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THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN EXPANSION

T

BY H. ADDINGTON BRUCE

SECOND PAPER

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE
LOUISIANA PURCHASE

HE first forward step in the territorial expansion of the United States became an accomplished fact December 17, 1803, when the French flag gave place to the Stars and Stripes at the city of New Orleans. With this act, and as the result not of conquest but of diplomacy, the American Republic that had come into being only a few years before extended its dominions from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and paved the way for its future pre-eminence among the nations of the world. Even to-day the giant stride thus taken staggers the imaginaHarassed by problems at home and abroad, critical problems which menaced the very existence of the new born nation, and already in possession of a territory that seemed ample for the support of many future generations, there might well have been deemed cause for hesitancy when the opportunity offered for the acquirement of new lands and with new lands added burdens. Yet that opportunity was grasped with stupendous celerity and with an enthusiasm which showed that, young as the nation was, it had begun to appreciate its power and its capabilities. That the opportunity came unsought only increases the marvel of the readiness with which it was seized. Pondering the pages of the early history of the United States, it is easy enough now to realize that from the moment Daniel Boone opened the path way to the West the future extension of the American people was a thing inevi

table, and that had the Mississippi barrier not been raised when it was by the purchase of the vast territory known as Louisiana, it would have been raised at some later day, albeit at the cost not of dollars but of blood. But the actors in the mighty drama of the Louisiana Purchase could not see this as we of the twentieth century see it. They could only hope and dream, and all honor to them that they did hope and dream. each one who played a part in securing for his country this its first and greatest territorial acquisition belongs imperishable glory; and in especial must tribute be paid to the memory of Thomas Jefferson, the national chief executive who, discarding all political and partisan prejudices, gave effect to the agreement that had been reached in distant France, and by so doing rendered his noblest. service to posterity.

Jefferson, in truth, may fairly be accounted the first of the long line of notable American expansionists. There were others, like Alexander Hamilton, who cherished ideals of a greater America than that which had been born of the struggle for independence. But it was Jefferson's distinction to be the first to give form and reality to such ideals, and to transform dreams into deeds. No more singular mistake can be made than to imagine, as some have imagined, that his share in the Louisiana Purchase was purely fortuitous, and that in acting as he did he merely pursued a policy. of opportunism founded on what he

perceived to be the will of the people. On the contrary, the Louisiana Purchase meant to him the realization of a long and ardently cherished desire, a consummation none the less welcome because it came so unexpectedly. It was the good fortune of the Nation that he occupied the Presidential chair at the moment when Napoleon found it necessary to relinquish his grasp of the rich domain wrung from the yielding Spaniard. Another, with less penetrating vision into the possibilities and exigencies of the years to come, would have faltered and let slip the golden opportunity. But Jefferson, true expansionist, one is tempted to write greatest of American expansionists, understood, and, understanding, acted.

There is temptation, too, to declare that it was his destiny to crown his wonderful career by the Louisiana Purchase. Certainly the story of his life, when considered in relation to the Purchase, tends to bear out this view. He was born April 13, 1743, in a Virginia farm-house among the foothills of the Blue Ridge. From his father, a sturdy yeoman, himself Virginia born, he inherited a stalwart frame, a stout constitution, an independent and self-reliant spirit, and a lasting love for the life outdoors. His mother, likewise a Virginian, and daughter of one of the proudest and wealthiest families of the colony, bequeathed him the gentler qualities of kindliness, affability, and courtesy; and, it is to be inferred from the little that has been recorded of her, also blessed him with the literary talent which was to find immortal expression in after years. Added to the happy combination of characteristics with which he was thus endowed was the beneficent influence of the environment of his infancy and early youth. From the wilderness which stretched for miles about the little clearing he drew in with his first breath sentiments of freedom and liberality. he grew older and roamed through the forest gun in hand, these sentiments were deepened by contemplation of the open and untrammeled ways of nature. He perceived, too, in the broad vistas of woodland, valley, mountain range, and stream, a perpetual symbol of the

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vastness and grandeur and opportunities of the land in which he lived. And doubtless, like Daniel Boone, himself at that time serving his apprenticeship in another corner of the border, he felt the frontiersman's longing to press on and on through the cool green spaces to the mountains, and beyond the mountains to the mysterious depths in which each night the sun sank to repose.

But there were ties that held him in the East. At the age of seventeen behold him, tall, sinewy, sandy-haired, and freckled, a trifle awkward, but of boundless good nature, infinite hope, and a radiant smile, mounting his horse and by leisurely stages making his way from the mountains to the colony's quaint old capital, there to begin the education. that would fit him for the one career open to well-connected and ambitiously inclined Virginians. Earnest, brilliant, capable, such was the impression he made that when, after two years of unremitting effort, he graduated triumphantly from college and began the study of law, the famous George Wythe, leader of the Virginia bar, willingly received him into his office. into his office. And so thoroughly did he command confidence and esteem that upon his admission to practice clients came to him aplenty, country bred though he was. A little later, and in the very year that Boone began his epoch-marking pilgrimage to Kentucky, he found himself a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, fairly launched on his long and useful political career.

As the event at once proved, he had, throughout his years of city life, clung steadfastly to the principles and yearnings implanted in him by the influences of childhood, influences which were reinforced by frequent and prolonged visits to the well-loved home, now transformed from wilderness to a prosperous plantation.

Scarcely had he taken his seat among his fellow-legislators before the House, already restive under the increasing impositions of the home authorities, was dissolved by an irate Governor; and immediately, with Washington, Lee, Henry, and others to whom after events were to bring the guerdon of immortality, he began the campaign of agitation. and exhortation that culminated in the

[graphic][merged small]

From a crayon drawing, now in the possession of Dr. W. C. N.
Randolph, of Charlottesville, Virginia, the great-grandson of Jefferson

historic document which commemorates
for all time his first great service to his
fellow-men. For the present purpose,
however, there is no need to follow him
through this impressive period of his
life.

But there is vital need to pause for a moment and recall an event which, occurring in the year after the Declara

tion of Independence had been announced to the world, and when Jefferson was once more a Virginia legislator, turned his attention as never before to the region beyond the mountains, and may properly be said to mark the starting-point of the policy that found fruition in the Louisiana Purchase.

This event was the arrival in Virginia of George Rogers Clark, fresh from the wilds and eager to secure authorization for his daring project of seizing the British posts on the northwest frontier, and thus stemming the tide of Indian invasion that threatened to overwhelm the border settlements. To Virginia he came because, as he well knew, Virginia laid claim to all the territory stretching westward from her southern boundary to the Mississippi and northward to the Great Lakes. Listening to his rude eloquence, and following with keen interest the romantic vicissitudes and the splendid triumph of the enterprise that resulted from his visit East, Jefferson's heart went out with the liveliest sympathy to Clark and to all who were striving with him to obtain mastery of the wilderness. If he had not done so before, he fully appreciated now the significance of the migration that had set in by way of Boone's trail. And, as may be seen from his correspondence, as soon as he became Governor of Virginia-that is to say, within a few months after Clark had finally established himself at Kaskaskia and Vincennes-he was prompt in taking measures to strengthen the defenses of the western country, and, as shown by the creation of the Virginia Land Office, to promote its settlement. To the border-folk, likewise, he instinctively turned when hard pressed by the still vindictive foe. "I have a peculiar confidence in the men from the western side of the mountains," was his message to Clark in the opening month of the critical year 1781. Thereafter, to the day of his death, his "peculiar confidence" continued unabated.

It would, in fact, be difficult to name a Revolutionary statesman to whom the war brought a wider understanding of the temper and aspirations of the transmontane settlers. The surroundings amid which he had spent his childhood and early youth and the characteristics acquired from his rugged and outright father had, of course, laid a solid foundation for such an understanding. But But not until war came and the long-persisting controversies with the mother country had been submitted to the arbitrament of arms did the opportunity offer

for close contact with and just appreciation of the men who were taking part in the westward movement. With the outbreak of hostilities, however, and in especial from the moment he became Governor of a State that claimed sovereignty over almost the whole of the western country, no other leader in the colossal struggle was so happily situated to glimpse the nascent Republic in its entirety. His earlier activity in connection with the preliminaries of the Revolution had made him well acquainted with the spirit of the seaboard people. Now he obtained an equally clear knowledge of the spirit of the people who had migrated from the seaboard. And, sympathizing with the one as truly and profoundly as with the other, perceiving their mutual jealousies, but perceiving also their mutual interests, it was inevitable that his view should broaden, that to the ideal of independence he should add the ideal of nationality and of national growth.

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It was some time, however, before the consequences of his war-time experience became apparent. . Chagrined at the criticisms passed upon his official conduct, he refused to stand for re-election as Governor, and went into a retirement. that was prolonged by the grief into which he was cast through the loss of his beloved wife. his beloved wife. But even in retirement there indications-though scanty, for little of his correspondence during this period has been preserved-that he kept a close watch on the trend of events and was eager to advance the interests not of Virginia only, but of all the country. And, once he assumed again the burdens and responsibilities of public life, the evidence of his really nationalistic sentiments rapidly increases. As a member of the Continental Congress in the spring of 1784 he was prominent in the cession to the Union of the great territory in the Northwest to which Virginia laid claim, and it was he who drew up the first plan for the gov ernment of the region thus ceded. ilarly he busied himself in devising measures for the wise distribution of the public lands, and, after he had entered on his treaty-framing mission abroad, in laboring to bring about an adjustment

Sim

[graphic]

THE SIGNING OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE TREATY
From the Commemorative Statue at the St. Louis Exposition

of the complications which had devel-
oped in the Southwest owing to the
evident intention of Spain to close the
navigation of the Mississippi, the one
commercial highway affording the pio-
neers of Kentucky and Tennessee ready
access to the markets of the East. It
was this short-sighted policy that gave
rise to the agitation which finally re-
sulted in the Louisiana Purchase; and
long before the Purchase was effected
it was this same policy, reviewed in the
light of a sublime confidence in his
countrymen's potentialities, that started
dreams of expansion in the mind of the
already nationalistic Jefferson.

The rapidity with which these dreams took form, and the early date at which he began to ponder means of giving them reality, may be seen from a letter of

January 25, 1786, written to Archibald Stuart from Paris, where Jefferson had now succeeded Franklin as Minister to France. Stuart, seemingly, had called his attention to the growing spirit of anger and unrest that was taking possession of the Westerners in consequence of the Government's failure to arrive at an understanding with Spain, and Jefferson wrote in reply: "I fear from an expression in your letter that the people of Kentucky think of separating not only from Virginia (in which they are right) but also from the Confederacy. I own I should think this a most calamitous event, and such an one as every good citizen on both sides should set himself against. Our present federal limits are not too large for good government, nor will the increase of votes in Congress

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