Jefferson's dream
Such was the situation when the United States was born,
and when Thomas Jefferson—philosopher, seer, statesman—
always interested in the Middle West, first felt within
him yearnings for a more intimate knowledge of the
spacious territory of Louisiana, lying beyond the great
river. The country belonged to Spain, but this fact gave him
no pause; he felt that so long as British traders were profitably
exploiting the trans-Mississippi, Americans might be excused
for opening through it a trade route to the Pacific, and incidentally
extending the bounds of human knowledge, in geography
and the natural sciences.
