Empire Blue Cross Continuation Of Care: Fill & Download for Free

Let’s give a simplified precis answer that leaves out the toxic Back ’n’ Forth over the merits and demerits of the ACA … aka ObamacareLook at the History of Current Single Payor:Europe: Let us remember that unlike the US, Europe suffered the brunt of WWII. Folks…it was LEVELED. London, England was Rubble. Paris, France was a mortared, shot-up Ruin. Virtually every major city in Germany was reduced to scorched, bombed out craters. Italy, Spain…point and name every other major European nation… if you could look back thru time you would find people in rags, staggering thru bombed out cities, trying to put civilization back on its tracks.Governments at that time were faced with the harrowing task of providing for their citizens. And one of those paramount tasks, especially in the aftermath of War, is the prevention and containment of widespread health problems. Governments in those circumstances had literally ENTIRE POPULATIONS who needed basic Health Needs attended to. Doctors and hospitals were present…but people no longer had money or Jobs. That was not the time, for Doctor’s and Hospitals to tell the wounded and the maimed— “Sorry, No Money, No Treatment…”In essence, we can imagine that the Medical Profession was basically ‘Drafted’ into Service as a matter of National Need.In England— we see the NHS—1948NHS establishedThe NHS is born on July 5 1948 out of a long-held ideal that good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth.When Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan opens Park Hospital in Manchester it is the climax of a hugely ambitious plan to bring good healthcare to all. For the first time hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists are brought together under one umbrella organisation that is free for all at the point of delivery. The central principles are clear: the health service will be available to all and financed entirely from taxation, which means that people pay into it according to their means.NHS Choices - History of NHSNOTE THE YEAR: 1948.The year is Not a Coincidence. Britain was still digging its way out of the the end of WWII. Remember— They are still digging up unexploded shells even today. The Nation had a populace in dire need of Healthcare, with the focus NOT on Individual Health, but on Population health: Disease & Epidemics.So, in essence, what began as an informal voluntary commitment on the part of the Medical Community to General Health … got codified into Law in 1948.The Rest of Europe Followed suit…all due to the same devastation.Canada, Australia and others followed suit because they were part of the British Commonwealth.Now Look at the USA:Note, this time, the LACK of direct devastation from WWII. Life continued as usual. What we had at that time was the same Medical Care System that used to exist prior to WWII. It was a very simple system: Fee for Service. People who needed or wanted care had to PAY for that care.If they could not pay for needed care, they could or might find Charity Hospitals, usually run by Religious Faiths like the Catholic Church.If a person could not gain medical care by either of the above … they died.At this time, Funeral Homes and Morticians were very good Business. The Local Funeral Director was usually the wealthiest resident in the town. And their business occupied both ends of the age spectrum, both the Elderly, and Children. Caskets came in all sizes…and prices.Health Insurance Plans existed…but a lot of them were singular, Hospital Based prepayment plans, or more commonly, Accident-Based Insurance Plans…Thus the Phrase: ‘Getting hit by a Mack Truck’ (Yes, anecdotal, but I’ll run with it.) They were also variegated by State Laws and Jurisdictions. And then there was the development when they became underwritten by UNIONS. A Teacher’s Union was the source of early Blue Cross Coverage for it’s members back in 1929. We now know it as Empire Blue Cross & Blue Shield.Over time, outside of Federal politics, other Insurance Companies crafted their own Health Insurance policy offerings thru the growing number of Unions and Large Businesses. And it can be said that in the USA’s case, the Free Market of Health Insurance offered most Americans adequate options at a reasonable cost.There was one side-effect of this growth…Politics. At the State and Local Levels and upwards, Insurance Companies carried their clout and their Financial Interests into Representative’s Offices at all levels of Government, just as Companies and Corporations do.So from their standpoint, now in the 21st Century, having been major, long-term players in the field of Healthcare, UNIMPEDED by War, since the 20’s … the notion/idea of a Single Payor Plan that could wipe entire rosters of premium paying customers from their books becomes a definite FINANCIAL point of argument Against the enactment of a Single Payor scheme.Likewise, Hospitals and Doctors who have a long, comfortable understanding of the current Insurance Contracting System would have negative reactions to a Single Payor system that might infringe on their current ability to directly contract for specific Fees for Services at Payment amounts they deem acceptable. And just like the Insurance Company, Doctors and Hospitals, via their Medical Associations and Lobbying groups ALSO are able to bring their clout and their Financial Interests into Representative’s Offices at all levels of Government.Then comes the question of How Much TAXATION would be necessary to provide HOW MUCH Care for Each and Every Citizen?When the British enacted the NHS over half a century ago … Healthcare was simpler and more basic: Prevention of Mass epidemics down to basic care for injuries. To attempt the same implementation of Universal Healthcare today, with the ever expanding plethora of Medical and Diagnostic Technology … the Ledger Numbers of Cost Containment would be Daunting Revenue-wise. And on the Politics side, the cold discussion of Who can get What Treatment? (ie: Death Panels) can be territory too hot to enter.That is the point where the US and other nations, such as those in South America and Asia, are currently at:The Political accommodation of established Financial Medical Insurance Interests against the creation of a Single Payor schemeThe Political & Revenue/Budget accommodations of how much taxation can be levied to cover just a BASIC level of Universal Health Care for every citizenThe Political discussion and agreement on what is exactly ENTAILED by the Term BASIC Universal Health Care (Pediatrics, Adult, Eldercare, Chronic Disability) … Including the Question of “How Much Care is Sufficient?”The US Polity has to deal with these main points first before we can even get to the point of considering the possibility of Universal Healthcare.Europe & Canada are muddling through the details now…but they are doing it from within a Framework that was already in Place.A Framework put in place because of the direct, devastating aftermath of WWII.A Framework that they deemed necessary at that time.

Edit: After all of this awesome feedback I started a youtube channel. I am going to do a series where I cover every single emperor, another on the Roman economy and how it shifted, and a 3rd series on the Roman legions and their many battles. If interested channel is here and the space on Quora where we discuss what I should do next is here. Hope to see some of you there.Oh boy.GREAT question. I love it. No one ever talks about the economy or the society and instead, we get caught up on big sexy battles and famous quotes.Alright, so here we go. First, a couple of key points to get out of the wayThe Roman economy was agrarian in nature. Before the days of factory farming, you needed the majority of your population to be farming. Rome had a few key food-producing provinces. But generally speaking in every province there were farmers growing a large variety of fruits/vegetables/animals. There were basically 2 types of farmsThe citizen farmer who owned a small plot of land. These people would spend their entire lives on the farm. They may pop into a local town to sell excess goods but it was rare if they didThe farming estate. Owned by hyper-rich Equestrians and Patricians these massive farming estates grew much of the food Rome needed to survive. These estates could be the size of modern counties and would be farmed by slaves or low wage workers.The people that lived in the various cities of Rome were the exception rather than the ruleRome loved their slaves. There were millions of slaves in the empireIt is important to note that slavery in the Roman Empire was nothing like slavery in America or Europe. Here’s whyThere was no racial or cultural basis for who was and was not a slave. Italians could be slaves, Celts could be slaves. Arabs could be slaves, Africans could be slaves, Spaniards could be slaves- the list goes onMost people enslaved by the empire would eventually be freed. If a slave did as he was told he could reasonably expect to be granted his freedom at some point. The freeing of slaves was so common that the Imperial government had to limit the number of slaves that could be freed.Once freed a slave became a freedman. This was right below citizen and above slave. They technically had the rights of a full citizen but were looked down upon for the subservient and submissive nature (see number 4 for details)The children of freedmen were full citizens and bore no social stigmaIf you would slaves it was expected that you fed them properly, care for them when they were sick, and ensured they were well. Those who abused their slaves or neglected them were hated like we hate abusive pet owners todayThe Romans accepted that slaves were people and property. It’s complex but slaves were not considered lesser people. For instance, the murder of a slave was a homicide and the punishment was the same if you killed a patrician or citizen.Slaves did have limited rights.Freedmen ended up becoming a powerful class in Rome for a time. The Roman aristocrats and citizens refused to work for the emperor doing the mundane jobs of administration but the freedmen did not refuse. Pretty soon freedmen were heavily involved with every aspect of imperial governance and with that came a lot of power and control.Even a poor Roman family would own at least one slave. It was said if your lawyer came into court with less than 8 slaves you could be sure you were going to lose.Rome was a pre-industrial economy so they were not materialists like we are today. Instead, rich Romans showed off with slaves. They would patrol the streets with armies of slaves behind them keeping an eye on their rich friends.You could tell the wealth of a person by how insignificant their slaves were. The richest Romans would have a slave for each outfit and these slave’s only job was to dress their owner in that one outfit. There would be a slave that just opens the door and a slave that just pours water.The entire basis of Roman culture was the client-patron relationship. In the eyes of the Roman, every relationship (romantic, business, diplomatic) had a dominant patron and a submissive client. The patron was expected to help support his client and the client was expected to respect and be submissive to his patron.Jobs:Pompeii is a great source to see how Romans lived in more than 1 way. Besides being amazing to look at it provides us a nice list of the many jobs people in Pompeii did before the disaster that befell the city. There were 85 listed occupations in Pompeii and they includedImport/export companiesFishermanHuntersButchersStonecuttersArtisansOliver oil dealersShop ownersentertainersBreadmakersSalt merchantsCattle dealersVineyard workersGoldsmithsGovernment officialsTeamstersCraftsmenForestersPay: Now when it comes to pay there was no minimum wage or anything of the sort. You would either own an independent business like a butcher shop or hunting lodge and you made what you made. If working for someone else your wage would be pre-determined before you started your job.Fun fact: The term salary originally was used to refer to the allowance given to Roman soldiers to buy salt to preserve their food. It would later enter the English vernacular and be used to refer to pay for a job.Wealth distribution:Now you have to examine the wealth gap of Rome because it is important. This is how it broke down (note it is not 100% accurate- we don’t know the exact actual numbers)The Emperor was the richest Roman- alone he had around 30% of the wealth. The level of his wealth was so extreme that it dwarfed nearly everyone by a mile. The combined wealth of every rich elite in Roman amounted to a single-digit percentage of what the emperor had at his disposal.The top 1% of the population had around 20% of the total wealth in RomeThe next 20% of the population were the traditional middle class and had about 20% of the wealthEveryone else, around 80% of the population had access to maybe 30% of the total wealth in the empire. These individuals lived at the poverty line and were hand to mouth their entire lives.It is nearly impossible to convert ancient Roman money to modern money but there have been attempts.The average Roman lived on around 260 sesterces a year which is worth around 600$ in 1990 US currency. Not great.Italia was the richest part of the empire with citizens there having a far higher monthly income. Gaul was the poorest region with the lowest economic output and the poorest civilians.Transportation.One of the great accomplishments of Rome was its advanced and complex network of roads that connected the entire empire.On the surface, this may seem small but it is a huge deal. No other culture had really been able to do this and this set Rome apart and gave them a huge economic advantage. They could load up a cart in modern Morocco and have it pulled by horses all the way to modern Syria without issue.This connected every city, town, and region of the empire to each other and allowed easy transportation of goods and people. You could find your way to Rome from anywhere by just following the road.To this day much of the highway system of Europe is based on where Rome placed its roads. These roads lived on long after the empire and eventually became the primary trade networks of modern Europe.There was also sea trade obviously. It was pretty basic- load up ship in a port, sail ship to other port and unload. The Romans referred to the Mediterranean as “mare nostrum” meaning “our sea”. Getting literal tons of grain from Egypt to Roman required boats rather than just carts.The primary good being transported across the empire was grain. It was the staple of the Roman diet and was grown nearly everywhere.Now lets kinda look into how each class lived.The Emperor: The Emperor would live in a grand palace or personal villa (depends on the emperor). They would rarely leave and if they did there was a good reasonThe Eques and Patricians would live according to where they worked. The ones involved in the government would own a mid-sized house in Rome near the government buildings. They may also own large countryside villas but it depended on the wealth level of the person. Those that were no involved in the government would almost always live in large countryside villas. These villas would house the entire extended family and sometimes have as many as 300 people living in them.The Urban poor and middle class. Most of these people lived in small apartments called insula. An insula was an apartment crossed with a hotel. Families would cram into small living quarters. On the first level, there would be a shared kitchen area and a number of spots for shops and stores.So how did nonbusiness owners or unskilled workers make money? Well they may get small jobs around the city or they may find themselves a Patron.As said above Romans showed off their wealth with slaves. Well if walking around with 100 slaves was the BMW of ancient Rome walking around with 100 free citizens was the Lamborghini of the ancient world.Every morning when the sun came up a number of poor Romans (sometimes hundreds) would pay a visit to various rich Romans around the city. They would pay their respect and praise the generosity and brilliance of their rich patron and this rich patron would turn over a few coins in gratitude for the respect they were paid. They would all then walk the streets where the Patron would show off his wealth to all his rich buddies. The various clients would then take their meager earnings and head to the baths or visit another patron. Some enterprising poor people would spend the entire day going patron to patron collecting a few coins from each.So we have our outline. We know how wealth worked and what jobs people did. Let’s jump into some specific details to help complete the picture of Roman economics.Holidays: The Romans were big on holidays. I have been asked if Romans had weekends off and I respond that they did not. Romans would have never worked 5 days in a week- that would have been way too much. Romans had a holiday every 3 days and holidays were days off from work.Many holidays were simple religious observations but there were some specific larger holidays that were more complex.For instance, there was Saturnalia- the modern foundation of Christmas. The theme of the holiday was upending the social order and for the extent of the celebrations, everyone swapped places. Slaves were masters and masters were slaves. It would take place in the last week of December and it was a real party. At the start of the holiday, there would be a grand feast at the feet of a Saturn statue. Everyone would get free food and wine and it would be a grand time. After the feast, there would be gladiator games held. These games would continue the theme of upending tradition and would feature female or disabled gladiators.After the feasts and games Romans would go to Saturnalia parties. At this big Saturnalia party, there would a “king of Saturnalia” who would give commands everyone had to follow. Following the tradition of upended the social order, this was typically a slave or a child.Rome was a dangerous place at night so there was little in the way doing things after sunset. However, for Saturnalia, they would line candles along the streets to light up the city. As a result, everyone would stay out all night drinking and partying. There would even be carolers.It was expected that during the holiday you would pay a visit to everyone you knew. It was also expected that you give a gift to everyone you know as well. People would spend 2 months of wages buying the number of gifts they needed. Little statues were a big hit and for the season small shops would pop up where you could purchase custom statues.Now the gifts were a big deal. If you got caught sending out a cheaper gift that last year it was a problem and people took offense to this. Here is a quote directly from a well to do Roman during this periodThe Dish which you usually presented to me at the Saturnalia, Sextilianus, you have bestowed on your mistress instead. And with the price of my Toga, which you used to give me on the first of March, you have bought her a green dinner Robe. Your mistresses cost you nothing, you enjoy them at my expense.Trade:Romans imported good from all over their vast territory. Grain from Egypt, gold from Dacia, silk from China, wine from Greece, and tin from all over. They had an extremely advanced trade network that connected the whole world.Rome would trade with various other empires as well. There was limited trade with China and Southern Africa as well as trade with Persia and Arabia. Rome more often traded with itself though- importing goods from its various provinces and create a complex economy.Taxes:Roman tax systems changed a lot over time. There were different taxes for citizens and non-citizens and different tax rates as well.For most of the empire, taxes were collected by private companies. Companies would place bids on how much tax they could raise and the winning bid got the job. The company would be on the hook for the amount they promised but any tax collected over the bid amount was theirs to pocket. Often what would happen is that the provincial governor would select a lower bid so that the margins would be larger and thus he could pocket a nice hefty sum.Eventually, the government would start collecting tax in order to reduce corruption. Tax was paid in coins and it was paid once a year. The taxman would come along and demand a years worth of tax payments all at once and this created some economic turmoil. People would have to sell off much of what they owed in order to pay their taxes and this made it hard for people to improve their standing in life.When Maximinus Thrax raised the pay of the legions he had to literally go province to province and torture money out of citizens in order to pay the legions.Diocletian would eventually reform this system in 286 AD. He sent out a series of officials to take a census on the wealth of his people. He then created a chart and set a number in stone for how much tax each person owed. People could now pay their taxes in grain, vegetables, horses, cattle, or any other resource. This meant farmers and shop owners could pay their taxes with a piece of whatever they produced and this helped stabilize the economy greatly.Eventually, this would change though and taxes would return to a coin-based system. As emperors became more desperate they would hike taxes higher and higher and the people would suffer as a result.CurrencyAlright, so currency was obviously a big part of the Roman economy. Rome had multiple types of coins with different values. There were tons of different types of currency with a sestertius being the most widely used for the longest.Different emperors would introduce different coins for different reasons.What was frequently happens is debasement. As emperors needed more money to pay the legions or fund various projects they would decrease the percentage of fine metal in the coins in order to increase the number of coins in circulation. This is basically the ancient equivariant of inflation and was super common.Once a currency had been devalued too much it was practically worthless. So the next emperor would scrap that coin and create a new coin with a high fine metal percentage. This new coin would circulate for a while, be debased, and the Romans would start all over. Certain coins did better than others while some were only around a few years.Entertainment:Entertainment in Rome was sort of strange. Generally speaking, there were a couple of ways Romans were entertainedGladiator gamesThis was the big thing in Rome for centuries. Romans loved to bet on the outcome and spend their days discussing who their favorite gladiator was.Public holidaysThis almost always meant large grand feasts for everyone to partake in as well as lots of drinkingChariot racesThis was more common in the later empire as gladiator games fell out of fashion. In the Eastern Roman Empire, there were 2 famous teams of chariot racers called the Greens and the Blues. These chariot teams were political agitators, football hooligans, gangsters, and athletes all rolled into one.Plays and showsRomans were not huge fans of actors. Socially speaking an actor or musician was about the same as a prostitute. The reasons for this are complex but just know that Romans had absolutely 0 respect for actors.Long afternoons in the bathhouseRomans loved the bathhouse. Some would stop by for an hour to get clean while others thought the baths were the whole point of life and would live there all day. You could eat, drink. bathe, get a massage, wrestle, work out, or hit the sauna.Watching court casesRoman court cases operated a lot like modern court cases. There would be an accused party, their lawyer, a prosecutor, and a judge. The one difference is that typically court cases were public news and many citizens would head to court to cheer for their favorite lawyers and politicians. Most good attorneys would actually play to the crowd hoping that their support would win them the case- and it often did.

Mostly the movement over the mountains was an attempt to get “free” land of their own and escape the drudgery of working for some one else. During this period, the settlers introduced commodity agriculture to the area. Tobacco, corn, and other crops were developed as major commodities, and the hunting and subsistence stages of frontier life faded away much more quickly than most observers are willing to admit. In many places, a frontier clearing became a town in a mere decade — a small city in a single generation. [i]The mortality rate was high almost everywhere in the Western world in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the open spaces and clean waters of North America were thought to provide a more healthful climate. Nonetheless, moving to a sparsely settled frontier region heightened a concern for personal and family safety. Added to the very real threat of attacks by Indians, bushwhackers, bandits, or venomous snakes were common farms accidents, bad water, indispositions, nutritional deficiencies, and bad weather—all capable of striking without warning, but still a part of the fabric of ordinary life. Common sicknesses and difficult childbirths were made more threatening by distance from friends, kin, and established patterns of care. Possibly for this reason many emigrants traveled in extended family groups, uprooting married sons, daughters, and grandchildren when making a move.Alexis de Tocqueville described his impressions of a New York frontier clearing: "Some trees cut down, trunks burnt and charred, and a few plants useful to the life of man sown in the midst of the confusion of a hundred shapes of debris, led us to the pioneer's dwelling."Expansion and ExplorationThe thirteen English colonies had, by the time of the French and Indian War (1754), accumulated a population estimated at 1.3 million persons, black and white. The majority of the English population clung to the coastal settlements and cities, leaving the frontier regions sparsely populated by comparison. During the French wars, the New England border with Canada was an ever shifting line of small outposts and charred settlers’ cabins. The Mohawk Valley settlements relied on the friendship of the Iroquois (and especially the Mohawk) for its defense, and the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania separated the frontier from the more settled farms and towns of the Quakers. William Penn had recruited his Quaker population disproportionately from among the tough Cheshire and Welsh farmsteads of Britain. For generations these farmers had successfully carved out a living in a difficult environment. They combined their religion and their agricultural experience into a spiritual framework that well served the economically challenging conditions of a new land. This led to Pennsylvania's unchallenged economic dominance in the colonial period.Hundreds of miles of ever shifting frontier settlements were not readily defensible against Indian raids, and the only effective strategy was retaliation so brutal as to deter further incursions. These frontiersmen not only stayed on the frontier, but they banded together to protect their homes and families by taking the fight to the enemy. Colonial militias periodically organized punitive expeditions into the frontier regions. Since the Indians rarely chose to stand and fight, colonials learned to threaten and burn the natives' crops and villages. The Indians were thereby forced into an active defense of their families and homes that could be broken by trained soldiers.Many of the Scots-Irish and German immigrants that arrived late in the process of land acquisition with little money had moved through the settled areas to the frontier where they simply squatted on the land. It has been estimated that two of every three acres occupied on the frontiers were held with no legal rights other than the improvements made on them. More than 90 percent of the backcountry settlers had Scottish or Scots-Irish roots, with the remainder being composed almost entirely of German-speaking immigrants. The total number of persons of Scottish ancestry migrating to these regions during these periods may have been in excess of 250,000. Many families had a roof over their heads and were debt free, but they were also essentially penniless. The majority of these farmer-emigrants were fierce Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who historian James Webb, U.S. Senator from Virginia, himself an offshoot of Scots-Irish frontier ancestors, has noted for their “values-based combativeness, insistent egalitarianism, and … refusal to be dominated” — all characteristics shared by these American frontiersmen.Calling themselves settlers and emigrants, families from across the states began a march into the vaguely empty space west of the Appalachian Mountains as soon as the Revolutionary War had ended. The immigrants then moved to the farmlands of the Midwest and the dark soils of the Southeast. The simplest maps of the unknown interior spurred thousands of Americans to relocate to towns that existed nowhere except on land office surveys. With them, in many cases, came their slaves, forced to emigrate sometimes in ways that forever broke black family ties. Before them stood the Indians with their own families, aboriginal inheritors of the land, poised to be swept aside and ultimately to be dispossessed of their heritage. Native Americans resisted white settlement, and by 1776 there were fewer than 200 settlers in Kentucky. After the American Revolution, however, settlers soon began pouring into the region.Daniel Boone escorting settlers through the Cumberland Gap by Caleb Bingham (1851–1852) — The defeat of the Shawnee in 1774 emboldened land speculators in North Carolina, who believed much of what is now Kentucky and Tennessee would soon be under British control. Daniel Boone (1734-1820) and his wife Rebecca traveled westwards to Kentucky. The westernmost part of Kentucky, west of the Tennessee River, was recognized as hunting grounds belonging to the Chickasaw by the 1786 Treaty of Hopewell, and remained so until they sold it to the U.S. in 1818.The Ohio River and its tributaries initially provided the most direct route to the lands of the Midwest. The movement of immigrants usually paralleled the valleys of the Ohio or the Tennessee Rivers. Early pioneer families floated or poled their way down these waterways and their tributaries on a wide assortment of rafts, barges, and keelboats. Others moved west on overland courses parallel to the rivers where the going was easier and the topography more gently changing. The rivers wore gaps in the mountains that made their passage feasible. The Cumberland Gap is the best known of these. Formed by an ancient creek that was later redirected by geologic forces into the Cumberland River, the gap was used for centuries by Native Americans to cross the mountains. Daniel Boone was credited with opening the gap to white settlers entering Kentucky and Tennessee, and the foot trail through it was later widened to accommodate wagons.This common attitude toward geographical movement was formulated as part of the frontier thesis of historian Frederick Jackson Turner (1893), who saw the availability of “western” land as a political and economic safety valve for the growing American Republic as well as a formative ingredient in the American character. Westward movement was essential to the continued existence of the nation. Turner’s original work dealt primarily with the settlement of the Mississippi Valley from 1830 to 1850 and the controversy over the extension of slavery that it engendered. Nonetheless, his thesis, although more than a century old today, remains fundamental to formulating an understanding of the period of national expansion.On the American frontier, men were more closely defined by their work than in any other part of the nation. Among the most common men in the West in the Antebellum Period were prospectors, miners, mountain trappers, emigrant train guides, and soldiers. Sometimes solitary, sometimes traveling in bands of a hundred these were arguably the first persons to open the mountains and plateaus to exploitation.Two objects of commercial gain gave birth to their wide and daring enterprises: the precious metals of the West, and the rich peltries of the North. As Francis Parkman noted in 1846, “Traveling in that country, or indeed anywhere, from any other motive than gain, was an idea of which they took no cognizance.” Moreover, it was their tales and their trails that led the emigrant trains westward. These two pursuits have thus, in a manner, been the precursors of civilization. Nowhere was a man’s character more important or more sorely tested, than on the emigrant trails to the West.Expansion, especially to the west, also offered an opportunity to perfect America, to synthesize the best of the old settlements, to create a new and more perfect Union — to escape aristocracy, slavery, government, or the restrictions of class by birth.It is ironic that the expanding American empire should have been made possible in its infancy by Thomas Jefferson’s clearly extra-constitutional purchase of a territory belonging to a foreign country. Nowhere in the Constitution was the power to add territory to the nation even addressed. Although it doubled the size of the nation, the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleonic France in 1803 was considered by some conservative voices in the Northeast ‘‘a great waste’’ of national treasure and a liability that would require the establishment of a massive armed force for its protection and security. Conservatives in the Federalist Party—dominated by shipping and maritime interests—pointed out that the new frontier states carved from this ‘‘unpeopled wilderness,’’ which the expansionists envisioned, would give the Jeffersonian Republicans a secure and possibly insurmountable majority in the US Senate, two by two.In fact, the exploration and domination of the North American continent was no haphazard series of fortuitous ramblings and random discoveries, but a careful process initiated by Jefferson and programmed in stages thereafter from the urban centers of the mid-Atlantic and midwestern states, particularly Washington, DC, New York, and St. Louis. Politicians, land speculators, and businessmen formulated specific instructions and sent explorers, traders, artists, and soldiers into the unfenced expanses of grass, the towering mountains, and the formidable deserts to gather information that would further the development of the continent under US rule.Meanwhile in 1796, Congress had authorized the construction of Zane’s Trace, a road from western Virginia to Kentucky that became a major thoroughfare for migrant families from the upper South to Kentucky. This was the first major internal improvement funded by the federal government. In 1807 the US Senate instructed Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to prepare a plan for opening roads and building canals for those wishing to emigrate in order to improve the economic growth of the nation as a whole. In 1811 the First National Road from Cumberland, Maryland, across the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania to Wheeling, (West) Virginia, on the Ohio River was completed. This was the first multi-state improvement project attempted by the Federal government, and a number of “pike” towns sprang up along its route. The Boonesborough Turnpike between Hagerstown and that town was paved in macadam in 1823. The National Road was paved in the 1830s. The Shenandoah Valley Pike through Maryland to the Carolinas and Georgia and the Columbia Pike south out of Nashville, Tennessee, were completed in like manner in the 1850s.Gallatin’s far-reaching plan of Federal outlays also included support for a man-made waterway across central New York State from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. In 1825 the opening of the Erie Canal formed a convenient transportation link between the cities of the Northeast, the headwaters of the Ohio River, and via the Great Lakes to all the Midwest as far away as the Indian lands in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In its first year of operation 19,000 vessels passed through the Erie Canal. Its financial success provided an impetus for imitation, and man-made watercourses soon connected separate lakes and streams into a vast and efficient waterborne transportation web. Along the riverbanks and lakeshores a mix of mostly New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, and New Englanders created the first great urban centers of the American Midwest.Westward expansion along the growing system of canals and the successful navigation of the Western rivers by steamboats made a number of inland ports equally important. St. Louis, in particular, served as a central hub for river traffic. Located on the Mississippi River near the junction of the Ohio and the Missouri, St. Louis benefited from its connections with both the states of the Midwest and the Western territories of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Only the Civil War blockade of the Mississippi River strangled its continued growth. By 1840 Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Syracuse, Rochester, and Detroit had emerged as important cities serving the Great Lakes Region. Buffalo, at the western terminus of the Erie Canal, underwent a remarkable transformation from a frontier trading outpost to a virtual metropolis in just a few decades. Detroit had been a disappointment as a fur trading post to its French founders in the 17th century, but it took on a revitalized importance as a commercial center as emigrant farmers entered the region.[i] In 1810, for example, much of what happened in New York was in the east ― the Catskills, Albany, and the Mohawk and Hudson River valleys ― with the western part of the state still largely unsettled. In the six counties between the Pennsylvania border and Lake Ontario there were less than 24,000 residents. No towns had more than 6,000 persons and most were less than half that size.By 1820, New York had become the most populous state in the nation. Most of the newcomers settled on the “frontiers” in northern, central, and western New York, which dramatically shifted the distribution of the state's population. In just a decade, three-fourths of the state's people lived in the newer counties to the north and west of Albany.The famous Ridge Road, opened in 1816 and described as the "Appian Way of Western New York," was one of the most popular stagecoach routes east and west near the south shore of Lake Ontario. By 1845 there were as many as ten stagecoaches each way daily on the Ridge Road and branch lines running to various communities both to the north and south.See:Amazon.com: A Leatherstocking Companion, Novels and Narratives as History (Traditional American History Series Book 13) eBook: James M. Volo: Kindle Store