"This part of the United States is peopled by a single type of man only, the Virginians. They have retained the physical and moral character that belongs to them; they form a people apart, with national prejudices and a distinctive character."

Tocqueville (Pierson 581)

"In the sections of Kentucky and Tennesse[e] that we traversed the men are tall and strong. They have a national physiognomy and a rough and energetic appearance. They are not, like the inhabitants of Ohio, a confused mixture of all the Americn races: on the contrary, they are all sprung from the same stem and belong to the great Virginia family. They possess, then, to a much greater degree than all the Americans we have seen up to now, that intuitive love of country, a love mingled with exaggeration and prejudices, entirely different from the reasoned sentiment and refined egoism tha bear the name patriotism in almost all the States of the Union.

. . . Nothing in Kentucky or Tennesse[e], [conveys] the idea of so developed a society. On this point these two States differ essentially from those newly settled by the Americans from the North, where is to be found in germ the high civilization of New England. In Kentucky or Tennesse[e] you see few churches, no schools; society like the individual, seems to provide for nothing.

And yet, it's not quite a rustic society. There is none of that simplicity full of ignorance, prejudices and . . . [page torn] that distinguish agricultural peoples in inaccessible countries. These men still belong to onw of the most civilized and reasoning races in the world. Their customs have none of the naivete of the fields; the philosophical and argumentative spirit of the English crops up there as in all parts of America; and there is an astonishing circulation of letters and newspapers in the midst of these wild forests. We were travelling with the mail. From time to time we stopped before what they called the post. It was almost always an isolated house in the depth of the woods. There we dropped a large packet, from which doubtless each inhabitant of the neighborhood came to take his share. I don't believe that in the most enlightened rural district in France there is carried on an intellectual exchange as rapid or as large as in these wildernesses. . . ."

Tocqueville (Pierson 577-588)

Louisville

Westport