Treasury Department, he planned a broad scheme of internal improvements along the line suggested by Washington, a plan to unite the states by systems of canals and roads.

THE EXPLORATION OF LOUISIANA. (Showing the routes of Lewis and Clark, Long and Pike, and including that of Burr's Expedition.)

Origin of the
Cumberland

Road

Ohio in 1802 was seeking admission to the Union as a state. In conformity with Washington's scheme, the government now promised Ohio (as she entered the Union) that it would spend 20 per cent. of the money to come from sale of "Congress Lands" in Ohio toward building a mighty highway from the head of navigation on an Atlantic stream to that state. out of harmony with Jefferson's "strict construction" tenets. The Constitution only gave Congress the right to "establish" post roads; but that body swept all objections aside and Ohio

The idea was

was admitted (1803) with this promise of a highway to assure her that she would not be an isolated commonwealth. In 1806 Jefferson signed the first National or "Cumberland" Road bill. It was so named because the road began at Cumberland, Md., on the Potomac and was planned to touch the Ohio River at Wheeling (map p. 219).

Handicaps of western trade

Trade between the East and the West had developed largely in these latter years. Crossing the mountains in wagons, eastern merchandise was being carried by flatboat and barge to scores of bustling towns and settlements all the way down to Natchez, Miss. In three months in 1800 $32,550 worth of dry goods passed a given point on the Ohio for the lower country. By 1799 eight ports of entry had been established in the West, four on the Great Lakes

and four on the Ohio. Great difficulties stood in the way of Ohio Valley shippers even when New Orleans was an "open port"-(a) difficulties of river navigation, (b) lack of proper credit, and (c) lack of banking facilities. As early as 1802 Pittsburgh merchants estimated their losses at $60,000 annually and were now discussing the absolute necessity of our own

Rumor of Napoleon's willingness to

ing the Mississippi. Current rumor said, as early as April, 1802, that Napoleon would sell us, for fifteen million dollars, the mighty Louisiana empire he had received from Spain. He had acquired the region in the secret treaty of San Ildefonso made in 1800. The temporary closing of New Orleans to our shipping sell Louisiana in the fall of 1802 by France aroused the West's anger as nothing else could. Western writers showed that the failure to secure the river would cost an untold fortune; one of these placed it at three hundred millions, estimated as follows: (a) loss of $2.00 an acre on fifty million acres which could not be sold; (b) ten million loss on lands sold already on guarantee; (c) loss of $1.00 per acre on the two hundred million acres yet to be sold. Scores of ocean-rigged vessels had been made from the black walnut forests of the Ohio and were ready for business. Natchez losing the merchants had bought on credit nearly two mil- Mississippi lion dollars' worth of goods-to be paid for in

upper

Estimates of the cost of

cotton which could not, with New Orleans closed, be shipped southward at all!

These arguments of the West were unanswerable. Its trade could not be bottled up; its land could not go unsold merely because the natural outlet for its produce was

to be blocked; important enterprises like the The question "Ohio Company" of the Pittsburgh-Wheeling of the purregion (of which the venerable Col. Ebenezer "Louisiana" Zane, founder of Wheeling, was president) could raised not be ruined because safe communication with

the world was denied it. The refusal to meet this demand would have spelled revolution.

The difficulty in ruling trans-Atlantic territory had been impressed upon Napoleon by his failure to subdue a revolt in San Domingo. Fortunately for Jefferson, this stern appeal of the West and Napoleon's reverses in San Domingo together with his great need of money made easy the greatest act of Jefferson's presidency-the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. He knew, and said, that it strained the Constitution to the breaking

point to make this purchase; but no academic theory would ever have satisfied the hundreds of thousands of Westerners who would have been driven to nameless straits but for it.

Instructions to the Paris Commission

Jefferson sent a commission to Paris in 1803 authorized to purchase the Island of New Orleans and West Florida. The common account runs that this commission was considerably startled at Napoleon's suggestion that the United States buy the whole Louisiana Territory at the cost of fifteen millions; whether new to the commission or not, it was no new idea in the West, where, as we have seen, the project had been rumored for at least a year and the exact final price

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON

one as a small one, for

the Constitution curiously enough made no provision by which Congress could add to our national domain! The commission decided to accept Napoleon's offer, and the purchase of nearly a million square miles of the western half of the Mississippi Basin was made April 30, 1803. The East, at least the Federalist part of it, opposed this notable act and many threats were made to go out of the Union if the purchase was ratified. Such talk was ignored and Congress proceeded to ratify this epoch-making treaty of purchase (map p. 203; also map following p. 298). One argument which won many friends to favor the Louisiana Purchase was the fact that it removed from our frontier the flag of France. This was no small gain, for, as long as that flag was borne by the enigma of this era of world-history, Napoleon, no one knew what consequences might follow France's ownership of so great an

Our Spanish frontier

American colony. South of the Red River the Spanish flag still floated; it was enough that we had one European nation to deal with on our southwestern border!1

This became clear very soon. Westerners who went down the Mississippi found their Spanish neighbors anything but friendly. No one, Jefferson least of all, was sure that, in the days of 1805-6, we would not be drawn into war with these fiery neighbors; the West in general felt that the Mississippi could never be a safe channel of commerce with Spanish posts dotting its western shore. The tinder was ready for the lighting but the spark which so nearly set it ablaze came from an unexpected quarter.

Jefferson was reëlected President in 1804. Aaron Burr's treachery to him in 1800 was not forgotten, and Governor Clinton of New York was now elected Vice-President

reëlected

in Burr's place. Burr ran for the governorship Jefferson of New York and was defeated, largely through President the influence of Alexander Hamilton. In a duel in 1804 Burr killed Hamilton, July 11, 1804, shooting to

kill after his opponent had expended his shot in the air. In disgrace, Burr now made a purchase of Yazoo lands on the lower Mississippi and proceeded to recruit a party of Westerners to make a settlement thereon.

We have no evidence that Burr knew what his adventure would amount to. Everybody expected war with Spain; no one could promote a land settlement thereabouts without taking that into consideration. He tied two strings to his bow. To agriculturists he held out the advantage of the land for speculation; to redder blooded men (he called Ohioans "too plodding") he must

The two strings to Burr's bow

1A little war was fought (1801-1804) with the highwaymen of the Mediterranean, the "Barbary pirates. These lusty sea-rovers of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli had steadily blackmailed the great powers of Europe for many years, allowing only the commerce of those who paid a yearly fee to pass unmolested. Strangely enough it was the young American Republic which revolted at this system of robbery. A small fleet commanded by Stephen Decatur entered Algiers and bombarded Tripoli, compelling the Pascha to relinquish all claim to further tribute; this promise was kept until the War of 1812 broke out.