Eight years later, this new
State, Ohio, had passed in rank of population the older
trans-Alleghanian States of Kentucky and Tennessee. Blessed with
contiguous waterways lying in the line of travel, forming the gateway
into the West by the down-thrusting arm of Canada, the first State to
be created out of the public domain, with definite land surveys instead
of tomahawk marks, with an endowed system of public schools, Ohio
gained a political pre-eminence among the newer States and a national
prestige which has scarcely yet been rivalled.
The solution of the problem of the frontier was thus so easily and
permanently solved by the Central Government in its home-making policy
that one scarcely appreciates the fear of Washington and others
interested in the back country lest it become a refuge for outlaws and
banditti. Mingling with the savages, it was feared that these outcasts
would create a constant menace to the advance of civilisation. Colonial
governors had much difficulty in controlling the "lawless banditti of
the borders." The first settlers across the mountains were considered
in England as "uncultivated banditti" and as "fanatical and hungry
republicans" and the "overplus of Ireland's population.
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