He, in turn, in the paths of the Old French War across the Alleghanies,
found by a most singular fate not only the indissoluble bond between the
eastern and the western waters but in those very paths the practical way
to the more "perfect union" of the young nation that was to succeed to
this joint heritage of England and of France.
To its estate of hundreds of millions of acres east of the Mississippi
Napoleon added a half-billion more out of the one-time domain of Louis XIV
and made it possible that the United States should some day develop into a
world-power.
The half-valley, enlarged to its mountain bounds through the influence of
its free soil on those whose feet touched it as pioneers, nourished a
natural democracy founded in the equalities, the freedoms, and the
fraternities of the frontier so vital, so powerful that it became the
dominant nationalistic force in a continent-wide republic. Aided by the
means of communication which a rampant individualism had prepared for it,
it held that republic together, expressing itself most conspicuously in
the democratic soul of Lincoln--who, following La Salle down the
Mississippi, found his high mission to the world--and in the masterful,
resourceful generalship of Grant.
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