Controversial Decisions: Thomas Jefferson And The Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase was a “land deal” made between France and the U.S. in December of 1803, where France sold America 828,000 miles of land along the west side of the Mississippi River for 15 million dollars (approximately 4 cents per acre). People regard it as Thomas Jefferson’s greatest achievement because of how drastically it changed the United States. The purchase greatly expanded America and brought many other benefits along with it. Although it was definitely a major benefit to the United States, even Jefferson had his doubts about the purchase. But despite many doubts, the U.S. made the decision to ratify the purchase, and because of that decision, America has changed for the better.

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson wrote a document to France to purchase western land, also known a the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was given the land from France, and wanted to study the new purchased territory. He sent out his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, he had much knowledge about the frontier. Lewis asked for help from William Clark, he also was a draftsman and frontiersman and had more knowledge than Meriwether. Both of the men made a plan to take a two-year trip to the ocean.

When Thomas Jefferson was introduced on March of 1801, he received troubled relations with Barbary states, and the Ottoman Regencies of the Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, and along with independent Morocco. The U.S. Had treaties with all four of them, but tension was high and rising. The American representatives in the region wanted an American Navy presence. They regularly, is less spoken, echoed the 1793 view of their worker in Lisbon, they said When we can appear in the Ports of the various Powers, or on the Coast, of the Barbary, with their ships of such force as to talk those nations that We are able to protect our trade, and to control them if necessary to keep faith with Us, then, and not before that, We may probably secure a big share

In the era before the Civil War America was expanding westward. The Louisiana Purchase and other lands gained help to give America new land to expand on, but this leaded to issues with the division of free and slave states. As Missouri became a state they wanted to become a slave state, which caused trouble. In order to keep equilibrium between the states, Congress came up with the Missouri Compromise of 1820.The Missouri Compromise made Missouri a slave state and Maine a free state. The Treaty also made a line within the Louisiana Territory to keep slavery from moving up the

Despite the Constitution, for nearly 200 years, presidents have sent the U.S. military into conflicts without first consulting Congress. Contrary to popular belief, this trend predates the imperialist presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson sent a small fleet to protect and defend U.S. military and merchant ships from acts of piracy by the Barbary States before he asked Congress. Although Congress later gave Jefferson authorization to have those vessels seize any ships and goods that posed a threat, they never voted on a formal declaration of war in the conflict that became the First Barbary War, lasting from 1801 to

"It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people." -- Andrew Jackson’s speech about the Indian Removal Act of 1830 in 1830. The Cherokee are a Native American Tribe that live in Oklahoma and North Carolina, and have lived there for decades. In 1830, Andrew Jackson (the president during this time) was mad because the Cherokee Indians had been hurting and scalping people in Georgia. Because of this, Jackson put up the idea of a removal act, a way to get the Cherokee to either move out of Georgia or abide by state law.

The Indian Removal Act of (1830) granted the creation of districts west of the Mississippi River, onto which eastern Indian tribes would be moved. Some tribes moved west willingly, but others, such as the Cherokees, were forcibly marched west on the “Trail of Tears”. When Andrew Jackson became president (1829–1837), he and other members of the government believed that the trade and intercourse act had failed to aeropathy deal with the Indian problem so he decided to build an efficient approach to the “Indian removal act”. To achieve his purpose, “President Jackson encouraged the Congress to accept the Removal Act of 1830. The Act established a process whereby the President could grant land west of the Mississippi River to Indian tribes that

The Indian Removal Act was signed in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson to remove the Cherokee Indians from their homes and force them to settle west of the Mississippi River. The act was passed in hopes to gain agrarian land that would replenish the cotton industry which had plummeted after the Panic of 1819. Andrew Jackson believed that effectively forcing the Cherokees to become more civilized and to christianize them would be beneficial to them. Therefore, he thought the journey westward was necessary. In late 1838, the Cherokees were removed from their homes and forced into a brutal journey westward in the bitter cold.

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. During his term as the President, Thomas Jefferson was given the opportunity to purchase a vast territory from France. This territory stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and more than doubled the size of the United States. In gaining the Louisiana territory, Thomas Jefferson was confronted with a few doubts and conflicts. The Louisiana Purchase had the greatest influence on the development of our country.

That made the people in the north mad,so Congress held a meeting and voted. They came to a compromise. If Missouri became a slave state Maine would be a free state and no slave states could be above 36/30 north. In 1825 his terms were up and he stopped being

Under influence of president Andrew Jackson, the congress was urged in 1830 to pass the Indian Removal Act, with the goal of relocated many Native Americans in the East territory, the west of Mississippi river. The Trail of tears was made for the interest of the minorities. Indeed, if president Jackson wished to relocate the Native Americans, it was because he wanted to take advantage of the gold he found on their land. Then, even though the Cherokee won their case in front the supreme court, the president and congress pushed them out(Darrenkamp).

On July 17, 1830, the Cherokee nation published an appeal to all of the American people. United States government paid little thought to the Native Americans’ previous letters of their concerns. It came to the point where they turned to the everyday people to help them. They were desperate. Their withdrawal of their homeland was being caused by Andrew Jackson signing the Indian Removal Act into law on May 28, 1830.

Thomas Jefferson, former president of the United States, helped make a decision in 1803 that would forever change the future of the continental United States of America. Jefferson sent two representatives to Paris in hopes of being able to purchase New Orleans, and ended up learning that they were able to purchase the entire territory of Louisiana for only fifteen million dollars. This deal would later be known as the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was curious about the completely unknown land that the United States had just purchased, so he decided to hire Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to go on an expedition and explore the land west of the Mississippi. The combination of these two events led to millions of settlers expanding and developing

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.

The Genocide: Trail of Tears/ The Indian removal act During the 1830s the united states congress and president Andrew Jackson created and passed the “Indian removal act”. Which allowed Jackson to forcibly remove the Indians from their native lands in the southeastern states, such as Florida and Mississippi, and send them to specific “Indian reservations” across the Mississippi river, so the whites could take over their land. From 1830-1839 the five civilized tribes (The Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw) were forced, sometimes by gun point, to march about 1,000 miles to what is present day Oklahoma.