Napoleon was too busy in Europe to think of colonizing America, and consequently preferred to sell Louisiana to the United States, rather than to let it fall into the hands of Great Britain -hence the unexpected inquiry relative to disposing of it. The vast territory of Louisiana, comprising the entire region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and extending from the north of Texas to the southern boundary of British America, was purchased from France (1803) for fifteen million dollars.

Upon signing the treaty, Napoleon remarked, "This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and I have given to England a maritime rival that will, sooner or later, humble her pride."

Livingston said, "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives."

The purchase of Louisiana was one of the most important events in the history of the United States.

Among its far

reaching effects may be mentioned the following:

(a) it doubled the area of the United States;

(b) it ended the contest of rival European nations for the possession of the Mississippi Valley;

(c) it showed the benefit of an occasional loose construction of the Constitution;

(d) it placed the United States in a position to become one of the great powers of the world;

(e) it made the United States a maritime rival of England.

In this purchase our ministers had gone beyond the power of their instructions, having neither the authority nor the money to purchase the entire territory; but fearing that Napoleon might change his mind, they completed the treaty. Jefferson, being a strict constructionist, was greatly perplexed, for, by the strict interpretation of the Constitution, there was no power given to the government to acquire territory. He advocated an amendment which should give Congress this power; but there was no time to be lost, and his friends finally

persuaded him that the treaty-making power of the Constitution (note the loose construction) included this right. The Federalists, taking the strict construction view, accused Jefferson of violating the Constitution in buying Louisiana.

365. Jefferson Is Re-elected. When the fact and terms of the Louisiana Purchase became known, the people were astonished at the magnitude of the acquisition. The treaty was so clearly for the good of the nation that it was generally applauded, and at the election of 1804, Jefferson was re-elected by an enormous majority. George Clinton of New York was chosen Vice-president.

366. Duel Between Hamilton and Burr-Burr's Conspiracy. Aaron Burr was a candidate for the governorship of New York. Hamilton, considering him a man unworthy of the office, vigorously opposed him. Stung by the attacks of his opponent, Burr challenged him to a duel. The two men met at a secluded spot on the Jersey shore, and Hamilton fell, mortally wounded. Amid the lamentations of the nation, the great Federalist leader, who had merited the title "Little Lion" during the Revolution, was laid in the grave (July, 1804). He had helped to frame the Constitution and had, more than any other man, influenced the states to accept it; he had put into effect the great financial plan that was giving stability to the nation.

Burr's reckless spirit drove him into the wilderness. He made a tour of the Mississippi Valley, and began to build boats and collect an army under the pretense of making an expedition against the Spaniards of Mexico. His real purpose, however, it is believed, was to sever the southwestern states from the Union and set up an independent nation in Texas and Mexico, with himself at the head. He was at length betrayed, arrested, and tried for treason by Chief Justice Marshall of the Supreme Court, at Richmond, Virginia. The Constitution defines treason only as levying war against the United States or in adhering to the enemy and giving them aid and comfort. Burr had never been in a position to levy war or to aid an enemy. He was

therefore released. The career which his brilliant talents might have made honorable and useful, was wrecked, and Burr lived lonely and despised for the rest of his days.

367. First Explorations of the Northwest. The Louisiana Purchase opened a great field for western emigration, and Jefferson, realizing the importance of some knowledge of the new territory, sent an expedition, under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, brother of George Rogers

Clark, to secure the trade of the Indians on the Missouri, then absorbed by English companies, and to explore the country to the western ocean. Leaving the log cabin town of St. Louis in the spring of 1804, the party pushed its boats up the Missouri, crossed over the Rocky Mountains and floated down the Columbia River to the blue waters of the Pacific, which it reached in November, 1805, after a perilous journey of four thousand miles. The party returned the next year and gave the people of the East a glowing account of the "vast illimitable

West" with its wonderful resources. The Lewis-Clark expedition gave the United States another claim to the splendid region called Oregon, early discovered (1790) by Gray. It strengthened our rights to the Oregon country against the claims of England and Russia; and it, together with Pike's explorations, gave the nation an idea of the great value of the Louisiana Purchase.

Lieutenant Pike, in command of the United States troops, set out from St. Louis and explored the head-waters of the Mississippi, Arkansas, and Red rivers. He discovered the mountain peak to which was given his name, but was not successful in his attempt to reach its summit. Five years after the Lewis-Clark exploration, a New York fur trader named Astor, established a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River, and called it Astoria. A line of posts was eventually established from the upper Missouri to Astoria by the Pacific Fur Company, headed by Astor.

368. Fulton's Steamboat. Many people feared that the Republic, with its vast new territory, was too large to be held together; but a means of bringing its parts in closer communication was even then at hand. Robert Fulton, a native of Pennsylvania, of Irish descent, invented the first successful steamboat, the Clermont. The boat made its trial trip up the Hudson from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours (August 11, 1807), and from this time on steam navigation made rapid progress; only twelve years later (1819) the Savannah, the first ocean steamship, started from Savannah, Georgia, and crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool in twenty-five days-a great feat, the credit of which belongs to a southern state.

No one knows when or by whom the first steamboat was invented. At the beginning of the year (1807) there was not one in use in all the world. A number of experiments made by both European and American inventors had met with some success. John Fitch, a Kentuckian, built a steamboat nearly twenty years earlier than Fulton, but it had only a temporary

success. No practical steamboat was constructed before Fulton's invention, and it was not until after the trip of the Clermont that the steamboat was regarded with favor and came into general use. Before that event people were prejudiced against such inventions and laughed at "Fulton's folly," which was finally described as a "monster, defying wind and tide, breathing flame and smoke."

369. War with the Barbary States. During the previous presidencies the United States, having no ships-of-war worth mentioning, had to buy, as it were, the good will of the Barbary States, paying them high ransoms and tributes. Finally, the haughty Pasha, or governor of Tripoli, not contented with the tribute he had been receiving, became so insolent that Jefferson ordered the construction of a fleet of war vessels, which, under the command of Commodore Preble, he sent against Tripoli. During the attack the frigate Philadelphia had run aground