One of the speakers at that meeting was a famous Virginian named Patrick Henry. When he got up to speak he looked very pale, but his eyes shone like coals of fire. He made a great speech. He said, "We must fight! I repeat it, sir,—we must fight!" The other Virginians agreed with Patrick Henry, and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, with other noted men who were present at the meeting, began at once to make ready to fight.
[186. Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence; how it was sent through the country.]—Shortly after this the great war began. In a little over a year from the time when the first battle was fought, Congress asked Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and some others to write the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson really wrote almost every word of it. He was called the "Pen of the Revolution"; for he could write quite as well as Patrick Henry could speak.
The Declaration was printed and carried by men mounted on fast horses all over the United States. When men heard it, they rang the church bells and sent up cheer after cheer. General Washington had the Declaration read to all the soldiers in his army, and if powder had not been so scarce, they would have fired off every gun for joy.
[187. Jefferson is chosen President of the United States; what he said about New Orleans.]—A number of years after the war was over Jefferson was chosen President of the United States; while he was President he did something for the country which will never be forgotten.
Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, with the lower part of the Mississippi River, then belonged to the French; for at that time the United States only reached west as far as the Mississippi River. Now as New Orleans stands near the mouth of that river, the French could say, if they chose, what vessels should go out to sea, and what should come in. So far, then, as that part of America was concerned, we were like a man who owns a house while another man owns one of the doors to it. The man who has the door could say to the owner of the house, I shall stand here on the steps, and you must pay me so many dollars every time you go out and every time you come in this way.
| Map showing the extent of the United States at the close of the Revolution, and also when Jefferson became President (1801). |
Jefferson saw that so long as the French held the door of New Orleans, we should not be free to send our cotton down the river and across the ocean to Europe. He said we must have that door, no matter how much it costs.
[188. Jefferson buys New Orleans and Louisiana for the United States.]—Mr. Robert R. Livingston, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was in France at that time, and Jefferson sent over to him to see if he could buy New Orleans for the United States. Napoleon Bonaparte[5] then ruled France. He said, I want money to purchase war-ships with, so that I can fight England; I will sell not only New Orleans, but all Louisiana besides, for fifteen millions of dollars. That was cheap enough, and so in 1803 President Jefferson bought it.