# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 6/The Higher Significance in the Lewis and Clark Exploration

THE HIGHER SIGNIFICANCE IN THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPLORATION.
I.
The Idea of Transcontinental Exploration an Integral Part of the Life Purposes of Thomas Jefferson.
It is proposed in this paper to call attention to the subjective side of the Lewis and Clark exploration—to the real nature of the project when first conceived and the wider motives associated with it. The spirit and aims of him who long fostered such an undertaking, who brought it to realization, and who controlled the execution of it will be inquired into. The thought and purposes with which the idea of this enterprise was bound up in the mind and heart of Thomas Jefferson will be pointed out.
We shall find the idea of the exploration of this continent one deeply cherished by him because it fitted in as an essential condition for the attainment of the leading aims of his life. It was an integral part of them; and if ever there was a mind in which there was perfect unity and consistency and organic correlation of ideas along with widest interests, that mind was Thomas Jefferson's. His was the spacious design of a continent to be kept inviolate for American freedom, equality, and enlightenment; and his plan for transcontinental exploration was part ​and parcel with his aims for negro emancipation, complete freedom of conscience, a system of universal education, with a great university at its apex, promotion of science and invention and normal conditions of life for every American.
Dr. Elliott Coues, in his edition of the Lewis and Clark Journals, speaks of the story of the expedition as "our national epic of exploration." So it is. But the expedition in the design of its author—and therefore in fact—was more than a mere geographical exploration. It was a consciously purposed step toward securing this continent for the home of freedom and of peace and good-will. So imbued was this project with the central purposes of Jefferson's life that it objectively typifies all. It prefigures an enlargement of the bounds of the known, an extension of the realm of enlightenment, science, and the arts, a widening of the sway of peace and good-will, and the securing of a grander home for the institutions of liberty and equality. Our history has been a progress toward democracy. Jefferson was the seer and prophet of democracy as a form of society. The idea exemplified in the Lewis and Clark expedition was representative of Jefferson; we have in it, therefore, the quintessence of democracy and the spirit of our age. Whatever may be the significance of this achievement viewed objectively, considered in its plan and purpose, as every achievement must be, its import is much higher.
Transcontinental Exploration an External and Preliminary Feature in a Larger Design.
The external phases of this undertaking, or the execution of what was but a preliminary feature in the design of Jefferson by Lewis and Clark and their company, are being exploited and celebrated as a heroic achievement should be. During the last three or four years the presses ​of the land have labored with the output of a score of editors, compilers, and commentators working with the records of this exploration.
There has, however, been a strange silence, and even a total misapprehension until recently, regarding the initial impulse to the exploration and the higher purposes cherished in connection with it by its promoter. It was the common and almost universal notion of the writers of books describing this exploration that it was undertaken as a sequel to the Louisiana purchase, and that it was an incident in the taking possession of and acquainting ourselves with that territory. The truth is rather the converse of this. The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory was but an obtruding incident into the earlier and larger plan of Jefferson's concerned with spanning the continent with exploration, commerce, and settlement as the home for American conditions of liberty, equality, and enlightenment. In this original and larger idea the project of transcontinental exploration was to be the first overt and representative act.
Unfortunately, however, the presence of powerful neighbors in the Mississippi Valley with the lust for colonial possessions precipitated a diplomatic struggle for the control of that region. For the twenty years before the exploring expedition could be set on foot intrigue and incipient filibustering, having in view the permanent occupation of the interior of the continent, ran their devious courses and' with doubtful issues. The triumphant culmination for our country of this contest in the purchase of Louisiana Territory was due to Jefferson more than to any other one man. The cooler judgment of Washington stood us in good stead in the crisis in 1792, and the ​hardheaded and patriotic good sense of John Adams gave the right turn to affairs in 1798; but first and last it was the alert, adroit, and vigorous diplomacy of Jefferson, with his passion for peace and faith in the people, that was most powerfully effective in winning the heart of the continent. The primacy of Jefferson in conceiving and ardently cherishing the idea of the American control of this continent as a whole, and the perfecting of American ideals on it, and his having the largest part in the realizing of that idea, can not be questioned. His Lewis and Clark exploration was an integral and initial part of it all. It is fitted to symbolize all. It surely enhances the significance of what was accomplished by the fortitude, courage, skill, and devotion of the noble captains, Lewis and Clark, and their men to find this higher and more sustaining human interest in this exploration because of what Jefferson planned and purposed with it.
His Vision Beached the Pacific Even When Handling the Louisiana Matter.
That Jefferson in his thought regarding the future of this continent was far in advance of the development of events is shown by the position he took when our government was for the first time called upon to meet an emergency that threatened to have far-reaching influence on the destiny of this continent. In 1790 the Nootka Sound controversy brought England and Spain to the verge of war. In the event of war England would in all probability send a force from the Great Lakes across our territory to the Mississippi River and down that stream to take New Orleans from Spain. As Secretary of State Jefferson was ready with suggestions of alliance with poor Spain, if our interests demanded it; and as the price of that alliance moved for the independence of Florida and Louisiana or the cession to us of a port near the mouth of the ​Mississippi, "with a circumjacent territory," through which we could command the interior and thus keep the whole region out of the grasp of England. Toward England, on the other hand, he had our agent instructed as to consequences of that nation's acquiring Louisiana and Florida, "and required him to intimate to the English government that 'a due balance on our borders is not less desirable to us than a balance of power in Europe has always appeared to them.' ' Neutrality was offered to England conditioned on her relinquishment of her encroachments on our northwest border and her attempting no conquests adjoining us on the west and south. "Thus," says Professor Frederick J. Turner in an article, "The Diplomatic Contest for the Mississippi Valley," in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1904, "we see Jefferson's Louisiana system fully unfolded as early as 1790 .... there is at the same time a firm grasp of the importance of the Mississippi and' the Gulf to the future of the United States, and a far-sighted vision of our need of a doctrine of balance of power in the New World,—a germ of the Monroe Doctrine."
As the "Kentucky Resolutions" and many expressions in his earlier writings indicate, Jefferson did not for a time fully appreciate the principle of federation and union. With his heart set on policies of peace and local autonomy—and the revolution to be made by the application of the power of steam to transportation not yet above the horizon—he had no use, except for defense against foreign aggression, for a strong central government. His vision of the future of the American continent at first always included several peoples, yet termed "one family" because having in common, as opposed to the European systems, American institutions of liberty, equality, and enlightenment. But by 1815 he could write to La Fayette, "The cement of this union is in the heart-blood of every American."
​Jefferson was thus the first Pan-American. That he was also first of all an American and that his pro-French sympathies counted as nothing when brought into conflict with this feeling for what humanity had at stake in America is strongly subscribed to by the French Minister Adet when, striving to secure the election of Jefferson to the presidency in 1796, he reported to his government an estimate of Jefferson's character. He said: "I do not know whether, as I am told, we will always find in him a man entirely devoted to our interests. Mr. Jefferson likes us because he detests England; he seeks to unite with us because he suspects us less than Great Britain, but he would change his sentiments towards us to-morrow, perhaps, if to-morrow Great Britain ceased to inspire him with fear. Jefferson, although a friend of liberty and the sciences, although an admirer of the efforts we have made to break our chains and dissipate the clouds of ignorance which weigh upon mankind, Jefferson, I say, is an American, and, by that title it is impossible for him to be sincerely our friend. An American is the born enemy of European peoples."
Jefferson's antipathy to European institutions was the result of experience and was fairly warranted, as the contrast between the political conditions in Europe and America at the opening of the nineteenth century was not greatly different from that between those in Russia and America at the opening of the twentieth century. How true Adet's surmise was and how utterly Jefferson's French leanings were to disappear when they clashed with his solicitude for the largest future of a greater America was demonstrated a few years later. The Jefferson that was the author of the idea of a transcontinental ​exploration and of the great life purposes linked with that idea discloses himself in the now famous passages in the letter to Robert Livingston, written on April 18, 1802, as soon as he was certain Napoleon had secured Louisiana Territory from Spain. He said: "There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. . . . Make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlements she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American nations." Why this fierce outburst? Why did France so unwittingly bring down upon herself this deluge of wrath? There had been no closing of the door as yet at New Orleans. It is because Jefferson had in his heart long cherished the idea of our coming in the natural course of events into the possession of the empire of the west, even to the shores of the Pacific. With Louisiana in possession of the vigorous, energetic, and rising France instead of in the weak and nerveless grasp of Spain the way westward was barred. It is true he mentions New Orleans as though it was the exclusive bone of contention, and his specific language in this passage does not indicate special concern for the territory west of the Mississippi. In a later passage of the same letter, however, referring to the possibility of the willingness of France's "ceding to us the island of New Orleans and the Floridas," as an arrangement to reconcile us to her possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, he says: "But still we should consider New Orleans and the Floridas as no equivalent ​for the risk of a quarrel with France produced by her vicinage." His disturbance of mind evidently did not arise alone from the danger of the French occupation of the mouth of the Mississippi.
It is a unique suggestion, too, of his that in case France takes possession of New Orleans the first cannon fired in Europe should be "the signal .... for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American nations." We shall see presently that Jefferson had very definite ideals that he wished realized, in at least, the northern continent of America.
The letter in which the passages quoted above occur was intrusted to M. Dupont De Nemours who was just returning to Paris from America. Jefferson left the letter to Livingston unsealed and writes to Dupont "It is the second, third, and fourth pages [those relating to the Louisiana matter] which I wish you to read, to possess yourself of completely, and then seal the letter." Jefferson relied upon Dupont to act as a friend of America at the court of France. To Dupont he says: "I wish you to be possessed of the subjects, because you may be able to impress on the government of France the inevitable consequence of their taking possession of Louisiana; and though, as I here mention [in the inclosed letter to Livingston, the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to us would be a palliation, yet I believe it would be no more. ... In Europe nothing but Europe is seen, or supposed to have any right in the affairs of nations; but this little event, of France's possessing herself of Louisiana, which is thrown in as nothing, as a mere make-weight in the general settlement of accounts, this speck which now appears as an almost invisible point on the horizon, is the embryo of a tornado which will burst on the countries on ​both sides of the Atlantic, and involve in its effects their highest destinies." This expresses Jefferson's settled view of the nature of the Louisiana crisis, for, more than a year and a half later, January 29, 1804, he wrote Doctor Priestly using almost that identical language, "I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon which was to burst in a tornado; and the public are unapprised how near the catastrophe was. Nothing but a frank and friendly development of causes and effects on our part, and good sense in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable and would change the face of the world, saved us from that storm." A further passage in this letter to Doctor Priestly is interesting and pertinent as it gives Jefferson's view of the situation after the purchase of the whole of Louisiana was effected: "The denouement has been happy; and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievment to the mass of happiness which is to ensue. Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future times, as with this; and did I foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty and the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power."
But to turn back to the year 1802, when Jefferson was giving those burning instructions to Livingston and acquainting Monroe with the tactics to be used for all different forms in which the Louisiana question might present itself, before dispatching him to help at Paris. ​All the representations Jefferson makes in the Louisiana case do not fully disclose his thought and purpose concerning the westward course of American institutions. In this same year, 1802, he submits to Gallatin a draft of what he proposes as his annual message. In this was included a recommendation of an expedition across the continent to the Pacific. Gallatin expresses himself "as warmly interested in the plan, "but as it contemplates an expedition out of our own territory," he suggests that it would be a proper object for a confidential message.
Jefferson followed Gallatin's advice, and some two months later, on January 18, 1803, sent the confidential message to Congress of which the outcome was the Lewis and Clark expedition. Jefferson, as well as the country at large, was exceedingly wrought up at this time about the possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, but not so much so but that he kept in mind his long cherished project of a transcontinental exploration. It no doubt occurred to him as opportune against France to "sneak in" this exploration before she could take possession of the country, and quite as timely, too, against England. For if we were to have her as our ally in the coming war and win the continent, priority in exploration would make a fine basis for claiming all in that latitude to the Pacific, when a division of the spoils of war should take place.
Whatever may have been the occasional relations between the Lewis and Clark expedition and the struggle for the Louisiana territory, the fact stands that Jefferson ​revived, and prepared for consummation, his long cherished idea when affairs pertaining to Louisiana were assuming their most serious aspects and just before their culmination. In the one matter there was consummate, practical statesmanship, in the other there may have been the conscious, clever move of an astute statesman; there surely was the motive and penetration of the seer and idealist. Before passing to the argument to substantiate this claim a word of comment is offered on the special character of the significance of a seer-fostered enterprise in history.
As the Project of a Seer and Idealist the Meaning of the Lewis and Clark Exploration Reaches Down the Ages.
As the project of a seer this event was out of the ordinary in history. Seers but rarely make history so directly and so exclusively. The typical event of history is the spontaneous outcome of contemporary conditions that are pressing to issue. There may or may not be present the shaping, or more or less controlling, influence of a master mind; arid yet, essentially, the regular course of events is the outcome of an onward sweep of tendencies. Great events—those of deep and wide significance—are due, then, to a peculiar meeting, coalescence, and culmination of world or national tendencies; but the Lewis and Clark exploration was solely a projection from the brain of Thomas Jefferson. He furnished the suggestion and plans and did the promoting, organizing, and instructing. The Lewis and Clark exploration, then, issued from an ideal; whereas events, in general, are the outcome of conditions. To understand the inception of typical events we have to note the great forces active at the time converging upon them; but to comprehend the peculiar origin of the Lewis and Clark expedition we ​have to repair to the thought, purposes, and ideals of Thomas Jefferson.
An event so peculiar in its origin and setting as was the Lewis and Clark exploration has character and influences of its own. Events of the ordinary run, like the Louisiana purchase, are mainly but precipitations from conditions and have their significance and influence in the change they make in conditions under which a people lives. An event, however, like the Lewis and Clark- exploration, when appreciated in its essential character, has in it the enkindling thrill, the spur to resolute endeavor that wins a people to the mastery of its fate. The former affects the lifeless externals. This touches the living, inner purposes. That is bound to decrease. This will bear fruit increasingly as conditions ripen for the application of its spirit, its methods, and its purposes. Its intent will be realized, its motive have application as conditions are prepared for it. It needs but be comprehended to draw all unto it.
The great achievement of the intrepid explorers was but the first act of a world drama of Jefferson's planning, for which the continent was to be the stage. We find the sentiments and ideas for the acts that were to follow in order in the life-ideas of Jefferson. As was natural, Jefferson's thought ran far ahead of the slow procession of events. Before his mind's eye he passed in review the other four acts of this "Westward Course of Empire." Our attention as a people has been too long and too exclusively arrested on the dramatic opening. Our admiration has been chained to the exhibition of fortitude, valor, and endurance. It is time that we should turn to the more advanced, the more significant and far-reaching purposes cherished by its author. These, when fully comprehended, will be found to have largest and closest application to the ​problems and responsibilities of to-day. The eternal truth in the conception of Jefferson, the truth that the presentday and future conditions place in ever increasing vitality of relation to national welfare, is that of the dominion of mind in anticipating and disposing power over events and in directing the course of progress. In essaying this project of exploration Jefferson was not only promoting that which was in vital relation with his largest and most cherished life purposes, he was at the same time, in the large measure in which he had the prophet's vision true, marking out the central and enduring process of progress in civilization. It now rests with this generation to respond to the deeper designs of Jefferson bound up with his project of exploration. After a century of growth and achievement and moving westward we seem just ready to take note of the higher planes of community life and effort to which his prophet's call directs.
The Emphasis of a Cenntennial Celebration Most Fortunately Placed Upon the Lewis and Clark Exposition.
There is a special reason while dealing at this time with this event, in the centennial year of its culmination in a successful penetration of the continent, for a transition from cold history to panegyric; provided, always, the truth is fully adhered to. The mind of a people in reviewing its past, in conceiving of the process of its evolution, and in developing its traditions, poises itself upon epochal events as points of departure or relays for its ideas. From one of these resting places transition in thought is made to the next in order. The collective mind thus develops "perchings and flights," in its conceptions of its past, much as does the consciousness of the individual in cognizing the world about him or in organizing his thought material. Thus, in both the stream of history as conceived by a ​people and in the course of an individual's thought there are resting places or substantive parts and places of flight or transitive parts. The Lewis and Clark exploration has been singled out by the people of Oregon from among the historic achievements of their past as that substantive part upon which their attention should rest and to which their thought should be made to recur unceasingly for a period of half a dozen years—for they made this particular event the historical basis for their first community effort in the form of a Centennial Exposition and "Western World's Fair."
Most fortunate is it if there is such higher significance in this event and in its setting that shall make this long focusing upon it in this impressionable mood of the popular mind not a cold blank stare, but a period of elation. Because of richness and warmth of suggestion of this event it shall enkindle and unify, raising the public to a higher order of life. That it has such epical character, and that it bears effluence and inspiration of biblical quality to the head and hearts of the people who with full understanding commemorate it, is the claim made for it.
This event easily bears the emphasis of a centennial celebration on its objective side because of its paramount influence in the train of events through which the Oregon Country was won for the American people. It has prominence, too, in that longer line of achievements through which the position of this nation was gained as "Arbiter of the New World." The Louisiana purchase probably holds over it as a larger step in effecting the rise of the United States to a world power. But to the importance that the Lewis and Clark exploration thus has, objectively considered, must be added that grand scheme of life purposes of Thomas Jefferson of which it was an integral part ​and all of which it so well symbolizes. In the audacity of youth Jefferson proposed to reserve this continent as the home of the largest liberty, equality, and enlightenment. A transcontinental exploration was the first step thereto.
II.
For further light on the purposes of Jefferson let us turn to the occasions he seized for urging a transcontinental exploration and the grounds he gave for undertaking it. In 1783 he proposes to George Rogers Clark that he head an expedition to explore "the country from the ​Mississipi [sic] to California." He reports "a very large sum of money" subscribed for such an expedition to start from England. "They pretend," he says, "it is only to promote knoledge [sic]. I am afraid they have thoughts of colonizing into that quarter." This is our first record of his alert guardianship for the retention of this continent for American institutions. Two years later, while in Paris as Minister to France, 'he became aware of the equipment of the expedition of La Perouse for the exploration of the Pacific. He is again roused lest it be an attempt to colonize these western shores, this time by France. Jefferson was not partial with his suspicions of designs by the different European countries upon any part of the America he proposed to have kept intact for American principles of liberty, equality, and enlightenment. He had John Paul Jones look into the La Perouse matter for him.
A few months later Jefferson met the explorer John Ledyard who had, a few years before, been with Captain Cook on this coast, but who was now unhappy because he had no project of adventure on hand. Jefferson kindled in him the resolution to cross Europe and Siberia to the Pacific, to take a Russian vessel thence to this coast and penetrate the continent from west to east. Ledyard was balked in this venture, but Jefferson soon had him under pledge to start again to the Pacific, this time overland from Kentucky. The explorer, however, perished in an attempted African exploration which came first in turn.
Explorers coming under Jefferson's influence seemed never immune against the fever for a transcontinental trip to the Pacific. In 1793 he had Andre Michaux, a French botanist on his way to proceed up the Missouri to the Pacific. Michaux had been subsidized by a subscription, and was to make his venture under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. ​He, however, became entangled in the Genet conspiracy to wrest Florida and Louisiana from Spain, and had to be recalled.
Next in order came the successful Lewis and Clark venture of 1803. This, too, as pointed out above, was undertaken at what seemed a very opportune time in view of what was impending. These several promptings to exploration from Jefferson prove that his interest in the Pacific side of America was at least a live and perennial yearning. An intimation of an expedition to this region from Europe roused him. He seemed especially stirred to action to forestall colonization or permanent occupation of it by any European power.
The line of leaders selected by Jefferson while making these successive efforts may also have significance. The man applied to on the first occasion was George Rogers Clark, of Kaskaskia and Vincennes fame—one with military prestige; then Ledyard, a typical explorer; next came Michaux, a scientist, to go under the auspices of a scientific society; and in 1803 a naturalist, other things equal, would again have been his first choice—if we are to believe what he wrote Doctor Barton on February 27, 1803. He says:
   "You know we have been many years wishing- to have the Missouri explored, and whatever river, heading with that, runs into the western ocean. Congress, in some secret proceedings, have yielded to a proposition I made them for permitting me to have it done. It is to be undertaken immediately with a party of about ten, and I have appointed Captain Lewis, my secretary, to conduct it. It was impossible to find a character who, to a complete science in Botany, Natural History, Mineralogy, and Astronomy, joined the firmness of constitution and character, prudence, habits adapted to the woods, and familiarity with the Indian manners and character, requisite for this undertaking. All the latter qualifications Captain Lewis has. Although no regular botanist, etc., he possesses a remarkable store of accurate observation on all the subjects of the three kingdoms, and will therefore readily single out whatever presents itself new to him in either; and he has qualified himself for taking the observations of longitude ​and latitude necessary to fix the geography of the line he passes through. In order to draw his attention at once to the subjects most desirable, I must ask the favor of you to prepare for him a note of those in the lines of botany, zoology, or of Indian history, which you think most worthy of inquiry and observation. He will be with you in Philadelphia in two or three weeks, and will wait on you, and will receive thankfully on paper and any verbal communications which you may be so good as to make to him. I make no apology for this trouble, because I know that the same wish to promote science which has induced me to bring forward this proposition will induce you to aid in promoting it."
These selections for leadership show that Jefferson's interest in securing geographical and other scientific data was a growing one. At the same time there is greater appreciation on his part of the demands made by such an undertaking for practical conditions of success. His is no longer a suggestion to a single lone explorer as with Ledyard and Michaux, but for a company large enough to ensure success if prudence is exercised. The instructions to Michaux, written by Jefferson in 1793, state that the "chief objects are to find the shortest and most convenient route of communication between the United States and the Pacific Ocean within the temperate latitudes, and to learn such particulars as can be obtained of the country through which it passes, its productions, inhabitants, and other interesting circumstances." Again, in admonishing him to have concern for his personal health and safety, Jefferson urges that this is not merely Michaux's personal interest but "the injunction of science in general which expects an enlargement from your inquiries, and of the inhabitants of the United States in particular, to whom your report will open new fields and subjects of commerce, intercourse, and observation."
The official instructions conveyed to Lewis and the several communications sent him by Jefferson, during the months intervening between his departure from Washington and his passing beyond the frontier, agree in making ​the object of this finally successful effort the opening of "direct water communication from sea to sea formed by the bed of the Missouri, and perhaps the Oregon." Jefferson's deep interest in the records of the explorations effected by Lewis and Clark, which the paper following this so strongly exhibits, relates, however, more to their value to science than to commerce. In his letters to his correspondents among the men of science of his day the references to the journals of Lewis and Clark are frequent, generally it is to express his regrets over the delay in the publication of them. In the purposes of Jefferson, therefore, science and commerce appear to divide the honors about equally as direct beneficiaries from this venture. Commercial relations were to be developed with all the aboriginal inhabitants along this water way even to the shores of the Pacific. These natives were to be bound to us by "assiduously cultivating their interests and their affections." Through the medium of the unity thus developed America was to have a "hemisphere to itself." With his humanitarian policy in commerce he would win the native tribes to agriculture and to friendship. He hailed the Astor enterprise as the natural sequel to the Lewis and Clark exploration. In 1813 he writes Astor: "I view it [the Astor establishment on the Columbia, 1811–1813] as the germ of a great, free, and independent empire on that side of our continent, and that liberty and self-government spreading from that as well as this side, will ensure their complete establishment over the whole." And Jefferson's devout wish was father of the next compliment to Astor: "It must be still more gratifying to yourself to foresee that your name will be handed down with that of Columbus and Raleigh, as father of the establishment and founder of such an empire." (This coming from the author of the Lewis and Clark exploration which opened this region to Astor is modesty and magnanimity ​itself.) His repeated counsel to Astor was that he cherish the affections of the natives, and make it their interest to uphold his establishment.
Jefferson was thus the first great American expansionist. But he was not of the type of Alexander the Great. His trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced were "Bacon, Newton, and Locke." His supreme passion was for the dispelling of ignorance and the promotion of the useful sciences, because it was his faith that liberty and progress were wholly dependent upon the universal education of the masses and the highest education of the most competent. He states his point of view writing from Europe during the dark days of the Confederation, following Shay's Rebellion and while the adoption of the constitution was pending. In commenting on the question whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government or information to the people he says: " And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the people. This last is the most certain, and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. After all, it is my principle that the will of the majority should prevail. If they approve the proposed constitution in all its parts, I shall concur in it cheerfully, in hopes they will amend it, whenever they find it works wrong. This reliance can not deceive us, as long as we remain virtuous; and I think we ​shall be so, as agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case, while there remains vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there."
We see here why he was an expansionist and what was the relation of his long cherished project of transcontinental exploration to the cardinal aims of his life, making with them an organic whole. He wished a continent reserved for an American civilization. He wanted room for normal conditions of life, and the separation that would insure against embroilment in the chronic strife and wars of Europe. He devoted his life to the securing of an unhampered development of a people under conditions of liberty and through means of a system of education including all the state-supported agencies from the primary schools to the most highly equipped state university. He encountered the turmoil of politics not from choice, and had a patriot's part in the securing of liberty and independence not as ends, but as conditions under which in fortunate America men might live the life of reason and of virtue.
He proposed that America should not repeat the sad experience of Europe. The burden of his advice, written at. this time from Europe, was: "Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils, and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose, is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles, who will rise among us if we leave the people in ignorance. In Europe, under the pretense of governing, they [their governing classes] have divided [the people of] their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. ​This is the true picture of Europe. Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves." Probably the very next document he produced after drawing up the Declaration of Independence was the Virginian code "for the diffusion of knowledge among the people." In later years, when the whole state code was being revised, he spoke of the part providing for schools as the most important, for "no other foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness." He never departed from the idea that "true knowledge and freedom re indissolubly linked together."
In 1810, after having retired from the presidency, he was urged to take a seat in the legislature. He declined, not because his life was no longer devoted to the public good, but he could accomplish more with his peculiar talents from this time on as a private citizen. "I have, indeed," he says, "two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: (1) That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. (2) To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it." These school districts or "hundreds" were to be the centers for all local government and social activity. All that the free library, the good roads, and the grange movements of to-day contemplate were to be organized in them. "These little republics would be the main strength of the great one." Years afterward he still wrote: "There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe: the public education, and the subdivision of counties into ​wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks."
His darling project, however, after being relieved of official cares, was the building up of a "real state university." "For at least fifty years," says Thomas Nelson Page, "Jefferson had the [university] project in his brain; . . . for at least twenty years he gave to its fulfilment every energy which he possessed. Every resource he could summon was called forth." While he had not attained his ideal in the matter of elementary education and primary political divisions, he felt that the people were devoted to their institutions and their liberties were for the time safe; he proposed, therefore, to promote the establishment of "an institution in which all the useful sciences could be cultivated in the highest degree." The nation's grandest resource was in the genius of its youth, and he would foster that; and we must not get the idea that outside of politics Jefferson was a narrow, impractical, scholastic visionary. He invented the first scientific plow, imported the first threshing machine into Virginia, was ever in the lead in introducing improved varieties of economic plants and more highly bred sheep and cattle.
He knew that "science is more important in a republican than in any other government." He was content with nothing less than preeminence for his country and believed, as his life devotion proves, that the agency of a real university, with the best men the world afforded in it, was an indispensable prerequisite for this preeminence. "Fame, fortune, and prosperity" it would insure the country, and Virginia, using its graduates of superior qualifications, would be raised "from its humble state to an eminence among its associates which it has never known; no, not in its brightest days." Virginia has just this last year been fully awakened to the absolute truth of Jefferson's teachings. Educational agencies of local communi​ties and the state university receive thought and support many times above what they ever did before.
This was Jefferson and this was his spirit and aims in the Lewis and Clark exploration. It was undertaken for an outward and upward march for the American people. Oregon has caught some of this spirit in her commemoration of the centenary of that event. But this Oregon spirit is not a tithe of what it will be when the emphasis is upon the minds and hearts of her people rather than upon her fields, her forests, and her mines. And is it not time to shift our aims and methods from those of advertising and exploitation to those of constructive and creative organization and development? Preeminent "fame, fortune, and prosperity" will be hers among her associates when she cherishes above all else the genius and character of her youth. Why not, with the Lewis and Clark exploration as a fit symbol and watchword, emulate in our day and generation the same outward and upward stride that Jefferson purposed in his?
F. G. Young.
* ↑ "The Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Exposition," edited by R. G. Thwaites and published by Dodd, Mead & Company, in its "biographical data" mentions fourteen such works as appearing during the last four years.
* ↑ Quoted by Professor Turner in the second installment of the article referred to, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1904.
* ↑ Writings of Gallatin, edited .by Henry Adams, Vol. I, p. 107. Gallatin's memorandum is: "8th Missouri seems, as it contemplates an expedition out of our own territory, to be a proper object for a confidential message. I feel interested in this plan, and will suggest the propriety that General Dearborn should write immediately to procure 'Vancouver's Survey,' one copy of which, the only one I believe in America, is advertised by F. Nichols, No. 70 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Price, with the charts, fifty-five dollars."