The things we do!

There were even, as we
have seen, hopes and fears that a Franco-American republic might grow out
of that solidarity and independent spirit that were ready to forsake the
government on the eastern side of the mountains, which seemed to be
heedless of western needs. This tells us, who are conscious of the
national spirit which is now stronger, perhaps, in that valley than in any
other part of the Union, how strong the western, the anti-nationalistic,
spirit must have been then.
But that was before the coming of the east-and-west canal and the east-
and-west railroads, which virtually upheaved a new watershed and changed
the whole physiographic, social, and economic relationships of the west.
The old French river Colbert, the Eternal River, was virtually cut into
two great rivers, one of which was to empty into the gulf (just as it did
in La Salle's day and in Iberville's day), while the other was to run
through the valley of the Great Lakes, down through the valley of the
hostile Iroquois, into the harbor of New York.


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