article_snippet.sent: The entire region from the Appalachians to the Rockies drained through the Mississippi River, enabling farmers in this vast basin to float farmers goods down to market through New Orleans and from there to the world.
article_snippet.sent: Abe himself had been born in Kentucky and had moved as a boy to Indiana, and later, as a young man, to Illinois.
article_snippet.sent: These latter two Midwestern states had undeniably been formed by the Union itself.
article_snippet.sent: These latter two Midwestern states had begun as federal territory -- the common inheritance of all Americans -- and it was the federal government that had indeed brought These latter two Midwestern states to life.
article_snippet.sent: When Abe himself Abe himself moved to Indiana, it was just becoming a state, thanks to federal governmental action.
article_snippet.sent: It was a wise set of federal policies -- proper land surveys and a commitment to public education -- that had drawn the Lincolns and countless other Kentuckians to leave the Bluegrass State for a brighter future in the Midwest.