The Louisiana Purchase And Thomas Jefferson's Moral Dilemma

21. Louisiana Purchase- The purchase had happened when President Thomas Jefferson had bought the land from Napoleon Bonaparte of France, as Napoleon needed money to fund the war with France against Britain. As soon as Jefferson had purchased the land area it had made the U.S. twice its size. Jefferson had also sent Lewis and Clark to go and review the land and bring back information on the purchased area.

Our third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, had great intentions when he was elected into the presidency. The actions that took place during his eight years in office reflect the principles that Jefferson believed in, and that is what he wanted to achieve. One of Jefferson’s beliefs was having an agricultural-based economy and life, rather than commerce and federal power. “He believed a person who owned a farm and worked the land would be economically independent, and that independence would develop and preserve wisdom, self-control, courage, and fortitude.

While the supporters of Thomas Jefferson believe that buying foreign land was necessary, those who are against him feel that what he did was unconstitutional. In the source, “Thomas Jefferson to John Breckinridge, 12 August 1803”, the text explains that what Jefferson did was allowed, as it had not mentioned that he couldn’t in the constitution. This controversy is huge, because some people believe that he did not have the right to do so. Jefferson made a point that it wasn’t mentioned in the constitution, so he decided to ratify it and pay for it. Some believe congress did not have the right to authorize this decision.

Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States, who served two terms from 1801-1809. Thomas Jefferson was in the Democratic-Republican party and was the first president to be a Democratic-Republican. The Election of 1800 was the first peaceful transfer of power in history from Federalists to Democratic-Republicans. This was a turning point as the Federalists were slowly fading away, and the Democratic-Republican were rising as Jefferson became president. Jefferson’s presidency was a mixture of exceptional decisions and disagreeable ones with his handling of domestic and foreign policies.

When the Presidency was passed to Jefferson by John Adams, a Federalist, the first step he took was to scrap the excise law/tax which caused manufactured goods to have a tax, for a goal to gain money for the government. This move was strongly Democratic-Republican, because he got rid of it to benefit the farmers living in America. Jefferson believed these taxes would also cause sectionalism in the states, so he took them out immediately. Democratic-Republicans had strong hate for the financial system as a whole, but while in office, Jefferson kept the rest of Hamilton's plan. He could have done this because he realized that the plan is in fact beneficial, but he most likely did this only to benefit the people of America, for the countries good as a whole (Document A).

The Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana purchase was one of the biggest land purchases in history. In 1803, the United States paid around $15 million dollars for around 800,000 square miles of land. This was arguably the greatest achievement of thomas jefferson’s presidency. The louisiana territory was a wild card in the european game of imperialism.

The Federalists obviously opposed the Louisiana Purchase for political reasons, not practical because they hated Thomas Jefferson. "I am disgusted with the men who now rule us. The coward at the head [Jefferson] is like a French Revolutionary," (Pickering, 1803) stated Timothy Pickering in a letter to Rufus King. This shows, clearly, that federalists only care about opposing Thomas Jefferson, not opposing the Louisiana Purchase. Most federalists, although some had very good reasons for opposing the constitution, only cared about hatred for Mr. Jefferson and with that hatred for all of his ideas.

Thomas Jefferson always viewed slavery as a “moral depravity and a hideous blot. ”(5) Jefferson felt it also was a great threat to the nation 's survival and opposing the laws of nature, which every person had the right liberty. When the American Revolution was taking place, Jefferson was connected with the legislation in hopes it result in abolishment of slavery. In his attempts to abolish slavery Jefferson drafted the Virginia law in 1778 “that prohibited the importation of enslaved Africans.

While this was a plus of the purchase, allowing the country to grow so big would also bring along some cons too. As a country grows to be the size America did, this made governing for all of that land difficult. Also, considering that this took place in the very early 1800’s which means that they didn’t have the same technology, transportation, or transmission that we have today. This means as settlers started to move out west, many would start to not completely follow all the laws because there wasn’t as much government power in the west back then. As stated above, another concept that Jefferson and America had to take into thought was this purchase would put America into a huge amount of debt.

They wanted to create a relationship with France, focused on agriculture over commercialism, and free trade. Over time the Federalist party weakened while the Jeffersonian republicans evolved into the Democrats.

The Louisiana Purchase was the purchase of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid fifty million dollars and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million dollars which averages to less than three cents per acre. The Louisiana territory included land from fifteen present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The territory contained land that forms Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, portions of Minnesota, large portions of North Dakota; large portions of South Dakota, parts of New Mexico, the northern portion of Texas, the area of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Louisiana Purchase was smart move by the United States.

Did Federalists oppose the Louisiana Purchase for practical reasons or political reasons? The Federalists took it from a more political view with some ethical points regarding putting in new states through the executive branch, treatings, and slavery, (Document B ). Hamilton himself hates Jefferson and tried to make him look dumb and lucky and tried to make the possibility of success slim(Document A ). In Document B Rufus King is concerned about admitting new states with treaties through the executive branch or Congress, but if they do they have to follow their treaty and help settlers and property owners have their property “protected”. They are also worried about treating slaves unequally coming from the current increase of the representation

1. Louisiana Purchase (April 2, 1803): Jefferson purchases the 800,000-square-mile Louisiana Territory from French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for $15 Million, or roughly 4 cents an acre, effectively doubling the size of the United States overnight. This event lead to making the U.S bigger in size which helped with expanding population. 2.

One positive aspect of acquiring land was the advantages from Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory from France. Lewis and Clark described the land they saw and told Jefferson details about the interactions with the Indians, the landscape, and the creatures of the western world. Maps Clark made throughout the journey were later used to navigate the new terrioty. (Doc A)

Jefferson’s dilemma in the Louisiana Purchase In April of 1803 Thomas Jefferson was faced with many moral dilemmas in the process of buying the Louisiana territory. Though the price for the territory was beyond generous, Jefferson felt that by purchasing the territory he would be going against his beliefs that the constitution should be followed word for word. The constitution said nothing of the president having the power to purchase land from another government, or to use money of the states for the same purpose (“the moral dilemma”). Another problem was once the land was purchased, there was a fear that it could have been a waste since they had no way to know the layout of the land, and what it would be useful for.