Louisiana Purchase Dbq

Katelyn Cooper

History 1301

Tue Thur 12:30

10/27/14

Reflective Essay

The Louisiana Purchase was the real-estate deal of the 19th century. In 1801 Thomas Jefferson became president of the United States. At the same time Napoleon also became the emperor of France, which brought the French Revolution, the Republic, and the beginning of an attempt to expand the French Empire to conquer the world all to an end. In 1802, still under Napoleon’s rule, France made a secret treaty with Spain, in which Spain agreed to return old French land west of the Mississippi River and New Orleans to France and in return the French would not sell this land to any other nation. The French then closed off the New Orleans port to any American trade. In 1803, Napoleon

Napoleon decided to end his tries at starting this world conquest. Jefferson had a decision to make: war with France or to loose support of the western farmers who needed to have the port of New Orleans open to trade their crops, neither being a favorable turn out. In attempts to avoid both, Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to France to try and buy the port from France. Claiming the port of New Orleans was now at the top of his to-do list, in the ideal spot at the mouth of the Mississippi River emptying out into the Gulf of Mexico.Gaining this piece of land would make it possible for farmers to transfer goods to market. Jefferson, similar to most Americans was a country man, with the strong belief that the nation’s future was with the Democratic Republican farmers, not the Federalist bankers and merchants. “Those who labor in the earth,” he wrote, “are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people,” (http://mrkash.com/activities/hamiltonjefferson.html) Jefferson’s offer could not have come at a better time for Napoleon, who needed the money for a war effort against Great Britain. Yet he shot down Jefferson’s

Then in 1803, Jefferson tried once more. This time Napoleon agreed to give 828,000 square miles, stretching from the Mississippi River to Rocky Mountains, and down to the Gulf of Mexico, doubling the size of the United States. However, this decision made my Jefferson didn't come with ease. He was a strong anti-Federalist, in favor of strong state governments, versus a strong federal government. He believed in the strict interpretation of the Constitution; meaning he thought the Constitution meant exactly what it said, no more, and no less. Any additions to what was stated there in the Constitution, he believed was considered unconstitutional. “I hope to God they may, for possession of it we must have—I mean of New Orleans, and of such other positions on the Mississippi as may be necessary to secure to us forever the complete and uninterrupted navigation of that river. This I have ever been in favor of; I think it essential to the peace of the United States and to the prosperity of our Western country.” (Senate Debates on the Louisiana Purchase 2–3 November 1803 Wednesday, 2 November 1803 Samuel White) There was no constitutional power granted to Congress or the President to buy territory for the United States, yet Monroe