Were there any real lasting impacts of the Louis and Clarke expedition?

If Jefferson had never sent Louis and Clarke on their merry little travels across America, would things have been any different? Other than cartography, were there any actual lasting impacts of the L&C expedition?
 
I believe documentation of American biology is one of the more important yet understated ones. The expedition had a huge early contribution towards the study of the plants and animals on the continent.
 

Driftless

Donor
There were certainly numerous general gains to come from the expedtion
* A grasp of the true enormity of the Purchase and the physical breadth of the country.
* A grasp of the wide variety of physical environments in the Purchase territory - Great Plains, Rockies, Columbia Plateau, etc (of course there was information from other sources - but much of that extant information was dubious at best, and very incomplete)
* Confirmation that while a very arduous trek, the country could be crossed coast-to-coast
* A beginning catalog of minerals and their relative locations
* As noted earlier, a beginning catalog of flora and fauna.
* A glimpse of some of the Native American groups and their interaction with strangers.
* A beginning catalog of languages
* Basic meteorlogical study
* By being the official representatives of the US, Lewis & Clark put some substance to US claims over the region. I think that concept gave subsequent private US explorers credibility for their own expeditions, which were more commercial in purpose
 
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* By being the official representatives of the US, Lewis & Clark put some substance to US claims over the region. I think that concept gave subsequent private US explorers credibility for their own expeditions, which were more commercial in purpose

I will contribute to the excellent post Driftless made by adding onto this particular point: they established American claims to the Oregon Country.
 

jahenders

Banned
Exactly. They brought awareness of the whole area, which fed US expansion. They were the primary basis for many subsequent expeditions.

Without them, you'd eventually have other information filter back but it would be in bits and pieces and the later and disjointed nature would delay US growth substantially. With that delay (perhaps 10-25 years), you might have some areas under strong enough foreign domination that they remain so. For instance, Washington, Oregon, and/or some of the Central plains could wind up British, California could be strongly enough in Spanish/Mexican sway that the US doesn't wind up with all of it in the Mexican-American War -- for example, maybe Mexico keeps San Diego, etc.

Assuming US growth West IS delayed, it could also delay some of the concerns about whether slavery was allowed in new states/territories, possibly changing the impetus (or at least the timing) for the lead up to ACW and weakening the US ability to project power out West (AZ, CA, etc).

There were certainly numerous general gains to come from the expedtion
* A grasp of the true enormity of the Purchase and the physical breadth of the country.
* A grasp of the wide variety of physical environments in the Purchase territory - Great Plains, Rockies, Columbia Plateau, etc (of course there was information from other sources - but much of that extant information was dubious at best, and very incomplete)
* Confirmation that while a very arduous trek, the country could be crossed coast-to-coast
* A beginning catalog of minerals and their relative locations
* As noted earlier, a beginning catalog of flora and fauna.
* A glimpse of some of the Native American groups and their interaction with strangers.
* A beginning catalog of languages
* Basic meteorlogical study
* By being the official representatives of the US, Lewis & Clark put some substance to US claims over the region. I think that concept gave subsequent private US explorers credibility for their own expeditions, which were more commercial in purpose
 
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