morrow, but returning at regular intervals to each community, provided the largest amount of religious teaching and preaching at the least expense." The Baptists, too, secured a footing in the new communities and labored effectively in creating religious ties between the old and the new sections of the country. In religion as in politics the people of the West were responsive to emotional appeals. The circuit rider, with his intense conviction of sin and his equally strong conviction of salvation through repentance, wrought great crowds in camp meetings into ecstasies of religious excitement. Odd religious sects and strange "isms were to be found in the backcountry. At New Harmony on the Wabash River were the Rappites, a sect of German peasants who came first to Pennsylvania under their leader George Rapp, and who afterward returned thither. At Zoar in Ohio was the Separatist community led by Joseph Baumeler. Shaker societies were formed at many places; and Mormonism was just beginning its strange history through the revelations of Joseph Smith in western New York.

The intellectual horizon of the Western world was necessarily limited. Absorbed in the stern struggle for existence, the people had no leisure and no heart to enjoy the finer aspects of life. Education was a luxury which only the prosperous might possess. The purpose to make elementary education a public charge developed tardily. Outside of New England, indeed, a public school system did not exist. Throughout the older portions of the West the traveler might find academies and so-called colleges, but none sup

ported at public expense. The State of Indiana, it is true, entered the Union with a constitution which made it the duty of the legislature to provide, as soon as circumstances permitted, "for a general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all." But years passed before circumstances permitted the realization of this ideal. Meantime, the prosperous planters of the Southwest employed tutors for their children, and the well-to-do farmers of the Northwest paid tuition for their boys at academies. But young Abraham Lincoln had to teach himself Euclid and to cipher on the back of a wooden shovel, by the flickering embers of a log-cabin fire.

The new Commonwealths entered the Union as self-confessed democracies. In all the States formed after the War of 1812, with one exception, property qualifications such as prevailed in the older States were swept away and the right to vote was accorded to every adult white male. In Mississippi alone there was the additional qualification that a voter should be enrolled in the militia or have paid a state or county tax. Everywhere, too, the principle was accepted that representation should be based upon population and not upon property. The men who framed these new constitutions believed that they were establishing the rule of the people. It was, indeed, unthinkable that, believing themselves equal in all other respects, they should not accept the principle of political equality and popular sovereignty.

There is evidence in these new constitutions, how

ever, that the people placed less reliance in their legislative bodies than did the people of the Revolutionary era. Instead of general grants of legislative power, there are specific prohibitions and positive injunctions. Important limitations are imposed upon the form and mode of legislation. It is clear, too, that fear of an over-strong executive had given way to a belief in the necessity of having a stronger countervailing influence, capable of checking the legislative. Everywhere the governor was made elective directly by the people and given the veto power. The conviction was often expressed in constitutional conventions that the governor was peculiarly the representative of the people, a popular tribune who would protect them against the indiscretions of their legislative representatives. The extension of the elective principle to all important offices was accompanied also by a general conviction that life tenure of office is undemocratic. Rotation in office," said Andrew Jackson, voicing a popular feeling, "is a cardinal principle of democracy."

The spirit of Western democracy leavened also the older States. The people of Maine, breaking away from Massachusetts and her ancient ideals, boldly declared for manhood suffrage in their new constitution. Connecticut adopted a constitution in 1818 to replace the old charter, and dissolved the old union of Church and State by declaring that no preference should be given by law to any Christian sect or mode of worship. At the same time Connecticut extended the suffrage to all who served in the militia or paid a state tax. New York in the constitution of 1821

and Massachusetts by a constitutional amendment in the same year abandoned the old property qualifications for voting.

In both Massachusetts and New York, conservative men like Chancellor Kent and Daniel Webster frankly avowed their apprehensions of universal suffrage. "The tendency of universal suffrage," said Kent in the New York convention, "is to jeopardize the rights of property, and the principles of liberty." He held society to be an association for the protection of property as well as of life," and the individual who contributes only one cent to the common stock ought not to have the same power and influence in directing the property concerns of the partnership as he who contributes his thousands."

The democratic movement affected not only the formal organization of State Governments, but also the machinery and methods of political parties. In the Northern States there was increasing dissatisfaction with the practice of nominating candidates for office by legislative caucus. The rank and file of the parties were no longer willing to submit blindly to the dictation of leaders. In deference to party voters in districts which were not represented by men of their political faith, the leaders of the respective parties now found it expedient to summon special delegates to their party conclaves, in order to give a more truly representative character to the organization of party. The legislative caucus, in short, gave way to the mixed caucus.

But the old vice remained. The selection of candidates for office was still made by those who had no