"the last Mormon war" broke out, which culminated in the siege and
evacuation of Nauvoo. Passing westward into No-man's-land, the Mormons
became eventually the founders of one of the Territories by which
Douglas sought to span the continent.

It was only in the Northwest that the cry for the re-occupation of
Oregon had the ring of sincerity; elsewhere it had been thought of as
a response to the re-annexation of Texas,--more or less of a
vote-catching device. The sentiment in Douglas's constituency was
strongly in favor of an aggressive policy in Oregon. The first band of
Americans to go thither, for the single purpose of settlement and
occupation, set out from Peoria.[198] These were "young men of the
right sort," in whom the eternal _Wanderlust_ of the race had been
kindled by tales of returned missionaries. Public exercises were held
on their departure, and the community sanctioned this outflow of its
youthful strength. Dwellers in the older communities of the East had
little sympathy with this enterprise. It was ill-timed, many hundred
years in advance of the times. Why emigrate from a region but just
reclaimed from barbarism, where good land was still abundant?[199]
Perhaps it was in reply to such doubts that an Illinois rhymester bade
his New England brother

"Scan the opening glories of the West,
Her boundless prairies and her thousand streams,
The swarming millions who will crowd her breast,
'Mid scenes enchanting as a poet's dreams:
And then bethink you of your own stern land,
Where ceaseless toil will scarce a pittance earn,
And gather quickly to a hopeful band,--
Say parting words,--and to the westward turn."[200]