Meantime the stout little government at Washington, knowing well enough
all the dangers which threatened it, continued to work out the problems
of the West. Some breathless, trembling years passed by--years full
of wars and treaties in Europe as well as in America. Then came the
end of all doubts and tremblings. The lying intrigues at the mouth of
America's great roadway ceased by virtue of that purchase of territory
which gave to America forever this mighty Mississippi, solemn,
majestic, and mysterious stream, perpetual highway, and henceforth to
be included wholly within the borders of the West. The year which saw
the Mississippi made wholly American was one mighty in the history
of America and of the world. The date of the Louisiana Purchase is
significant not more by reason of a vast domain added to the West than
because of the fact that with this territory came the means of building
it up and holding it together. It was now that for the first time the
solidarity of this New World was forever assured. We gained a million
uninhabited miles--a million miles of country which will one day
support its thousands to the mile. But still more important, we gained
the right and the ability to travel into it and across it and through
it. France had failed to build roads into that country, and thereafter
neither France nor any other power might ever do so.
[Illustration: The down-river men.]