large fraction of these came from the Scotch-Irish and German stock
that in the first half of the eighteenth century passed from
Pennsylvania along the Great Valley to the up-country of the south.
Indiana, so late as 1850, showed but ten thousand natives of New
England, and twice as many persons of southern as of middle states
origin. In the history of Indiana, North Carolina contributed a
large fraction of the population, giving to it its "Hoosier" as well
as much of its Quaker stock. Illinois in this period had but a
sprinkling of New-Englanders, engaged in business in the little
towns. The southern stock, including settlers from Kentucky and
Tennessee, was the preponderant class. The Illinois legislature for
1833 contained fifty-eight from the south (including Kentucky and
Tennessee), nineteen from the middle states, and only four from New
England. Missouri's population was chiefly Kentuckians and
Tennesseeans.

The leaders of this southern element came, in considerable measure,
from well-to-do classes, who migrated to improve their conditions in
the freer opportunities of a new country. Land speculation, the
opportunity of political preferment, and the advantages which these
growing communities brought to practitioners of the law combined to
attract men of this class. Many of them, as we shall see, brought
their slaves with them, under the systems of indenture which made
this possible. Missouri, especially, was sought by planters with
their slaves. But it was the poorer whites, the more democratic,
non-slaveholding element of the south, which furnished the great
bulk of the settlers north of the Ohio. Prior to the close of the
decade the same farmer type was in possession of large parts of the
Gulf region, whither, through the whole of our period, the slave-
holding planters came in increasing numbers.