A History of Columbia County, Wisconsin - A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests #270555

Every student of history knows that Interior America is the Greater America, and just as long as the Coming United States was crowded between the Eastern mountains and the Atlantic Ocean it was bound in Colonial chains. To the romantic, ambitious spirit of the Frenchman, whether he be cavalier or priest, is due the planting of the seed which has bloomed into a nation. He opened the gates to the Mississippi with all its tributary valleys; and it was the fiery genius of Napoleon which finally passed into our keeping that vast Louisiana beyond the Mississippi; which lured us even beyond to the Pacific. It is by thus getting a perspective that one may weigh the relative importance of any locality as a necessary feature of the broad, historic landscape over which the events of the world have marched and which the student may calmly review as from an eminence; he is blind, except with the prophetic eye, as to what lies before him.