CHAPTER III

THE MIDDLE REGION (1820-1830)


The middle states formed a zone of transition between the east and
the west, the north and the south [Footnote: For earlier discussions
of the middle colonies and states, see Tyler, ENGLAND IN AMERICA,
chap, xvii.; Andrews, COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT, chaps, v., vii.,
xviii., xix.; Greene, PROVINCIAL AMERICA, chaps. xvi.-xviii. (AM.
NATION, IV., V., VI.)]. Geographically, they lay on the line of the
natural routes between the Atlantic on the one side, and the Ohio
and the Great Lakes on the other. [Footnote: Gallatin, WRITINGS,
III., 49; Clinton, in LAWS OF THE STATE OF N.Y. IN RELATION TO ERIE
AND CHAMPLAIN CANALS, I., 140.] The waters of the Susquehanna,
rising near the lake region of central New York, flowed to
Chesapeake Bay, which opened into the Atlantic far down Virginia's
coast-line. The Great Valley ran through eastern Pennsylvania,
across Maryland, and, in the form of the Shenandoah Valley, made a
natural highway to the interior of North Carolina. New York City and
Philadelphia saw in an intimate connection with the rising west the
pledge of their prosperity; and Baltimore, which was both a
metropolis of the south and of the middle region, extended her trade
north to central New York, west to the Ohio, and south into
Virginia, and, like her rivals, sent her fleets to garner the
commercial harvest of the sea. In the composition of its population,
also, the middle region was a land of transitions between sections,