terri

us back through the

period of the nation's miraculous making, when-April 2, 1743-at Shadwell, Albemarle county, Virginia, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge mountains, we find Martha, the mother, clasping to her bosom the new-born Thomas Jefferson, under whose sandy hair are the brains that are to give to mankind the Declaration of Independence; to give distinction to American diplomacy at the court of France, between the years 1785 and 1789, as the first secretary of state under the federal constitution; to initiate and develop the foreign and domestic policy of the young republic; to become president in 1801; to negotiate and complete the Louisiana purchase from Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803 at a cost of about 23/5 cents an acre. The aggregate amount paid for this new empire, of which the present Nebraska forms but about a twelfth part, was $15,000000. Of this purchase price France received in United States bonds $11,250,000, and by agreement the remaining $3,750,000 was paid to American citizens in liquidation of claims against the French government. When the United States took formal possession of these lands on December 20, 1803, the Union consisted of but seventeen states, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont, with a total area of 444,393 square miles,' or 284,411.520 acres.

But

1U. S. census 1900, vol. 1, part 1, p. xxxii. These figures appear in the Statistical Atlas of the twelfth census They include the area of the narrow strip between the 31st parallel on the north, the Gulf of Mexico on the south, the Perdido river on the east, and the Mississippi river on the west, the ownership of which was in dispute with Spain from 1803 to 1819. Hermano's Louisiana Purchase, p. 37, the total

tory covered 890,921 square miles, including both land and water surface, or 878,641 square miles-562,330,2402 acres of land alone; and it lacked but little of being twice as large—as it certainly was twice as valuable for agriculture and mining-as the seventeen states named. To-day, with all the more expensively and less peacefully acquired islands of Hawaii, Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines in the reckoning, the Louisiana Purchase of President Jefferson comprises nearly one-fourth of the Republic.

From this vast purchase of territory adjacent to the previous holdings of the Republic have been created twelve great states, namely: Louisiana in 1812, Missouri in 1821, Arkansas in 1836, Iowa in 1846, Minnesota in 1858, Kansas in 1861, Nebraska in 1867, Colorado in 1876, Montana in 1889, South Dakota in 1889, North Dakota in 1889, and Wyoming in 1890. Although only about one-third of Colorado, two-thirds of Minnesota, and a little more than three-fourths of Wyoming are parts of the Jefferson purchase, yet we have left of it in the Indian territory and Oklahoma enough to make several more states. The estimated population of the land ceded by Napoleon in 1803 was fifty thousand whites, forty thousand slaves, and two thousand free blacks. More than four-fifths of the whites and all the blacks except about one thousand three hundred were in and adjacent to New Orleans. The rest were scattered through the country now included in Arkansas and

area, as found by the commissioner of the land office under the administration of President McKinley and Mr. Bliss, Secretary of the Interior, is given as 883,072 square miles. Previous to these later measurementa the area of the Purchase had been overestimated.

The trip of Montana lying west of the main chain of the Rocky mountains and the extreme southwestern corner of Kansas are outside the Purchase.

Missouri.1 The population of the Louisiana Purchase is now about 14,000,000, and if it were as densely populated as Belgium, which contains 536 human beings to the square mile, it would contain and maintain 473,326,592.

The importance of the Louisiana Purchase does not spring alone from its extent and value as a vast territorial addition to the country, but very largely from its momentous political significance and effect. In the first place it was a pawn played by the great Napoleon in his universal game of war and diplomacy, in which the ancient empires of Europe were the stakes. Acquired by France under Louis XIV., through exploration and settlement here and there, it was ceded to Spain as a salve for sacrifices on her part in the treaty of 1763, which secured the supremacy of the English speaking race on this continent and in general as a colonizing power, and was the territorial preparation for the great republic. Before Napoleon had forced himself into actual power as first consul, November 9, 1799, Talleyrand, who ruled under the directory, had conceived the idea of at once spreading out France in a great colonial empire, and curbing, through near neighborship, the pretentious young American republic, by securing the retrocession of Louisiana. Spain's fortunes were going from bad to worse, and after Napoleon's startling victory over the Austrians at Marengo in June, 1800, Talleyrand's messenger had but to demand the retrocession on the terms he proposed and it was accomplished-October 1, 1800. The Spanish king, complaining that France had not carried out her part of the bargain, delayed the delivery of Louisiana, but finally yielded, October 15, 1801, on the assurance of Talleyrand that, "You can declare in the name of the First Consul that France will never alienate it." Meanwhile Napoleon had won peace from Austria by force, and from Great Britain through diplomacy, so that now he prepared to take possession of Louisiana; but first he had to deal with the revolution of the negroes of the important

1 Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, p. 121. Rufus King on the Missouri Bill, American Orations, vol. 2, p. 42.

outpost of Santo Domingo, under the lead of Toussaint L'Ouverture. The disaster which finally befell Napoleon's army in Santo Domingo, and the impending renewal of his irrepressible conflict with England, led the marvelously practical First Consul to abandon whatever thought he may have indulged of a colonial empire in America. It is doubtful that he ever fully entertained or regarded as feasible this original dream of Talleyrand's. But at any rate, and in spite of Talleyrand, his unequaled executive mind saw straight and clear to his purpose and acted with characteristic decisiveness. In the early days of April, 1803, he disclosed to Talleyrand, and then to others of his ministers, his purpose of ceding Louisiana to the United States. At the break of day, April 11, the day before Monroe, Jefferson's special envoy for the purchase of New Orleans and possibly the Floridas also, arrived in Paris, Napoleon announced to Marbois, his minister of finance: "Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season; I renounce Louisiana. To attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. . Have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston." He had said the day before that he feared England would seize Louisiana as the beginning of war; and already, April 8, he had countermanded the order for General Victor to sail with his army to take possession of Louisiana. When in an interview later in the day Livingston was

"Still harping on my daughter," begging only for New Orleans and West Florida, he was disconcerted at the sudden demand of Talleyrand, "What will you give for the whole?" The next day Livingston conferred with Monroe, but in the afternoon he met Marbois, who invited him to his house, and during the night a preliminary understanding was reached. After much haggling about the price the papers were signed during the early days of May, but were dated back to April 30. Napoleon sought to preclude danger of the subsequent cession of the territory to England, or any other rival power, and to pro

2 Inc uding all of Colorado, Minnesota, and Wyoming, 14,706,563. U. S. Census, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 2.

tect the inhabitants, who were mainly French and Spanish, in the enjoyment of their religion and racial propensities, by inserting the following guarantee in the treaty:

"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizenship of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess.'

Though this vast territory had actually been pressed upon the American ambassadors, its acquisition was indeed a triumph for the young republic.

"Livingston had achieved the greatest dip lomatic success recorded in American history. No other American diplomatist was so fortunate as Livingston for the immensity of his results compared with the paucity of his means. . The annexation of Louisiana was an event so portentous as to defy measurement. It gave a new face to politics, and ranked in historical importance next to the declaration of independence and the adoption of the constitution-events of which it was the logical outcome; but as a matter of diplomacy it was unparalleled, because it cost almost nothing."

But Livingston's cup of glory turned to ashes on his lips. He was charged with corruption in the distribution of the part of the purchase price which was to be paid to American claimants, and the credit the public gave Monroe elevated him to the presidency, where he was so fortunate as to make his name known of all men by the timely enunciation of the "Monroe Doctrine," which was adopted as an expedient for the safety of the still young and not yet firmly founded republic and its institutions, and which is still maintained as a principle of American polity, but more perhaps through the influence of tradition than of the original need or expediency, this motive having been superseded by one of wider scope and farther reach though not definitely defined

Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp.

48-49.

or conceived. The direct bearing of an account of the Louisiana Purchase upon a history of Nebraska will now begin to appear, and is forecast in the following estimate of its political effect or sequel:

"Of the transcendent importance of that event, aside from the expansion of territory, we get some idea when we reflect that the Missouri compromise, the annexation of Texas, the compromise of 1850, the KansasNebraska bill, the Dred Scott case, and at length the Civil war, were events in regular sequence directly traceable to it, not one of

which would have occurred without it."2

Mr.

The sweeping conclusions of the eminent jurist are doubtless technically correct, but there is a hint in them of the almost dogmatic implication in many historical accounts of the chance-a result of the accidental extremity famous purchase that it was a work of of the fortunes of Napoleon and of the Spanish nation at that particular time, and of the acumen of several American politicians. Adams partially corrects this misapprehension iana was "the logical outcome of the Declarwhen he declares that the acquisition of Louisation of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution." Constitution." But the historian would have been equally correct and more fundamental if he had said that the acquisition was the logical outcome of the ascendency of the English race and English institutions in North America, as against the Latin race, which was formally determined by the result of the French and Indian war and the treaty of 1763. The expulsion of France and Spain would have been completed by the same English race without the incident of the secession of the colonies and the division of English territory which the Declaration of Independence proclaimed. While the great Napoleon's necessity of trying conclusions with England at home in 1803, just as his predecessor had tried conclusions with England in America in 1763, and his necessity of diverting the troops with which he intended to take possession of and defend. Louisiana to put down the Santo Domingo rebellion, probably at once precipitated this final

2 Thomas M. Cooley, The Acquisition of Louisiana, Indiana Hist. Soc.Pamphlets, no. 3, p. 5.

surrender of French pretension to America which might have been held in solution yet for some time, still the precipitation would have been only a question of time; and it is not unlikely that there would have been the same evolutionary working out of the question of slavery and of union, the same tragedy and the same glory. The first view, in short, has the fault of empiricism, of explaining an important social phenomenon as an accident accident instead of a natural evolutionary process.

News of the retrocession of Louisiana to France, which reached America about eight months after it had been agreed upon, disclosed the inherent or inevitable opposition to the reinstatement of France. And so Jefferson was moved by fear of such an event to write in July, 1801:1

"We consider her (Spain's) possession of the adjacent country as most favorable to our interests, and should see with an extreme pain any other country substituted for them."

Spain, unlike her then monstrously militant neighbor of the same race, was already too inert to be seriously inimical. Madison, Jefferson's secretary of state, wrote, September 28, 1801, to Livingston, who had just reached France, that the proposed change of neighbors was a matter of "momentous concern." If allowed, "inquietudes would be excited in the southern states where numerous slaves had been taught to regard the French as patrons of their cause."2 Livingston, who perceived the perplexities of the situation, wrote to Madison several months before the cession that he was persuaded that the whole business would result in the relinquishment of Louisiana to the United States. It was plain, moreover, to astute American statesmen that the reoccupation of Louisiana by the French undid the work of the Seven Years' war and nullified the treaty of 1763. Jefferson's feeling seemed to grow stronger, and he wrote to Livingston, April 18, 1802, that New Orleans

At the time (November, 1801) that Jefferson received Talleyrand's exp icit denial of retrocession, he received also from Rufus King, American minister at London, the text of the treaty of retrocession dated eight months before.

was so important to the United States that whoever held it was for that very reason naturally and forever an enemy, and that the day France took possession of the city the ancient friendship between her and the United States ended and alliance with Great Britain became necessary. became necessary. Nor were English statesmen slow to foresee the natural sequence of events. Before the cession had been mooted Lord Whitworth, the British ambassador at Paris, had predicted that America would reap the "first fruits" of the coming French war with England; and Addington, anticipating Napoleon's own later reason for the cession, told Rufus King that the first step of England on the outbreak of war would be to seize Louisiana.

The interesting question as to Napoleon's real reasons for alienating Louisiana from France will perhaps never be settled. Of our late standard historians of the United States Adams gives the question the most thorough consideration; and while he seriously damages, if he does not completely demolish the reasons usually given, he fails to establish others in their place.

the colony to Spain; he had reasons, too, for "Bonaparte had reasons for not returning giving it to the United States,--but why did he alienate the territory from France? Fear of England was not the true cause. He had not to learn how to reconquer Louisiana on the Danube and the Po. . . Any attempt (on the part of England) to regain ascendency by conquering Louisiana would have thrown the United States into the hands of France; and had Bonaparte anticipated such an act he should have helped it. . . Every diplomatic object would have been gained by accepting Jefferson's project of a treaty (for New Orleans alone) and signing it, without the change of a word.

The real reasons

which induced Bonaparte to alienate the territory from France remained hidden in the mysterious processes of his mind. Anger with Spain and Godoy had a share in it, disgust for the sacrifices he had made, and impatience to begin his new campaigns on

2 It is curious to note that while the French republic in 1794, still in its mad career of enfranchisement, had freed the slaves of Santo Domingo, it was now part of Napoleon's purpose in sending troops to that island, instead of employing them to take possession of Louisiana, to again reduce the blacks to slavery.

the Rhine, possibly a wish to show Talleyrand that his policy could never be revived,

and that he had no choice but to follow into Germany, had still more to do with the act.1 McMaster, on the other hand, puts the orthodox, or generally accepted reasons into a nutshell, thus:

"New combinations were forming against him (Napoleon) in Europe; all England was loudly demanding that Louisiana should be attacked; and, lest it should be taken from him, he determined to sell it to the United States."2

Somewhat more at length, and willing to credit Jefferson with shrewd foresight, Schouler adopts the same reasons:

"The accident for which Jefferson had here allowed was, in truth, the speedy renewal of hostilities between France and England. The treaty of Amiens had been too hastily drawn up, and its adjustment of disputes was too incomplete to be more than a truce between them. . And thus it came to pass ere Monroe could reach Paris. . Napoleon after his abrupt fashion had relinquished, and most reluctantly, his designs upon the American continent, under the pressure of a speedy war with England, and the necessity of preventing the United States from making the threatened alliance with his enemy. Forced to surrender the Mississippi, in any event he resolved to put it out of the reach of his immediate foe, and gain the gratitude of a new and rising power. He needed money, furthermore, in aid of his warlike operations.""

Rhodes essays little on this topic beyond crediting Jefferson with long-headedness: "The possession of the mouth of the Mississippi was a commercial necessity, and Jefferson showed wisdom in promptly seizing the opportunity presented by a fortunate combination of circumstances to secure the purchase of this magnificent domain.'

"his ways are past finding out." For a noted Englishman, even, avows that he was “a supernatural force"; that "his genius was supreme"; that "he raised himself by superhuman faculties," and "carried human faculty to the farthest point of which we have accurate knowledge." And we find the head of the English army characterizing him as "the greatest soldier and ruler, the greatest human being whom God has ever allowed to His greatness in govern here below. peace, his success in war, his wisdom as a ruler, his genius as a commander, all combine to make him the most remarkable man whom God ever created."

.

But while Napoleon's part in this great transaction remains equivocal, or not positively to his credit, Jefferson's reputation for great capacity and consummate sagacity in his part has been established by a century's severest scrutiny. From the time of the retrocession of Louisiana by Spain to France in 1800 the position of the United States was diplomatically very delicate if it was not desperate.

France had been insolently preying upon our commerce, and Livingston was obliged to complicate demands for damages on this account with his negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans. No friendship could be expected from England except as it might be played off against France. In its constant peril of one or the other of these greatest powers, Spain took frequent opportunity to visit the young republic with both insult and injury; and though Napoleon's extremity furnished our opportunity for the Louisiana acquisition, its original stimulus and initiative came from an imperious demand for free commerce, through the channel of the Mississippi river, by the settlers of the western parts of Kentucky and Tennessee.

Before the close of the war of the Revolution John Jay, minister to Spain, had in vain negotiated for an acknowledgment of this

4 Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 27-28.

Rosebery, Napoleon, The Last Phase.

6 Field Marshal Viscount Wolsely, in Cosmopolitan for March and April, 1903.