Louisiana Purchase

“ There is no phase of American history which should inspire us with greater pride than the consummation of the purchase of the Louisiana tract, an event which opened the pathway to the West, and made possible the powerful nation to which we owe our allegiance. Trade, the inspiration for travel, which brought about the discovery and civilization of the Western Hemisphere, would have demanded inevitably the cession to the United States of the vast regions beyond the Mississippi. ”

“ In no wider phrasing than that came the news of the great Louisiana Purchase, by virtue of which this republic—whether by chance, by result of greed warring with greed, or through the providence of Almighty God, who shall say?—gained the great part of that vast and incalculably valuable realm which now reaches from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. What wealth that great empire held no man had dreamed, nor can any dream today ”

“ No surer or more lasting cause conduced to the political, financial, and national development of this country, no unforeseen or long-sought measure received more universal approbation and revealed to all its great importance, than did the Louisiana purchase. Its acquisition marks a political revolution,—a bloodless and tearless revolution. It gave incomputable energy to the centralization of our Government. By removing the danger of foreign interference and relieving the burden of arming against hostile forces, it opened a field for the spread and growth of American institutions. ”

“ This, then, is the great historic significance of the movement of continental expansion, in which the Louisiana Purchase was the most striking single achievement. It stands out in marked relief even among the feats of a nation of pioneers, a nation whose people have, from the beginning, been picked out by a process of natural selection from among the most enterprising individuals of the nations of western Europe. ”

“ The history of the land comprised within the limits of the Purchase is an epitome of the entire history of our people. Within these limits we have gradually built up State after State, until now they many times over surpass in wealth, in population, and in many-sided development the original thirteen States as they were when their delegates met in the Continental Congress. ”

“ The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was held in the city of St. Louis in 1904, in commemoration of the acquisition in 1803 of the vast territory west of the Mississippi, then called Louisiana. The transfer is generally regarded as one of the most important events in our national history and stands on record as the greatest acquisition of territory ever made by peaceful methods. An American historian of great prominence says: "The annexation of Louisiana was an event so portentous as to defy measurement ”

“ The Louisiana purchase was consummated by treaty April 30, 1803. Meantime the province had remained in the possession of Spain, and it was not till November 30 that she turned New Orleans over to the French. Twenty days later the United States came into possession. The upper province of Louisiana was held but one day by a French commissary, who on March 10, 1804, at St. Louis, conveyed it to the United States. The cost to the government was three and six tenths cents per acre. ”

“ We have met here to-day to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the event which more than any other, after the foundation of the Government, and always excepting its preservation, determined the character of our national life—determined that we should be a great expanding nation instead of relatively a small and stationary one.
Of course, it was not with the Louisiana Purchase that our career of expansion began. ”

“ Embracing within her confines all the elements of an empire devoted to all the arts and sciences that advance civilization, Missouri, the central State of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, greets her sister States and welcomes the world. ”

“ Noticing in the daily papers that you will sell the entire property owned by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, including railway tracks, exhibit and other buildings, fencing, furniture, wiring, lamps, piping, plumbing, machinery, etc.—in fact, everything owned by the company. If this is the fact we can pay you about $400,000 and perhaps more. Will you kindly furnish us a complete list of everything that you have for sale and specified time of removal, so we can give you an intelligent bid or proposition? ”

“ It was as though a man had gone to buy a cow and the owner had suddenly offered him his whole farm. Though astounded and embarrassed, for they had been authorized to spend but two million dollars in the contemplated purchase, the Americans had the courage to shoulder the responsibility of making so tremendous a transaction, for there was no time to communicate with Washington and no one realized better than they did that Louisiana must be purchased at once if it was to be had at all. ”

“ Napoleon gave up his dream of American empire and sold Louisiana for a song. "Thus, all of Indian Territory, all of Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa and Wyoming and Montana and the Dakotas, and most of Colorado and Minnesota, and all of Washington and Oregon states, came to us as the indirect work of a despised Negro. Praise, if you will, the work of a Robert Livingstone or a Jefferson, but to-day let us not forget our debt to Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was indirectly the means of America's expansion by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803." ”

“ And this leads us to remember that, if the Louisiana purchase revolutionized our national outlook, our constitutional attitude, and our sectional control, it quite as radically changed our national texture. From that hour to this we have called to the masses of Europe for help to develop the wilderness, and they have come by millions, until now the men and women of Revolutionary stock probably number less than fifteen millions in the entire country. ”

“ Locked in conflict with England, what deadlier blow to British power could France deal than to turn over Louisiana with its million square miles and ninety thousand inhabitants to the American Republic? The Lewis and Clark exploration up the Missouri, over the mountains, and down the Columbia to the Pacific was a natural sequel to the Louisiana Purchase, and proved that the United States had gained a world of wealth for its fifteen million dollars. ”

“ We all know that long before the negotiations of the treaty of 1803 our Government had a keen appreciation of the importance to American settlers in the valley of the Mississippi of an arrangement permitting their products to be deposited and exported at the entrance of that river to the sea. It will be remembered that this need of our settlers had been met in a limited and not altogether secure manner by a treaty with Spain, allowing such deposits and exports to be made at the city of New Orleans. ”

“ The recent Louisiana Purchase Exposition furnished further evidence of the importance of such gatherings of the world's artisans, and has left with us an illuminating impression of the effectiveness of the greater civilization which is the result of unification of national interest in the development of the useful and beautiful. This is probably the greatest good from such expositions, and they serve to cement the workers of the world in one grand mosaic of endeavor.
The field of application is large, and the progressive people are few. ”

“ These good people shook their heads over the formation of States in the fertile Ohio Valley, which now forms part of the heart of our nation, and they declared that the destruction of the Republic had been accomplished when through the Louisiana Purchase we acquired nearly half of what is now that same Republic's present territory. ”

“ The purchase of Louisiana, the free navigation of the Mississippi, and the increased importance of the New Orleans market may be set down as among the causes which led to the rapid growth of the western country. "Commerce came, bringing them a market for their products, offering rich rewards to industry, and stimulating labor to the highest point of exertion. ”

“ When we consider that Jefferson at one time was willing to give $2,000,000 for New Orleans alone, we can marvel that so vast an empire as the whole province should come to us for the price paid. We can afford to overlook any defects in the treaty details and forever hold in gratitude the illustrious men who, by their diplomatic skill, their earnestness of purpose, and well-directed efforts, achieved one of the greatest triumphs in the world's history. ”

“ Now, in 1903, in the altered conditions, we must meet the changed and changing problems with the spirit shown by the men who in 1803 and in subsequent years, gained, explored, conquered, and settled this vast territory, then a desert, now filled with thriving and populous States.
The old days were great because the men who lived in them had mighty qualities; and we must make the new days great by showing the same qualities. We must insist upon courage and resolution, upon hardihood, tenacity, and fertility in resource; we must insist upon the strong virile virtues ”

“ While the boundaries of the purchase were uncertain, it is safe to say that the Louisiana territory included what is now Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and large portions of Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming. The farm lands that the friends of "a little America" on the seacoast declared a hopeless wilderness were, within a hundred years, fully occupied and valued at nearly seven billion dollars—almost five hundred times the price paid to Napoleon. ”

“ He who was the chief actor in the United States in its negotiations, as he signed the perfected instrument, thus declared its effect and far-reaching consequences: "The instrument which we have just signed will cause no tears to be shed. It prepares ages of happiness for innumerable generations of human creatures. The Mississippi and the Missouri will see them succeed one another, truly worthy of the regard and care of Providence in the bosom of equality under just laws, freed from the errors of superstition and the scourges of bad government." ”

“ If we come short in any of these qualities we shall measurably fail; and if, as I believe we surely shall, we develop these qualities in the future to an even greater degree than in the past, then in the century now beginning we shall make of this Republic the freest and most orderly, the most just and most mighty nation which has ever come forth from the womb of time. ”

“ Confederacies that are called perpetual last only until one of the contending parties finds it is to its interests to break them. It is to prevent the danger to which the colossal power of England subjects us that I would provide such a remedy.' No such vision of the future came to our American statesmen, many of whom bitterly opposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. ”

“ For as Napoleon was about to engage in war with England, he had great need of money. Besides, he was afraid that the English might even invade and capture Louisiana, and in that case he would get nothing for it. He was satisfied, therefore, to sell the whole of the Louisiana territory for fifteen million dollars.
This purchase was a big event in American history, for you must remember that what was then called Louisiana was a very large stretch of country. It included all 173the region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from Canada down to what is now Texas. ”

“ The acquisition of the territory is a credit to the broad and far-sighted statesmanship of the great statesmen to whom it was immediately due, and, above all, to the aggressive and masterful character of the hardy pioneer folk to whose restless energy these statesmen gave expression and direction, whom they followed rather than led. ”

“ Jefferson, who, however, in the purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the plea of great expediency. If it be said that the only legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure effects that object, for the emigration of colored men leaves additional room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr. Jefferson, however, placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on political and commercial grounds than on providing room for population. ”

“ WALTER B. STEVENS,
Secretary.
Hon. THOMAS H. CARTER,
_President National Commission,
Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
ST. LOUIS, March 7, 1905.
MY DEAR SENATOR: I send herewith, by direction of the executive committee, a reply to the letter from the Commission of February 28. President Francis is absent from the city, having gone last week to New Orleans. I think I should add something from my personal knowledge. Mr. Richey is well known to me, and has been for years. He must have been badly misinformed to have made such allegations as are contained in the letter. ”

“ Louisiana had cost fifteen millions of dollars at a time when that was a vast sum of money. It had cost five millions of money and the surrender of a province, to purchase Florida, and nearly a hundred millions more to extinguish the Indian title, and make the State habitable for white men. Texas cost the National Treasury ninety millions of dollars in the war which was precipitated by her annexation, and ten millions more paid to her in 1850, in adjustment of her boundary trouble. ”