"*7*. ♦ :'*o^ ^^W^, A -"^l. J>* ..VL'. ^ b, ♦-TTT*' A r ..^'z. ^> "o^ bV" The LoviisiandL Purchase and its SignificdLnce The Louisiana Purchase AND ITS Significance A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN The First Baptist Meeting House Providence, r. I. SUNDAY, MAY 15, 1904 BY HENRY Melville King Pastor Printed in Providence, R. I. Gift Author (Parson) 29 D '04 This discourse was prepared with no thought of pubUcation, but simply in the ordinary course of pulpit preparation to give to a single congregation an outline of an event of great importance in our national history, whose cen- tennial is now being appropriately celebrated in St. Louis, and to suggest its spiritual inter- pretation. Immediately upon the delivery of the discourse many requests were made that it might be printed for distribution and pre- servation. It is now printed through the gen- erous offer of a friend who heard it. The Lo\iisia.rva. Purchase and its Significa-rvce Psalm 85: I, 12, 13. "Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land; thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. * * * Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good, and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set us in the way of His steps." These words contain an acknowledgment and a prophecy, a grateful recognition of God's hand in past mercies and in national deliverance, and an expression of devout con- fidence in his continued goodness to be mani- fest in national growth and prosperity, not for- getting that all true growth and prosperity, national or personal, are conditioned upon righteousness of character and obedience to God's commandments. These words were spoken by the inspired historian and prophet of ancient Israel. They are equally applicable to our land and to our lime, and can be spoken humbly and confi- dently by the Christian citizen of America, as he looks back over our past history, and looks out upon the future of our Republic. "Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land ; thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. * * * Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good, and our land shall yield her in- crease." We are dependent utterly upon God for future prosperity and blessing. The God of the fathers must be the God of the children, the God of the founders of the Republic must be the God of their descendants. But his blessing and his prosperity are not uncondi- tioned. "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a curse to any people," and its ultimate overthrow and destruction. "Righteousness must go before him, and must set us in the way of his steps." Mce, crime, political and business corruption, unbelief and neglect of God are certain to breed rottenness in the foundations of the Republic. The God-fear- ing, righteous man is not only the inheritor of the past, but the conservator of the future. His faith, his righteousness gives stability to the nation, and the hope of continued and in- creasing prosperity and greatness. The greatest World's Fair which this coun- try, and perhaps the world has ever seen, is now under way in St. Louis, having been opened to the public on April 30th. The more formal services of the dedication were ob- served one year ago, on April 30th, 1903, be- ing participated in by the President, the ex- President, and other dignitaries of the nation, the Governors of forty States, the diplomatic representatives of thirty nations of the world, and thousands of troops, sufficient to add splendor to the occasion and to represent the military power of a mighty Empire. But why on April 30th, 1903? Because that was the one hundredth anniversary of what is known in history as the "Louisiana Purchase," by which a territory larger by fifty-five thousand square miles than that of the original thirteen States and almost as large as Continental Eu- rope, was purchased of France, and added to the domain of the recently founded Republic. Few of us, perhaps, have any adequate idea of the extent of this purchase, of the circum- stances which led up to it, and of its signifi- cance to the cause of human liberty and the 8 Protestant religion. It has been easy for those who have studied the event and its results to place it among the great events of modern history. One writer, carried away by his en- thusiasm, has classed it in importance with the Declaration of Independence, the Protes- tant Reformation, and even with the outpour- ing of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. An- other writer, with a more moderate enthu- siasm and imagination, has said : "Of all distinguishing events in the glorious career of this country, aside from its triumphs for lib- erty and for union, none shine forth with such imperishable luster as the acquisition of that splendid empire west of the Mississippi River ; and when the imjjartial historian shall write up the great men and the great measures of our nation he will place at the top of the rolls Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Pur- chase." It will be seen, however, that Thomas Jefferson was not an active agent in the transaction, and had very little to do with it in its final outcome, except that he was Presi- dent of the I'nited States at tjie time, and was an unintentional and unexi)ectcd instrument in the hands of the Ahiiighty, who is Presi- dent over all human affairs. All students of American history confess that few events have occurred on this continent or in the world, which have been followed by wider and more beneficent results, and which have exhibited more unmistakably the sudden and unlooked for ordering- of divine Providence. It was as sudden and unexpected as when one bright May morning the far away Philippine Islands were tossed mysteriously into the lap of this Nation for their emancipation, and protection, and education, and became, without asking our consent, for the time being, one of the de- pendencies of this Republic. But what was the previous history of this so-called Louisiana territory, and what was its extent? In the year 1682 a distinguished French explorer, Robert Cavelier, generally known as La Salle, descended the Mississippi River from its Northern waters to its mouth, for purposes of exploration, in order, it is said, to find "a trade route for the transporta- tion of heavy skins." Sixteen years before, at the age of 23, he had migrated from France to Montreal, and became the possessor lO of an estate there. But love of adventure, of discovery and of conquest had sent him forth on shorter explorations already. But this was the first time he had been led so far, and so far as known, he was the first white man to make the entire voyage to the mouth of the river. Other explorers had been associated with him or had made their own ventures into tiie wild new territory, uninhabited except by Indians. On the west shore of the river, about three leagues from the mouth, he erected a cross bearing the arms of the king, unfurled the flag of France, sang a Te Deum, and took possession of the territory in the name of Louis Ouatorze, and named the country "Louisiana," after the king, defining the ter- ritory somewhat indefinitely as extending northward to the source of the river and along its various branches, and westward to Texas in the South and to the Rocky Moun- tains in the North. The area comprised nearly a million square miles, and has been sub- divided into the following States and Territo- ries : "Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakotti, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, and included a por- tion also of Colorado, a part of Idaho, Okla- homa and the Indian Territory." This whole central portion of our national domain, ex- tending from the Gulf of Mexico in the South to the Great Lakes in the North, and making about one-third of our present territory, ex- cluding Alaska, was embraced in the New French possession, called sometimes New France, and later the Louisiana Purchase. Al- though inhabited by scattered tribes of abori- ginees, frequent attempts had been made to ex- plore it by white men, meeting hardships al- most incredible, exposure, peril, starvation and death. The first explorers were Spaniards, who were animated by the same purpose which impelled Columbus "to find a water-way to Cathay, or China, and the Spice Islands, by the westward route, and to secure their rich trade. The extent of America was so little understood that much time was spent in tr}^- ing to find a passage through or around our continent. Cipanzo, as Japan was called, was supposed to lie much farther East; indeed in some old maps it seems to have been included within our boundaries. It was the Spanish pioneer explorers of the sixteenth century who 12 first penetrated Western North America and discovered the vast extent of our country." In 1 5 19, only a few years after the discov- ery of America, Don Diego Velasquez, the Spanish governor of Cuba, sent out four cara- vels commanded by Don Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda, who sailed across the Gulf of Mexico, and discovered the mouth of a great river which he explored for a few leagues, and called the Rio de Espiritu Santo. This was the Mississippi River. He was probably the first white man to approach the soil of Louis- iana. In 1527, eight years later, another Spaniard, Alvah Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, sailed directly from Spain to Florida, whose swamps he crossed, and after great suffering passed be- yond the Mississippi River. Nearly all of this party perished, the remainder being cast upon an island west of the mouth of the river, which they named appropriately "The Isle of Misfortunes." The stories of these early ad- ventures, impelled by a passion for discovery or gold, are of thrilling interest. A dozen years later, in ^539, still another Spaniard, the famous Fernando de Soto, a '3 governor of Cuba, sailed from Havana with six hundred men, and landed in Florida, under a commission to conquer the unknown terri- tory of the Gulf of Mexico. He "fought his bloody way" across Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, across the Mississippi, into the Western wilds, in the vain search for gold. After three years, with ranks depleted by hun- ger, exposure and hostile Indians, the brave adventurer died near the mouth of the Red River, and was buried beneath the waters of the Mississippi, his survivors not daring to leave his body in a grave lest the Indians should discover it. All these explorations, and others, took place nearly a century and a half before the Frenchman, La Salle, sailed down the "Father of Waters," and took possession of the vast territory beyond the Western bank in the name of France and Louis XIV. It is not necessary to give in detail the sub- sequent vicissitudes of this new interior world. France held it for eighty years till 1762, and then ceded it to Spain to consummate a Span- ish alliance. It had done nothing to occupy and develop the country, besides laying the foundations of New Orleans. It had leased it out to traders from whom it received little revenue, and so the possession was looked up- on as of comparatively little value at that time. In 1768 the first Spanish jT^overnor came to New Orleans. At that time Spain was in possession of by far the larger part of America, Florida, a strip along the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, California, Mexico, and that large tract of territory, from the Gulf to the Lakes, out of which have been carv^ed twelve States and two Territories, each of which is an empire in itself. Spain held possession of the Louisiana ter- ritory for forty years, until 1801, and then tossed it back into the hands of France in re- turn for a political favor. It had proved to be an expensive and troublesome Province. The few inhabitants were discontented and sometimes openly rebellious at the transfer from one power to another. At the begin- ning of the nineteenth century, the thirteen original States which had entered into a com- pact of union and liberty under the form of a Republican Government, had received no in- crement of territory. They extended from Florida nortliward and eastward to Maine, and IS westward only to the Mississippi. Our rela- tions with France had become greatly strained. Our shipping- had been exposed to the attacks of French cruisers. Protests were unavailing. An embassy was sent to France to adjust the increasing difficulties. The French Directory refused to grant it a hearing. After the dismissal of our envoys, Pinckney, Marshall and Gerry, commercial intercourse with France was suspended. War seemed in- evitable. America preferred Spain to France for a back-door neighbor. In the meantime the American settlers, on the East Bank of the Mississippi River, were demanding "the rights of navigation and com- merce through the river as established by ex- isting treaties," but which were being infringed upon and curtailed. The East sympathized with the West. Our country needed' and must have an open highway for its commerce through the river which formed its Western boundary, and a right to deposit its merchan- dise at New Orleans, which it had accjuired from Spain in 1795. It was determined to press upon France negotiations for the pur- chase of New Orleans and the possession of i6 the unrestricted use of the Mississippi. England also was aspiring for ownership in that valley as it had done before, and was pre- paring itself for open hostilities against its neighbor across the Channel, so that war be- tween the two nations seemed to be a fore-, gone conclusion. Such in brief was the con- dition of things at the beginning of the nine- teenth century. In 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte was the First Consul of France, Thomas JefTerson was the President of the United States, and Robert R. Livingston was our Minister to the French Court, and w^as under instructions to press our claims, and secure the rights of the Republic at the mouth of the Mississippi. Matters were progressing slowly, or rather not at all. Something more needed to be done. Jeflferson appointed James Monroe as a special envoy to Paris, with authority to purchase New Orleans and the Floridas for $2,000,000.00. It was not then known that France had acquired from Spain only Louisiana. Rut a strange Providence was working on the other side of the Atlantic. Napoleon, it is said, was attending service in Notre Dame 17 Cathedral on Easter Sunday. But his thoughts were not on the risen Christ and the hope of a glorious immortality which Christ's resurrec- tion inspired, but on the hostile fleet of Eng- land sailing towards his American possessions. The purpose came to him (the Spirit of God flashed it into his mind), that he would dis- pose of the whole of the Louisiana territory to the United States, and be rid of the whole thing. He informed Talleyrand of his sudden purpose, who immediately saw and startled Mr. Livingston with the proposition that his coun- try purchase the whole of Louisiana. Mr. Livingston told him he did not want it. At that time neither Jefferson nor any other American had conceived such an idea. How- ever, he informed Talleyrand that Mr. Mon- roe was expected in two days, and they would take the matter into consideration. Napoleon told his ministers, and his brothers, Lucien and Joseph, who "heard the news with aston- ishment and indignation," and protested ve- hemently against Napoleon's plan, but with- out avail. They only met with anger and a fixed determination. He summoned Barbe- Marbois, minister of the treasury, and said to i8 him peremptorily : "Irresolution and delibera- tion are no longer in season. I renoimce Louis- iana. It is not only New Orleans that I cede ; it is the whole colony without reserve. I di- rect you to negotiate the affair. Have an in- terview this very day with Mr. Livingston." Suffice it to say that in twenty days from that Easter Sunday, with no time to receive instructions from the home government, the transaction was completed, the treaty of ces- sion w'as drawn up and signed by Livingston and Monroe on the part of this country and by Barbe-Marbois on the part of France, and this vast inland territory whose boundaries even then were unknown and undetermined, was transferred to the United States for the sum of $15,000,000.00, which proved to be only about two cents an acre, passing from the possession of an intolerant Roman Catholic monarchy to the ownership of a Protestant, liberty-loving Republic, w'ithout war or blood- shed. We can understand the significance of that purchase to-day better than it was understood at that time, but so great and far-reaching is it that even we in the light of subsequent de- 19 velopments and results find it difificult, if not impossible, fully to comprehend it. At the time there was serious and vehement opposition to the annexation on the part of many leading citizens. Jefferson, who favored it, though he had nothing to do in shaping the final outcome, "suffered bitter detrac- tion and personal ridicule." Senator Picker- ing, of Massachusetts, said : "It is declared in the third article (of the treaty) that 'the inhab- itants of the ceded territory shall be incorpo- rated in the Union of the United States.' But neither the President and Senate, nor the President and Congress, are competent to such an act of incorporation." Representative Gris- wold, of Connecticut, said: "The vast and unmanageable extent which the accession of Louisiana will give the United States, the con- sequent dispersion of our population, and the destruction of that balance which it is so im- portant to maintain between the Eastern and Western States, threatens, at no very distant day, the subversion of our Union." Repre- sentative Griffin, of Virginia, said: "He feared the effect of the vast extent of our empire ; he feared the effects of the increased 20 value of labor, the decrease in the value of lands, and the influence of climate upon our citizens who should migrate thither. He did fear (though this land was represented as flowing with milk and honey) that this Eden of the New World would prove a cemetery for the bodies of our citizens." And Senator James White, of Delaware, said : "But as to Louisiana — this new, immense, unbounded world — if it should ever be incorporated into the Union, of which I have no idea, and which can only be done by amending the Constitution, I believe it will be the greatest curse that could at present befall us. It may be productive of innumerable evils, and especially of one that I fear to ever look upon. Our citizens will be removed to the immense distance of two or three thousand miles from the capital of the Union, where they will scarcely ever feel the rays of the General Government — their affec- tions will become alienated ; they will gradually begin to view us as strangers — they will form other commercial connections, and our inter- ests will become distinct. And I do say that $i5.0fX),ooo.oo was a most enormous sum to give." 21 Such reasoning sounds strangely familiar to our modern ears, who have heard the discus- sions about Alaska and the Sandwich Isl- ands, and our relations to Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. The results have proved not only how groundless were their fears in every particular, but that the dreams of the most sanguine came far short of what has been actually realized. This vast area of the Louisiana Purchase, which is now called the Middle West, com- prising fourteen States and Territories, had at the last census a population of nearly 15,- 000,000, and an estimated wealth of more than six and half billions of dollars. The barren wilderness, as it was sometimes called, which could breed only miasma and death, has be- come the granary of the nation, and almost of the world, and is found capable of support- ing a population many times larger than it yet contains. It is rich in every product that goes to make the wealth of a nation or is necessary for the supply of the needs of an advancing civilization. Its citizens are an inseparable part of the Republic, and vie with the resi- dents of the East in their loyalty and devotion to the Government and to our American in- stitutions. And more than that. This large section has given ampler scope for the expansion of the Nation, and for the development of the Re- public towards its unfolding destiny. It was but the beginning of that process of expan- sion, which now covers so large a part of the continent between the two oceans, and has made our Nation a great world-power. The Northwestern section, extending to the Pa- cific Ocean and to the British possessions, was added by exploration and treaty by the year 1819. Florida was ceded to us by Spain in 1 819. Texas was annexed in 1845, Cali- fornia, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mex- ico came to us in 1848. Alaska, which was called Seward's Folly and has become a bo- nanza of gold and fish and fur of incalculable value, was purchased in 1867 for $7,000,000.00. And since then have come to us what may be called our Island wards, whose future is yet to be determined. When we think of the thirteen original States, just starting out into independent national existence, apparently feeble in resources, without experience and 23 with no encouraging and inspiring precedent, with no hght from behind to guide them, and for whose speedy faihire and cHssolution many of the wisest statesmen of the old world had only the most melancholy and certain prognos- tications, we can hardly say that thirteen is an unlucky number. And when we consider the phenomenal growth in population, in wealth, in intelligence and education, in national in- fluence, in everything that makes for national greatness and power, surely we can say "A little one has become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation." "Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land ; thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Yea, thou hast given that which is good, and our land has yielded her increase." But the significance of the Louisiana Pur- chase is perhaps more apparent if we consider it from a religious point of view. In the sale or the purchase the religious motive had no influence or existence. Neither Jefferson nor Napoleon had the slightest thought of the ef- fect upon the religious faith or life of the people, or upon the progress of Christianit}^ either Protestant or Roman Catholic. France 24 and Spain were Roman Catholic countries, as intolerant and repressive of religious and civil freedom as such countries have alw^ays been, when they have had the power. This country was a free country, a country in which the enunciation of civil liberty as a fundamental principle was accompanied by the proclama- tion of religious liberty to all the inhabitants thereof. As the Providence of God guided Columbus southward to the West Indies, and possibly saved this country from being a Ro- man Catholic country, so the Providence of God snatched our great West from the iron grasp of a Roman Catholic power, and opened it to the entrance and the victorious march of an enlightened, liberty-loving, progressive Protestant civilization. One hundred years ago there were a thous- and Roman Catholics west of the Mississippi to a single Protestant, and not a single Protes- tant church from the great river to the Pacific Ocean. Those who attempted to find settle- ment there were met with persecution open and unremitting. They were not allowed to meet for worship except under severe restrictions. Marriage, baptism, the observance of the 25 Lord's Supper according to Protestant usage were all prohibited under cruel penalties. What would have been the condition of things, if the United States had been shut in by Catholic Spain on the South and Catholic France on the West, it is impossible to tell. This we know that thus bounded and hedged in by a wall of superstition and darkness, America could never have become the great Protestant nation that it is, the mightiest Protestant nation on the face of the whole earth, and a great evangelizing agency for all heathen nations. The possession of the West was immediately followed by the entrance of Protestant emigrants, and Protestant mission- aries. The first Protestant preacher to enter, it is said, was a Baptist, John Clark, an hon- ored name among the Baptists of Rhode Isl- and, who "went down the Mississippi alone in a small canoe, camping in the woods at night." Another Baptist minister, Thomas Musick, walked from Kentucky to Missouri, and founded the Fee Fee Baptist Church in 1807, a church which is situated within an hour's ride of the grounds of the World's Fair, and is still in vigorous life. This church 26 is now the mother of 40.000 Protestant churches, nearly 14,000 of which are of the Baptist denomination. Of the twenty-one mil- lions of population west of the Alississippi, six- sevenths, or eighteen millions, are non-Catho- lic, possessing- the spirit of thrift, of intelli- gence, of independence, of progress, which usually characterizes those who are under no ecclesiastical yoke. It is not too much to say that the marvellous prosperity of the great and still growing West has been due in no small degree to the fact that for a hundred years there has waved over it "the Stars and Stripes," the emblem of a free and independent people, under which the hand is free, the body is free, the mind is free, and the con- science is free, where all the citizens are in possession of certain inalienable rights with which their JNIaker has endowed them, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I can not speak in detail of the great West as a field for religious activity or of the con- quests already won there among the native and foreign born populations. It has yielded marvellous returns for all spiritual seed-sow- ing, and is to-day one in spirit with the older 27 East, a homogeneous part of our common countr}', an inheritor of. our inspiring tra- ditions, the possessor of that which is highest and best in our American civihzation, than which no civihzation is higher and better, as loyal, as intelligent, and in large part as Chris- tian, as the States which lie along the Atlantic coast. Moreover, this great West has now become an open highway to the hoary and unenlight- ened nations of the Far East. No deserts in- tervene, no mountains obstruct, no hostile tribes or peoples hinder the progress of our commerce, of our enlightenment, of our civili- zation, or of our religion. The long searched- for route to Cathay and the fragrant Spice Islands has been discovered. The shortest route to China and Japan is Westward, across the American continent and the Pacific Ocean. Four days and a little more, and you see its waters. Twelve days and a little more, and you touch the shore of the flowery Kingdom. The whole heathen world is within easy reach of our Christian knowledge and out-reaching love. West as well as East, we front the na- tions of the earth. God has opened to us an 28 opportunity, and endowed us with resources such as no nation has possessed since the be- ginning of time, "wdien the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Let us not forget the hand of our God in our history. Let us not be unmindful of our exalted privilege, of our unlimited abil- ity, of our transcendent destiny. Let us re- member that our moral glory must far exceed our material, or we shall be charged with un- faithfulness and doomed to decay, that "his righteousness must go before him and set us in the way of his steps." 89 W ^^^4^. %. V^^ V • * • "' 0^ o*"**^ ^O. A^ 'Ao^ - w • » - »bv" . ^^. o .,^^^, . ^^ 0^ oO-.^-^o^ >\c:r^. -%^ o , » • -0 ^ •' • • ♦ o %.^^ .^i5»"o \/ ^^^'_ ^- '^^