughout most of its history.

The United States and Great Britain in 1791.