Congress, of course, held the power of the purse, and Jefferson drafted a secret message asking them to fund an expedition. Lewis listened as the president talked through his motives. Exploring the Missouri-Columbia link was a big one, but there were others, including a motive the House and Senate would like: trade.
DBx: Meriwether Lewis’s and William Clark’s famous expedition (1804-1806) was not exploration only for the sake of exploration and science. It had political purposes (for example, to help prevent European powers from colonizing the American west) and also economic purposes – chiefly, the expansion of trade. Indeed, among Thomas Jefferson’s hopes was that Lewis and Clark would find a waterway clear through to the Pacific ocean in order to facilitate Americans’ trade with Asia.
This reality – reflecting Americans’ commercial culture – debunks the notion that the United States was from the start a protectionist nation. And it puts into further, unflatering context the express sentiment of Donald Trump that “Trade is bad.”
