were personally interested in acquiring new territory, and because,
against their will, the governmental representatives of the nation were
finally forced to make the interests of the Westerners their own. The
people of the seaboard, the leaders of opinion in the coast towns and
old-settled districts, were inclined to look eastward, rather than
westward. They were interested in the quarrels of the old-world nations;
they were immediately concerned in the rights of the fisheries they
jealously shared with England, or the trade they sought to secure with
Spain. They did not covet the Indian lands. They had never heard of the
Rocky Mountains--nobody had as yet,--they cared as little for the
Missouri as for the Congo, and they thought of the Pacific Slope as a
savage country, only to be reached by an ocean voyage longer than the
voyage to India. They believed that they were entitled, under the
treaty, to the country between the Alleghanies and the Great Lakes; but
they were quite content to see the Indians remain in actual occupancy,
and they had no desire to spend men and money in driving them out.
Nevertheless, they were even less disposed to proceed to extremities
against their own people, who in very fact were driving out the Indians;
and this was the only alternative, for in the end they had to side with
one or the other set of combatants.

The governmental authorities of the newly created Republic shared these
feelings. They felt no hunger for the Indian lands; they felt no desire
to stretch their boundaries and thereby add to their already heavy
burdens and responsibilities. They wished to do strict justice to the
Indians; the treaties they held with them were carried on with
scrupulous fairness and were honorably lived up to by the United States
officials.

The Government Especially Averse to War.