Excerpt from The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 6 There has, however, been a strange silence, and even a total misapprehen'sion until recently, regarding the initial impulse to the exploration and the higher purposes cher ished 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 our selveswith that territory. The truth is rather the con verse Oi 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 enlight enment. In this Original and larger idea the project of transcontinental exploration was to be the first overt and representative act. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.