Max Baucus: “in August of 1802, from his desk in Monticello, President Thomas Jefferson glimpsed the future of the young American…”

“in August of 1802, from his desk in Monticello, President Thomas Jefferson glimpsed the future of the young American economy. He was shaken by what he saw. Jefferson had just finished reading a book published a year earlier in London. The slim volume was the travel account of Alexander MacKenzie, a young Scotsman working in Great Britain's Canadian colonies. In June of 1793, MacKenzie had crossed the Continental Divide at a place where it was just 3,000 feet high and easily portaged. Two weeks later, he reached the Pacific Ocean. Using a makeshift paint of vermilion and grease, Mackenzie inscribed his name on a rock to memorialize his discovery, and to claim it for Great Britain. The economic implications of MacKenzie's discovery were enormous. In his book, MacKenzie urged the British to build on his discovery and develop a passage to the Pacific. Such a passage would give Great Britain control over much of North America's lucrative fur trade and access to the world's markets. Worse, MacKenzie's discovery threatened to stunt America's economic growth in its infancy. MacKenzie's book lit a fire under Jefferson. That summer, he talked of little else. He enlisted the most qualified man he knew. And with him, Jefferson devised a plan for action. It was a plan to counter the economic threat from the north. It was a plan to safeguard America's economic future. That December, President Jefferson presented his plan to Congress.…”