When in 1801 Thomas Jefferson became third President of the United
States the nation was young. The War for Independence had been won only
twenty years previous. George Washington himself had been gone but a
year and four months. The Capitol was being erected on the site that he
had chosen. And the western boundary of the nation was the Mississippi
River.
Beyond the Mississippi extended onward to the Rocky Mountains the
foreign territory of Louisiana Province. New Orleans was the capital of
its lower portion, St. Louis was the capital of its upper portion. It
all was assumed to be the property of Spain, until, before President
Jefferson had held office a year, there spread the rumor that by a
secret treaty in 1800 Spain had ceded Louisiana back to France, the
first owner.
Almost another year passed. The treaty transferring Louisiana Province
from Spain to France seemed to be hanging fire. The Spanish flag still
floated over New Orleans and St. Louis. Then, in October, 1802, the
Spanish governor at New Orleans informed the American traders and
merchants that their flat-boats no longer might use the Mississippi
River. New Orleans, the port through which the Mississippi River
traffic reached the Gulf of Mexico, was closed to them.
From the west to the east of the United States swelled a vigorous cry
of indignation against this decree that closed the Mississippi to
American commerce. Hot words issued, threats were loudly spoken, and
the people of the Ohio Valley, particularly, were ripe to seize New
Orleans and re-open the big river by force of arms.
However, the Spanish governor was not within his rights, anyway. By
that secret treaty, the Island of New Orleans (as it was called),
through which the currents of the Mississippi flowed to the Gulf, was
French property. So instead of disputing further with Spain, President
Jefferson, in January, 1803, sent Robert R. Livingston, United States
minister to France, the authority to buy the New Orleans gateway for
$2,000,000, or, if necessitated, to offer $10,000,000.
President Jefferson was a gaunt, thin-legged, sandy-haired, homely man,
careless of his clothes and simple in his customs, but he passionately
loved his country, and he had great dreams for it. His dreams he made
come true.
He long had been fascinated by the western half of the continent.
His keen hazel eyes had pored over the rude maps, largely guesswork,
sketched by adventurers and fur-hunters. These eyes had travelled
up the water-way of the uncertain Missouri, to the Stony Mountains,
as they were called; thence across the Stony Mountains, in search
of that mysterious Columbia River, discovered and christened by an
American. Twice he had urged the exploration of the Columbia region,
and twice explorers had started, but had been turned back. Now, as
President, he clung to his dream of gaining new lands and new commerce
to the American flag; and scarcely had Minister Livingston been sent
the instructions to open the Mississippi, than President Jefferson
proceeded with plans for opening another, longer trail, that should
reach from the Mississippi to the Pacific.
He had in mind the person who could lead on such a trip: young Captain
Meriwether Lewis of the First Infantry, U. S. A.; his private secretary
at $500 a year, and to him like an own son. They were together day and
night, they loved each other.
A Virginian, of prominent family, was Captain Lewis, and now barely
twenty-nine years of age. Slim, erect, sunny-haired, flashing
blue-eyed, handsome and brave, he had volunteered before to explore
through the farthest Northwest, but had been needed elsewhere. This
time President Jefferson wisely granted him his wish, and asked him to
make an estimate of the expenses for a Government exploring expedition
by officers and men, from St. Louis up the Missouri River and across
the mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
Young Captain Lewis figured, and soon handed in his estimate. He
was of the opinion that at an expense of $2500, which would cover
everything, a party of eighteen men might travel across-country
from the Mississippi River, over the mountains, and to the Pacific
Ocean and back again! He had figured very closely, had young Captain
Lewis――perhaps because he was so anxious to go.
President Jefferson accepted the estimate of $2500, and in his message
of January 18, 1803, to Congress, he proposed the expedition. He urged
that at this small expense a party of soldiers, well led, could in two
summers map a trail clear to the western ocean; bring back valuable
information upon climate, soil and peoples, and make Americans better
acquainted with their own continent; also encourage the traders and
trappers to use the Missouri River as a highway to and from the
Indians, thus competing with the British of Canada.
Congress voted to apply the $2500 on the proposed expedition. We may
imagine how the tall, homely President Jefferson beamed――he, who so
firmly believed in the expansion of American trade, and the onward
march of the American flag. And we may imagine how young Captain Lewis
glowed with joy, when now he might be definitely named as the leader to
carry the flag.
President Jefferson advised him to go at once to Philadelphia, and
study botany, geology, astronomy, surveying, and all the other sciences
and methods that would enable him to make a complete report upon the
new country. At Lancaster, nearby, the celebrated Henry flint-lock
rifles were manufactured, and he could attend to equipping his party
with these high-grade guns, turned out according to his own directions.
There should be two leaders, to provide against accident to one. Whom
would he have, as comrade? He asked for his friend, William Clark,
younger brother to the famed General George Rogers Clark, who in
the Revolution had won the country west of the Alleghanies from the
British and the Indians, afterward had saved the Ohio Valley from the
angry redmen, and then had defied the Spaniards who would claim the
Mississippi.
As cadet only seventeen years old, and as stripling lieutenant
appointed by Washington, William Clark himself had fought to keep
this fertile region white. “A youth of solid and promising parts and
as brave as Cæsar,” was said of him, in those terrible days when the
Shawnees, the Mohawks and all declared: “No white man’s cabin shall
smoke beyond the Ohio.”
He, too, was a Virginian born, but raised in Kentucky. Now in this
spring of 1803 he was verging on thirty-three years of age. He was
russet-haired, gray-eyed, round-faced and large-framed――kindly, firm,
and very honest.
He had retired from the army, but by rank in the militia was entitled
captain. For the purposes of the expedition President Jefferson
commissioned him second lieutenant of artillery.
Captain Clark was at the Clark family home of Mulberry Hill, three
miles south of Louisville, Kentucky; Captain Lewis pursued his studies
at Philadelphia. Meanwhile, what of Minister Livingston and the
purchase from France of New Orleans――the mouth of the Mississippi?
The famous Napoleon Bonaparte was the ruler of France. He, like
President Jefferson, had his dreams for the Province of Louisiana.
He refused to sell the port of New Orleans. Here he intended to land
soldiers and colonists, that they might proceed up-river and make of
his Province of Louisiana another France.
Trouble loomed. Congress appointed James Monroe as Envoy Extraordinary
and on March 8 he started for France to aid Minister Livingston. He
arrived at Paris on April 12; but, lo, on the day before he arrived, a
most astonishing new bargain had been offered by Napoleon and Minister
Livingston was ready to accept.
The dream of Napoleon had faded. For war with England was again upon
him; the British held Canada, their men-of-war were assembling off the
Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana Province and New Orleans would be seized
before ever France could muster a force there to resist. So rather than
let England gain all this territory and wax more powerful, Napoleon,
on April 11, directed his ministers to proffer to the United States
not only New Orleans, but all Louisiana Province――and the deal must be
closed at once!
“Take all, at 80,000,000 francs, or $15,000,000, or take nothing,” was
the astounding proposal from Minister Marbois.
“I am authorized to buy New Orleans,” replied Minister Livingston.
There was no time in which to inform President Jefferson and Congress.
News crossed the ocean only by slow sailing vessels. Envoy Monroe
arrived; he and Minister Livingston consulted together; Napoleon was
impatient, they should act quickly――――
“We must do it,” they agreed. “Our country shall not lose this
opportunity.”
Little minds are afraid of responsibilities; great minds are not
afraid. They prefer to act as seems to them they ought to act, rather
than merely to play safe. Monroe and Livingston were true patriots.
They thought not of themselves, but of their country, and risked rebuke
for exceeding their instructions.
On April 30 they signed the papers which engaged the United States
to purchase all of Louisiana. The French ministers signed. On May 2
Napoleon signed. The papers were immediately mailed for the approval of
Congress.
And Congress did approve, on October 17. Thus, for less than three
cents an acre, the United States acquired from the Mississippi River
to the summits of the Rocky Mountains. The amount paid over was
$11,400,000; $3,750,000 was applied on French debts.
The ship bearing the papers signed by Ministers Livingston and Monroe,
and by the government of France, did not reach the United States
until July. Down to that time President Jefferson had no knowledge of
the fact that his expedition, as planned, was to explore not French
territory, but American. But when the news broke, he was all ready for
it――he needed only to go ahead. That is one secret of success: to be
prepared to step instantly from opportunity to opportunity as fast as
they occur. The successful, energetic man is never surprised by the
unexpected.
Captain Lewis had been kept very busy: studying science at Philadelphia,
inspecting his flint-locks at Lancaster, storing them and gathering
supplies at the arsenal of Harper’s Ferry. June 20 he received his
written instructions.
He was to ascend the Missouri River from St. Louis to its source, and
by crossing the mountains and following down other streams, endeavor
to come out at the mouth of the Columbia on the Pacific coast. It
was hoped that he would find a way by water clear through. He was to
make a complete record of his journey: noting the character of the
country, its rivers, climate, soil, animals, products, and peoples; and
particularly the Indians, their laws, languages, occupations――was to
urge peace upon them, inform them of the greatness of the white United
States, encourage them to sell us their goods and to visit us.
When he reached the Pacific Ocean, he was to ship two of his party by
vessel, if he found one there, for the United States, by way of Cape
Horn, of South America, or the Cape of Good Hope, of Africa, and send
a copy of his notes with them. Or he and all his party were at liberty
to return that way, themselves. He was given letters to the United
States consuls at Java, and the Isles of France off the African coast,
and the Cape of Good Hope, and one authorizing him to obtain money, in
the name of the United States, at any part of the civilized world.
All this was a large order, placed upon the shoulders of a youth of
twenty-nine years; but who knew where the Missouri River trail might
lead? No white man yet had followed it to its end.
Captain Lewis was at Washington, receiving those final instructions.
On July 5 he should start for the west. On July 3 he wrote a farewell
letter to his mother in Virginia, bidding her not to worry, and
assuring her that he felt he should return safely in fifteen to
eighteen months.
He did not dream――President Jefferson, his friend and backer, did not
dream, or, at least, had not voiced that dream――but even while the
loving letter was being penned, into the harbor of New York had sailed
a ship from France, bringing the dispatches of Ministers Monroe and
Livingston. The next day the news was announced at Washington. The
Province of Louisiana had been bought by the United States!
This was a Fourth of July celebration with a vengeance.
Captain Lewis scarcely had time to comprehend. To-morrow he was to
start, and his mind was filled with the details of preparation. But a
glowing joy must have thrilled him as he realized that he was to be the
first to carry the flag through that new America now a part of his own
United States. Hurrah!
He had no occasion for delaying. His instructions required no change.
He was eager to be off. Therefore on July 5, this 1803, he set out, and
from the White House President Jefferson wished him good-speed.