The pioneer in his constant struggle with poverty was prone to look with puzzled anger at those who made more money than he did, and whose lives were easier.  The backwoods farmer or planter of that day looked upon the merchant with much the same suspicion and hostility now felt by his successor for the banker or the railroad magnate.  He did not quite understand how it was that the merchant, who seemed to work less hard than he did, should make more money; and being ignorant and suspicious, he usually followed some hopelessly wrong-headed course when he tried to remedy his wrongs.  Sometimes these efforts to obtain relief took the form of resolutions not to purchase from merchants or traders such articles as woollens, linens, cottons, hats, or shoes, unless the same could be paid for in articles grown or manufactured by the farmers themselves.  This particular move was taken because of the alarming scarcity of money, and was aimed particularly at the inhabitants of the Atlantic States.  It was of course utterly ineffective. [Footnote:  Marshall, II., p. 325.] A much less wise and less honest course was that sometimes followed of refusing to pay debts when the latter became inconvenient and pressing. [Footnote:  The inhabitants of Natchez, in the last days of the Spanish dominion, became inflamed with hostility to their creditors, the merchants, and insisted upon what were practically stay laws being enacted in their favor.  Gayarre and Claiborne.]

    Vices of the Militia System.

The frontier virtue of independence and of impatience of outside direction found a particularly vicious expression in the frontier abhorrence of regular troops, and advocacy of a hopelessly feeble militia system.  The people were foolishly convinced of the efficacy of their militia system, which they loudly proclaimed to be the only proper mode of national defence. [Footnote:  Marshall, II., p. 279.] While in the actual presence of the Indians the stern necessities of border warfare forced the frontiersmen into a certain semblance of discipline.  As soon as the immediate pressure was relieved, however, the whole militia system sank into a mere farce.  At certain stated occasions there were musters for company or regimental drill.  These training days were treated as occasions for frolic and merry-making.  There were pony races and wrestling matches, with unlimited fighting, drunkenness, and general uproar.  Such musters were often called, in derision, cornstalk drills, because many of the men, either having no guns or neglecting to bring them, drilled with cornstalks instead.  The officers were elected by the men and when there was no immediate danger of war they were chosen purely for their social qualities.  For a few years after the close of the long Indian struggle there were here and there officers who had seen actual service and who knew the rudiments of drill; but in the days of peace the men who had taken part in Indian fighting cared but little to attend the musters, and left them more and more to be turned into mere scenes of horseplay.