he wrote, "for the tranquil pursuits of science . . . but the enormities of the times . . . have forced me .. to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions." His correspondence ranged all the way from letters discussing botany with the Italian Philip Mazzei, to inquiries addressed to Kentucky pioneers about the "big bones" found at the salt licks. His curiosity was aroused concerning the unknown West long before Louisiana was acquired. In 1783 he wrote to George Rogers Clark suggesting an exploration into the transmississippi country. He recurred to the project while Secretary of State, but the Presidency gave him for the first time means to carry out the scheme. At his instance Congress provided funds for an expedition led by Meriwether Lewis, his secretary, and William Clark, younger brother of the hero of Kaskaskia. Both held commissions in the army. These steps preceded the Louisiana treaty, the President deeming the scientific character of the undertaking inoffensive even though conducted on alien soil. Before the party set out, however, the transfer of Louisiana was completed, so that the explorers were within their own country until they crossed the Rockies. Leaving St. Louis in 1804, the party went up the Missouri to the Mandan Indian villages near the present Bismark, North Dakota, where it went into winter quarters. The next season the stream was ascended to its headwaters, where passes were found leading to the Snake River. Down this the explorers proceeded to the Columbia, and thence to the Pacific, where the second winter was passed. The mouth of the Columbia had first been entered in 1793, by Captain Robert Gray, of Boston. Alexander Mackenzie, of the Hudson Bay Company, had soon afterward crossed Canada to Vancouver Sound, but Lewis and Clark were the first white men to traverse the Columbia River basin. Their exploration gave the United States a claim to the "Oregon country" of which good use was made later. Several other explorations of the newly-acquired territory were made at about the same time as the Lewis and Clark expedition. Some of these ascended the Red River but failed to reach its source owing to hostile Indians and even more to the jealousy with which the Spanish watched their border after the exposure of Burr. Two notable journeys were performed by Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike. In the winter of 1805 he made a search for the sources of the Mississippi but was unable to make trustworthy observations because of the snow-covered surfaces. In the summer of 1806 he went up the Arkansas River, penetrating the Royal Gorge, and gaining much geographical knowledge. Beyond the ridge Spanish soldiers were encountered, who took his party to Santa Fé and later to Mexico, under the fear that its errand was unfriendly. When released at last Pike returned home by way of Texas and Louisiana. The information which he gained about the northern provinces of Mexico through this enforced visit aroused interest in the United States and was afterwards a factor in opening the Santa Fé trail for trade with them. DISPUTE OVER WEST FLORIDA The Louisiana treaty involved the United States in a new dispute with Spain over boundaries. The treaty said that the United States was to receive the province "with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it" before 1763. The French had claimed the Perdido River as the eastern boundary of Louisiana, but Spain had received nothing east of the Isle of Orleans in 1763, the part of French Louisiana lying between the Iberville and the Perdido going to England. When in 1783 England transferred this tract to Spain, Spain did not change the boundary between the provinces of Louisiana and West Florida. Spanish Louisiana, therefore, included nothing east of New Orleans. Did her retrocession to France include the tract east of the Iberville which had come to her through England as intermediate owner? Livingston in perplexity asked Talleyrand what France intended to take under the Treaty of San Ildefonso. Talleyrand had in his possession at that moment a copy of the instructions prepared for the first French governor of Louisiana, in which the Rio Grande and Iberville were mentioned as the boundaries; but for some reason best known to himself - perhaps a wish to embroil the United States with Spain - he preferred to dissimulate. "I do not know," he replied. "You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it." Livingston, although he knew that Spain had refused to include land east of the Iberville in the retrocession to France, taking the cue from Talleyrand, worked out a theory that she had- nevertheless done so inadvertently. Although the Spanish minister in the United States wrote to Madison, several weeks before the treaty was ratified, protesting that in buying Louisiana the United States had really purchased stolen goods, Jefferson not only ignored the protest, but, accepting Livingston's interpretation of boundaries, claimed the territory between the Iberville and the Perdido. Without awaiting the outcome of efforts to persuade Spain to accept this interpretation of the treaty, he asked Congress to extend the revenue laws to the district, although he located the customs house on undisputed ground (1804). Then he turned to diplomacy. -81 New Territory in dispute Part of French Louisiana to 1763 Part of English West Florida, 1763-1783 Spain stood firm as to West Florida, but Talleyrand suggested that through French mediation the United States might be able to obtain the relinquishment of Spain's claim. Having failed to gain a means of influencing American policy through the possession of Louisiana, France now found it in Jefferson's hunger for territory. The President was kept dancing for several years to the Emperor's piping. In 1806 he persuaded Congress, not without considerable difficulty, to grant an appropriation for the settlement of the dispute through the mediation of France, but by this time Napoleon had lost interest because a favorable turn of fortune had made him careless of America's good will and money. WEST FLORIDA DISPUTE, 1803-1819. The acquisition of Louisiana influenced America profoundly. The acceptance by the party of strict construction of interpretation in place of amendment as a means of adapting the Constitution to new needs confirmed that process. The removal of 1"In taking Louisiana," says Professor Channing, "we were the accomplices of the greatest highwayman of modern history." European influence from the Mississippi Valley made real that "detached and distant" position of the United States which Washington stressed in his Farewell Address, and made possible that freedom from "entangling alliances" which Jefferson recommended in his inaugural. The undisputed control of the West gave the United States the geographical basis for becoming a great power, able to maintain among the nations a distinctive policy such as the Monroe Doctrine. Two essential elements of that doctrine were already in evidence at the opening of the nineteenth century. Washington contributed one of them when he adhered to neutrality and in his Farewell Address advised his countrymen to avoid permanent European alliances. Jefferson was the originator of the other when he resolved that Louisiana must not pass from the hands of Spain to any other European state, because of its vital relation to the welfare of the United States. These two elements — the principle of isolation and that of paramount interest when brought together with the third principle of non-intervention in the message of President Monroe in 1823, constituted the famous doctrine which bears his name (see page 360). SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER XIV Jeffersonian Democracy. Adams, History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, is a comprehensive work in nine volumes. Although somewhat unsympathetic towards Jefferson and his associates, it is one of the best pieces of historical writing yet achieved in the United States. Channing, in United States, IV, and Jeffersonian System, is juster to the Republicans. Johnson, Jefferson and his Colleagues, is more recent than either Adams or Channing, but lays less claim to original scholarship. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage, is an illuminating discussion of the whole subject indicated by the title. The Louisiana Purchase. In general Adams is excellent on diplomatic history. His account of the acquisition of Louisiana takes insufficient note of the influence of European factors upon Napoleon's policy. Cf. Ogg, Opening of the Mississippi, and Channing, United States, and Jeffersonian System. For Burr's conspiracy, see, besides Adams, McCaleb, The Aaron Burr Conspiracy. Roosevelt, Winning of the West, gives a popular account of the explorations of the transmississippi country. See also Thwaites, Rocky Mountain Exploration. CHAPTER XV THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUTRAL RIGHTS RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND The general acceptability of Jeffersonian principles was shown by the reëlection of the President in 1804 by an overwhelming vote. Against C. C. Pinckney and Rufus King, the Federalist candidates, he carried even the New England states with the exception of Connecticut. Clinton, old-time rival of Burr, had profited by his fall, and reconciled temporarily to Virginia's leadership, received the Vice-Presidency in token that the intersectional alliance was intact. The rupture of the Peace of Amiens in 1803 was followed by war on a scale never before equaled. Within a few years all of Europe was drawn into the struggle, and even the United States, despite its boasted isolation, was in the sequel unable to hold aloof. The renewed conflict meant both prosperity and trouble for the United States. As in the previous decade the American carrying trade increased by leaps and bounds. In 1790 the total exports of the country were valued at about $19,000,000. Five years later $26,000,000 worth of goods were brought from the French, Spanish, and Dutch possessions and reëxported. By 1806 the value of reëxports had risen to nearly $60,000,000; tonnage was increasing at the rate of 70,000 a year, requiring 4,000 additional seamen every twelvemonth; and the relatively high wages paid were attracting sailors from all of the maritime countries of Europe. Ship-building and subsidiary industries were proportionately active and absorbed most of the capital available for investment. The rapid growth of this neutral commerce at length alarmed the British mercantile and shipping interests, which began to fear that the position of preeminence which they had enjoyed |