Excerpt from The Two Eras, Old and New: A Political and Historical Sketch of Our Government From 1789 to 1917In this golden age of Virginia and the South, it was quite the fashion, however, to place a Northern man upon the national ticket, either as president or, more frequently, as vice-president, to preserve the balance of power and harmony between the sections. The older and younger Adams of Massachusetts, Van Buren of New York, Pierce of New Hampshire, and Buchanan of Pennsylvania, served these purposes as presidents, and George Clinton, Tompkins, Gerry, Dallas and F ill more, as vice-presidents.In this period of our history there was no West as we know it today. There were then but two great divisions, or sections, of our country: North and South. The for mer comprised all that part lying above Mason and Dixon's line, the latter, all that tract below it. In a word, the term North then meant the territory stretch ing from Pennsylvania northeast to and including New Hampshire, the term South, that extending southwest to and including Georgia. Pennsylvania, having six states beyond and six below her, was the pivot, hence her name of The Keystone State. The original thirteen colonies, or states, stretched along the Atlantic seaboard irregularly from New Hampshire in the extreme north east to Georgia, the extreme southwest, as stated.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.