We were in reality given nothing more than we had by our own prowess gained; the inference is strong that we got what we did get only because we had won and held it.
The Backwoods Governments.
The first duty of the backwoodsmen who thus conquered the west was to institute civil government.

Their efforts to overcome and beat back the Indians went hand in hand with their efforts to introduce law and order in the primitive communities they founded; and exactly as they relied purely on themselves in withstanding outside foes, so they likewise built up their social life and their first systems of government with reference simply to their special needs, and without any outside help or direction.

The whole character of the westward movement, the methods of warfare, of settlement, and government, were determined by the extreme and defiant individualism of the backwoodsmen, their inborn independence and self-reliance, and their intensely democratic spirit.

The west was won and settled by a number of groups of men, all acting independently of one another, but with a common object, and at about the same time.
There was no one controlling spirit; it was essentially the movement of a whole free people, not of a single master-mind.

There were strong and able leaders, who showed themselves fearless soldiers and just law-givers, undaunted by danger, resolute to persevere in the teeth of disaster; but even these leaders are most deeply interesting because they stand foremost among a host of others like them.