JEFFERSON ON THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE "The territory acquired, as it includes all the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi, has more than doubled the area of the United States, and the new part is not inferior to the old in soil, climate, productions and important communications."-Jefferson to General Gates, July 11th, 1803. "On this important acquisition, so favorable to the immediate interests of our Western citizens, so auspicious to the peace and security of the nation in general, which adds to our country territories so extensive and fertile, and to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-government, I offer to Congress and our country my sincere congratulations."-Jefferson to Congress, January 16th, 1804. "Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters secure an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States, and an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from collision with other Powers, and the dangers to our peace from that source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise, in due season, important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for our posterity, and a wide spread for the blessings of freedom and equal laws."-Jefferson to Congress, October 17th, 1803. "I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some, from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger our Union. But can you limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view, is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? With which shall we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly intercourse?"-Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address, 1805. "The treaty which has so happily sealed the friendship of our two countries has been received here with general acclamation. Some inflexible federalists have still ventured to brave the public opinion. It will fix their character with the world and with posterity, who, not descending to the other points of difference between us, will judge them by this fact, so palpable as to speak for itself in all times and places. For myself and my country, I thank you for the aids you have given in it; and I congratulate you on having lived to give those aids in a transaction replete with blessings to unborn millions of men, and which will mark the face of a portion on the globe so extensive as that which now composes the United States of America."-Jefferson to M. Dupont De Nemours, French Minister, November 1st, 1803. "I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement 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 time, as with this; and did I now 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."-Jefferson to Dr. Priestley, January 29th, 1804. 285535 Dear Sir: JEFFERSON'S LETTER OF CREDIT TO MERIWETHER LEWIS Washington, U. S. of America, July 4, 1803. In the journey which you are about to undertake for the discovery of the course and source of the Missouri, and of the most convenient water communication from thence to the Pacific Ocean, your party being small, it is to be expected that you will encounter considerable dangers from the Indian inhabitants. Should you escape those dangers and reach the Pacific Ocean, you may find it imprudent to hazard a return the same way, and be forced to seek a passage round by sea, in such vessels as you may find on the Western coast. But you will be without money, without clothes and other necessaries; as a sufficient supply cannot be carried with you from hence. Your resource in that case can only be in the credit of the U. S., for which purpose I hereby authorize you to draw on the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War and of the Navy of the U. S., according as you may find your draughts most negotiable, for the purpose of obtaining money or necessaries for yourself and your men. And I solemnly pledge the faith of the United States that these draughts shall be paid punctually at the date they are made payable. I also ask of the consuls, agents, merchants and citizens of any nation with which we have intercourse or amity to furnish you with those supplies which your necessities may call for, assuring them of honorable and prompt retribution. And our own Consuls in foreign parts where you may happen to be, are hereby instructed and required to be aiding and assisting to you in whatsoever may be necessary for procuring your return back to the United States. And to give more entire satisfaction and confidence to those who may be disposed to aid you, I, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America, have written this letter of general credit for you with my own hand, and signed it with my name. To Capt. Meriwether Lewis. TH. JEFFERSON. SEE IMPERIAL MISSOURI FIRST On the Fair Grounds at Columbia, August 10, 1897, Champ Clark delivered an address on the State and the people. He stamped permanent coinage on "Imperial Missouri." He made what, in the opinion of those who heard him, was his greatest speech. Among other things he said: "What is the sense of going to California to see the mammoth redwoods when by going to Stoddard County, in Southeast Missouri, you can see a gigantic oak that measures twenty-five feet in diameter and pierces the clouds with its lofty crown? "Why travel thousands of miles to gaze upon the 'deep blue sea' which Byron loved to apostrophize, when down in Crawford County, only a short day's journey, you can see the Blue Spring, which discounts the sky cerulean hue and whose depth no plummet has ever fathomed? "Why sigh for the distant beauties of the Alps when the beauties of the Ozarks are almost in sight, and yet unfamiliar to your eyes? "Why wander abroad like Don Quixote in quest of adventures when you can behold the largest nurseries in the world and the largest dynamite mill on earth by going down to Pike County? "Why rave about the horses of Arabia when Audrain County produces the finest saddlers in all creation and sells equines in Kentucky-a performance which twenty years ago would have been considered as preposterous as sending coals to New Castle? "Why hanker after a view of the Hudson when the Meramec and the Osage are just as picturesque and almost in the range of vision from your own windows? "Why go a thousand miles to see the far-famed wheat fields of North Dakota when you have never seen the largest orchard on the face of the earth, which is in Howell County? "Why spend time and money in visiting the battlefields of Chickamauga, Vicksburg or the Wilderness before you have seen the fields of action at Wilson's Creek and Lexington, where the Blue and the Gray contended with each other for the mastery and enriched the land with their blood? "Why go into raptures over the royal mummies of Egypt, when, by stepping into the museum in Columbia, you can behold the most perfect mastodon's head now in existence -a curiosity worth a king's ransom, which every scientific society on earth yearns to possess? "Why roll as a sweet morsel under your tongues the phrase, 'There were giants in those days,' when by going to Scotland County you can gaze upon a Missouri woman nearly nine feet in altitude and still a-growing? "In the short and beautiful One Hundred and Thirty-third Psalm, King David embalmed Aaron's beard in immortal verse-as every preacher and every Free and Accepted Mason knows; but if the sweet singer of Israel had lived down in Pike County, he would have written a poem as long as Paradise Lost or Don Juan about the beards of two of her citizens living in one township-one of whom has a beard nine feet two inches long, and the other seven and one-half feet long. Senator Peffer of Kansas is not in it with my bewhiskered constituents. "Why risk your life in searching for gold in Alaska, when you can grow tobacco in Lincoln County and get $1.25 a pound for it? "There is a little Klondyke in every quarter-section in Missouri if you will only dig for it. "Why send your children to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Ann Arbor, Johns Hopkins or Virginia University, when, at your very doors, is the University of Missouri, where a boy or a girl can be thoroughly educated and at the same time form thousands of acquaintances and friends who shall be serviceable to them as long as they shall tabernacle in the flesh? "Why go five hundred miles to get lost in the Mammoth Cave, when you can perform that unpleasant caper in the great Hannibal Cave-the scene of the remarkable exploits of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn?" |