[Footnote: A. B. Hulbert, "Washington and the West," p.
100.]
England and France had both restrained western migration, and the young
provincial republic was doubtless of no mind to encourage it, so far as it
then knew its mind. But Washington had a larger, wiser view than any other
except Franklin, and even Franklin was not ardent for the canals.
Washington was thinking, some will say, of the trade that would come over
those paths; and so he was, but it was not primarily for his own
advantage, not for the trade's sake, but for the sake of the weak little
confederation of States for which he had ventured all he was and had.
He was (as my old professor of history in Johns Hopkins was the first to
point out [Footnote: Herbert B. Adams, "Washington's Interests in Western
Lands," in _Johns Hopkins University Studies._ Third series, No. I,
1885.]) the first to suggest the parcelling of the western country into
"free, convenient, and independent governments," and here he appears the
first not to speculate about but to seek out by fording streams and
climbing mountains a practical way to a "more perfect union," and not
merely for those jealous States lying along the Atlantic and within reach
of its commerce, but for all the territory and people of their new
heritage.
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