---

In Praise of Laudanum
For some, “addiction” may be the only cure.

...One of these “addicts” was lost to us on a rainy Tennessee day in the spring of 1809. Meriwether Lewis was the greatest national hero of those times and the designated political heir to Thomas Jefferson. He was, presumptively, the sixth or seventh president of the United States. In historical terms, his suicide marked the passing of the torch from Jeffersonian to Jacksonian democracy and had a profound impact on the nature of our country. The continental vision he shared with Jefferson was replaced by “manifest destiny” and the Trail of Tears. Conquest by force of arms replaced diplomacy and guile as the hallmark of American expansionism. Slavery ceased to be an abomination that we had to be lead out of and became, instead, a bargaining chip to be cynically used, always to the accrual of federal power. The loss of this junkie was transformational and, in the aftermath of his suicide, when his personal effects were sent home to Virginia and inventoried, there wasn’t any laudanum to be found.