Mr. Kennedy talked about his book Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase, published by Oxford University Press. The book is a reconsideration of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase land deal between Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon. Mr. Kennedy argued that initially President Jefferson wanted more territory for small family farmers but yielded to the slaveholding plantation system that dominated the settling of the territory. The slaveholding planters' cash crops of tobacco and cotton depleted the soil and in their expansion for arable land, smaller farmers were forced onto less desirable tracts. According to Mr. Kennedy, this decision by Jefferson contributed to the growth of slavery and set the stage for the Civil War. After his presentation, Mr. Kennedy answered questions from members of the audience.