Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/9

Rh 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 hard-