The terrible sundering of the nation during the 1770s and 1780s presented political leaders with entirely new problems, and they struggled to find solutions. The main work fell to two men, both born in Kentucky only a year apart. The family of one went north to Indiana and Illinois, the other south to Louisiana and Mississippi. Both grew up on small farms; neither could be said to have grown up privileged or well-connected. Yet fate and their own talents would set them to lead the North and the South.