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THE AMERICAN MONTHLY

VOL. XXVII.

Review of Reviews.

NEW YORK, MAY, 1903.

No. 5.

THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD.

The purchase of the Louisiana terriA Notable tory was consummated at Paris on Anniversary. April 30, 1803. So great an event has this purchase proved to be in its historical consequences that it seems well-nigh useless to try to lend impressiveness to it by comparing it with other historical events, or by making eulogistic phrases about it. Much has been written upon that first huge stride in the course of our national expansion. The very best condensed' narrative and interpretation of it given us by any historical writer is to be found in the fourth volume of "The Winning of the West," by Theodore Roosevelt. It is, therefore, a pleasant coincidence that the author of that original and finely conceived historical work, of the excellence of which one finds fresh proof upon every reference to it,-should now in his capacity as President of the United States take a leading part in the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the treaty with France for the cession of Louisiana. Roughly speaking, the Louisiana Purchase comprised that great central section of the United States lying between the Mississippi River on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west, and extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the British possessions on the north.

Its greatest width at the extreme north was about a thousand miles; its greatest length, from the mouth of the Mississippi to the extreme northwestern point, was about two thousand miles. The narrowest portion was what is now the State of Louisiana, Texas then being a part of Mexico, and, with California and the country west of the Rockies, a possession of Spain.

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railroads and most of the country remained a wilderness, commerce was wholly a matter of transportation by water. We already possessed the eastern bank of the Mississippi River to a point below Natchez. We were shut off from the Gulf of Mexico by the narrow strip of West Florida fifty or sixty miles wide which at that time extended all the way to the Mississippi River, and by the projecting delta of the river which belonged to the Louisiana province. Our frontier settlers on the Ohio and in the region accessible to the Mississippi were clamoring for unrestricted navigation rights to the sea. The Louisiana province had been ceded by France to the Spaniards, who also held the Floridas, in 1765. We had succeeded in making a temporary arrangement with the Spaniards which gave us certain rights of passage, and particularly of landing and storing goods at New Orleans. This arrangement was reported as withdrawn at the very time when it came to be known that by a secret treaty the Spanish Government had transferred Louisiana back to the French. The Americans had believed they could deal with the Spaniards, and eventually have their own way about the use of the mouths of the river. But they regarded France as incomparably more formidable, and so our settlers in the Southwest were very much disturbed.

A Napoleonic Real Estate

Deal.

Meanwhile, the French had not yet taken possession at New Orleans, for they were at that time painfully and disastrously engaged in the endeavor to put down the revolt in Haiti. Under these circumstances, President Jefferson instructed our min. ister at Paris, Mr. Livingston, to try to purchase the east bank of the Mississippi to its mouth, this purchase including the town of New Or leans. The total amount of land asked for was comparatively a mere speck on the map,--a bit of marsh and sand off the extreme end of West Florida, and the margin of delta land that lies

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THE SHADED PART OF THE MAP SHOWS THE EXTENT OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE OF 1803.

east of the main channel of the Mississippi between Lake Pontchartrain and the river's mouth. Mr. Livingston's negotiations seemed to be wholly fruitless, and at length President Jefferson quietly sent James Monroe as a special envoy with authority to treat at Madrid as well as at Paris, and with instructions to buy New Orleans and the river outlet for $2,000,000. Suddenly, to the great surprise of Messrs. Livingston and Monroe, Napoleon proposed through Marbois, his finance minister, to sell us not merely New Orleans, but almost a million square miles of country, nearly all of which had never been seen by a white man. Napoleon was now determined that the United States should take over the whole French territory, even as he had formerly been determined not to sell the marginal strip on the east bank of the river.

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McKinley at Washington. But Mr. Livingston of New York and Mr. Monroe of Virginia took their chances, fixed the pecuniary terms of the bargain, and signed offhand a treaty of territorial acquisition which doubled the domain of the United States. They signed this treaty on April 30, and nobody in the United States had any inkling of the matter for more than two months. The treaty was broad and comprehensive in its provisions. At the moment of its signing, there were also signed two other treaties, one of which agreed that the United States should pay France 60,000,000 francs, while the other provided that three or four million dollars' worth of outstanding American claims against France should be paid off by the United States Treasury. These two items taken together amounted to about fifteen million dollars, and were regarded as being in consideration of the cession of the Louisiana country. The first article of the treaty asserts the fact that there had been a retrocession of "the colony or province of Louisiana" from Spain to France by a treaty of October 1, 1800; then it declares that whereas "the French Republic has an incontestible title to the domain and to the possession of the said territory: The First Consul of the French Republic desiring to give to the United States a strong proof of his friendship, doth hereby cede to the United States, in

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the name of the French Republic, forever and in full sovereignty, the said territory, with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in the same manner as they have been acquired by the French Republic, in virtue of the abovementioned treaty concluded with His Catholic Majesty."

Mr. Roosevelt in his "Winning of The Real Hero Was the Ameri- the West" declares that the Louisican Pioneer. ana Purchase was not the work chiefly of the statesmen and diplomatists of the Jefferson administration, nor yet of Napoleon and his advisers. In page after page of fact and argument, he finally proves incontestibly that the Louisiana Purchase was the result of the energy and spirit of the American pioneers of the Southwest. Napoleon had intended to maintain and develop the French colonial empire in America, but circumstances had rapidly and wholly convinced him that the thing was impossible. He had received reports which showed both the disposition and the capacity of the American frontiersmen. These pioneers were determined not to allow New Orleans to pass from the comparatively inert Spanish Government to the powerful control of France, and Napoleon was convinced that sooner or later the frontiersmen would open the Mississippi River and control New Orleans in spite of all that he could do. He was advised how strong an influence the new settlements of the Southwest had in the political party of which Jefferson was the leader and the exponent, and he had come to think it probable that if he should undertake

to hold the mouths of the Mississippi as against the clamor of the Americans he would inevitably drive the United States into an alliance with England, in which case he would certainly be deprived of Louisiana, not to mention dangers in other quarters. With Napoleon, to perceive was to act. The undeveloped regions of the upper part of the Louisiana Purchase were of no interest to him if France was to lose her preeminence in the Gulf of Mexico and her hold in the West Indies. Thus, it seemed best to him, not merely to sell New Orleans, but to sell the whole of the Louisiana country, to the United States. Mr. Roosevelt says that in any case our pioneers would inevitably have settled, developed, and acquired the trans-Mississippi country. But it was high statesmanship on Napoleon's part to perceive the inevitable, and it was splendid courage and broad vision that actuated Livingston and Monroe when they made the bargain and signed the treaty.

the West.

Fortunately, they could count upon Jefferson's Interest in President Jefferson's ardent backing at home. Jefferson for many years had been one of the very few Americans who had felt a scientific interest and curiosity in the idea of an exploration of the great Indian country of the Northwest. which, though belonging nominally to Spain, had never been traversed by a Spaniard. At the very time when, unknown to him, his representatives at Paris were purchasing that northwestern wilderness for the United States, Jefferson was arranging for a notable tour of exploration under the leadership

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of his private secretary, Capt. Meriwether Lewis, of Virginia. A good many years earlier, Jefferson had been interested in the project of an American traveler who had proposed to go up the Missouri River as far as possible by rowboats and canoes, and then across the mountains to the headwaters of the Columbia, or of some other stream that emptied into the Pacific, and thus down to the western coast of the continent. There were already some American settlements in the Missouri valley above the French village of St. Louis, and certain trading treaties had been made with the Indians on behalf of American citizens. The time had come for a renewal of governmental action on this matter of Indian trading, and this gave occasion for the expedition which Jefferson was fitting out under the leadership of Captain Lewis, with his friend. Captain Clark, also of Virginia, as his colleague. Mr. Jefferson had himself drawn up very complete instructions for this expedition, and Captain Lewis was about to leave Washington for Pittsburg, and thence to float down the Ohio River to St. Louis, to make his start across the unknown wilderness, when the startling news arrived of the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson himself tells us that news of the Louisiana Purchase was received at Washington about July 1, and that Captain Lewis started on the 5th under new conditions that infinitely enhanced the importance of the project of exploration.

The Lewis

The fact that Captain Lewis was to and Clark explore what had now become our Expedition. own domain lent a vastly increased interest to his undertaking. Delays incident to what was then a long, tedious journey to St. Louis made it impracticable to get the expedition of twenty-five or thirty men fairly started on its work until the following spring. The winter of 1804-05 was spent with the Mandan Indians on the Missouri River, in what is now Dakota. The summer of 1805 found the expedition safely descending the Columbia River. The projected Lewis and Clark exposition to be held at Portland, Ore., in 1905, a year after the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, will, therefore, come at the proper time for the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of this remarkable exploration. To make it as sure as possible that the news of the journey should be received, Jefferson had provided that some members of the party should return by sea, the coasts of the Oregon country being frequented by merchant ships in the fur trade. Messrs. Lewis and Clark, and most of the party, however, returned across the wilderness, varying their route somewhat, and traversing regions that President Roosevelt visited last month. They reached St. Louis in September, 1806. The whole country rang with their fame, and few Americans ever more fully deserved the approval of their countrymen. They had shown

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