The major achievements of Jefferson’s first term had to do with the American West, and the greatest by far was the Louisiana Purchase, the acquisition of the huge area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. In a sense the purchase of this region, called Louisiana, was fortuitous, an accidental by-product of European political adjustments and the whim of Napoleon Bonaparte. Certainly Jefferson had not planned it, for in his inaugural address he had expressed the opinion that the country already had all the land it would need “for a thousand generations.” It was nonetheless the perfectly logical—one might almost say inevitable—result of a long series of events in the history of the Mississippi Valley.
Along with every other American who had even a superficial interest in the West, Jefferson understood that the United States must have access to the mouth of the Mississippi and the city of New Orleans or eventually lose everything beyond the Appalachians. “There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy,” he was soon to write. “It is New Orleans.” Thus when he learned shortly after his inauguration that Spain had given Louisiana back to France, he was immediately on his guard. Control of Louisiana by Spain, a “feeble” country with “pacific dispositions,” could be tolerated; control by a resurgent France dominated by Napoleon, the greatest military genius of the age, was entirely different. Did Napoleon have designs on Canada? Did he perhaps mean to resume the old Spanish and British game of encouraging the Indians to
This depicts New Orleans in 1803, when the city was acquired—along with much of the modern United States—in the Louisiana Purchase. It was known as the Crescent City because of the way it hugged a curved section of the Mississippi River. In 1803, New Orleans's population was about 8,000, including 4,000 whites, 2,700 slaves, and about 1,300 free "persons of color.”
Harry the American frontier? And what now would be the status of Pinckney’s precious treaty?
Deeply worried, the president instructed his minister to France, Robert R. Livingston, to seek assurances that American rights in New Orleans would be respected and to negotiate the purchase of West Florida in case that area had also been turned over to France.
Jefferson’s concern was well-founded; France was indeed planning new imperial ventures in North America. Immediately after settling its difficulties with the United States through the Convention of 1800, France signed a secret treaty with Spain, which returned Louisiana to France. Napoleon hoped to use this region as a breadbasket for the French West Indian sugar plantations, just as colonies like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had fed the British sugar islands before the Revolution.
However, the most important French island, Saint Domingue (Hispaniola), at the time occupied entirely by the nation of Haiti, had slipped from French control. During the French Revolution, the slaves of the island had revolted. In 1793 they were granted personal freedom, but they fought on under the leadership of the “Black Napoleon,” a self-taught genius named Toussaint Louverture, and by 1801 the island was entirely in their hands. The original Napoleon, taking advantage of the slackening of war in Europe, dispatched an army of 20,000 men under General Charles Leclerc to reconquer it.
When Jefferson learned of the Leclerc expedition, he had no trouble divining its relationship to Louisiana. His uneasiness became outright alarm. In April 1802 he again urged Minister Livingston to attempt the purchase of New Orleans and Florida or, as an alternative, to buy a tract of land near the mouth of the Mississippi where a new port could be constructed. Of necessity, the mild-mannered, idealistic president now became an aggressive realist. “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans,” he warned, “we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”
In October 1802 the Spanish, who had not yet actually turned Louisiana over to France, heightened the tension by declaring that American boats plying the Mississippi could no longer deposit and
Toussaint L'Ouverture leading a revolt of slaves against the French in Haiti—the first and only major slave rebellion in history.
Store their goods in warehouses in New Orleans, the first step to exporting them to Europe. We now know that the French had no hand in this action, but it was beyond reason to expect Jefferson or the American people to believe it at the time. With the West clamoring for relief, Jefferson appointed his friend and disciple James Monroe minister plenipotentiary and sent him to Paris with instructions to offer up to $10 million for New Orleans and Florida. If France refused, he and Livingston should open negotiations for a “closer connection” with the British.
The tension broke before Monroe even reached France. General Leclerc’s Saint Domingue expedition ended in disaster. Although Toussaint surrendered, Haitian resistance continued. Yellow fever raged through the French army; Leclerc himself fell to the fever, which wiped out practically his entire force.
When news of this calamity reached Napoleon early in 1803, he had second thoughts about reviving French imperialism in the New World. Without Saint Domingue, the wilderness of Louisiana seemed of little value. Napoleon was preparing a new campaign in Europe. He could no longer spare troops to recapture a rebellious West Indian island or to hold Louisiana against a possible British attack, and he needed money.
For some weeks the commander of the most powerful army in the world mulled the question without consulting anyone. Then, with characteristic suddenness, he made up his mind. On April 10 he ordered Foreign Minister Talleyrand to offer not merely New Orleans but all of Louisiana to the Americans. The next day Talleyrand summoned Livingston to his office on the rue du Bac and dropped this bombshell. Livingston was almost struck speechless but quickly recovered his composure. When Talleyrand asked what the United States would give for the province, he suggested the French equivalent of about $5 million. Talleyrand pronounced the sum “too low” and urged Livingston to think about the subject for a day or two.
Livingston faced a situation that no modern diplomat would ever have to confront. His instructions said nothing about buying an area almost as large as the entire United States, and there was no time to write home for new instructions. The offer staggered the imagination. Luckily, Monroe arrived the next day to share the responsibility. The two Americans consulted, dickered with the French, and finally agreed—they could scarcely have done otherwise—to accept the proposal. Early in May they signed a treaty. For 60 million francs—about $15 million—the United States was to have all of Louisiana.
No one knew exactly how large the region was or what it contained. (See Mapping the Past, pp. 184-185.) When Livingston asked Talleyrand about the boundaries of the purchase, he replied, “I can give you no direction. You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I
Louisiana Purchase Jefferson bought the Louisiana region from Napoleon. No payments were made to the many Indians who had no idea that the world of their ancestors was owned by distant rulers.
Suppose you will make the most of it.” Never, as the historian Henry Adams wrote, “did the United States government get so much for so little.”
Napoleon’s unexpected concession caused consternation in America, though there was never real doubt that the treaty would be ratified. Jefferson did not believe that the government had the power under the Constitution to add new territory or to grant American citizenship to the 50,000 residents of Louisiana by executive act, as the treaty required. He even drafted a constitutional amendment: “The province of Louisiana is incorporated with the United States and made part thereof.” But his advisers convinced him that it would be dangerous to delay approval of the treaty until an amendment could be acted on by three-fourths of the states. Jefferson then suggested that the Senate ratify the treaty and submit an amendment afterward “confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized.” This idea was so obviously illogical that he quickly dropped it. Finally, he came to believe “that the less we say about constitutional difficulties the better.” Since what he called “the good sense of our country” clearly wanted Louisiana, he decided to “acquiesce with satisfaction” while Congress overlooked the “metaphysical subtleties” of the problem and ratified the treaty.
Some of the more partisan Federalists, who had been eager to fight Spain for New Orleans, attacked Jefferson for undermining the Constitution. One such critic described Louisiana contemptuously as a “Gallo-Hispano-Indian” collection of “savages and adventurers.” Even Hamilton expressed hesitation about absorbing “this new, immense, unbounded world,” though he had dreamed of seizing still larger domains himself. In the end Hamilton’s nationalism reasserted itself, and he urged ratification of the treaty, as did such other important Federalists as John Adams and John Marshall. And in a way the Louisiana Purchase was as much Hamilton’s doing as Jefferson’s. Napoleon accepted payment in United States bonds—promises to pay
The Louisiana Purchase at
The pistols used in the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Before the duel Hamilton's lawyer drew up a contract specifying the terms: The duelists were to shoot at ten paces, and the barrels of the guns were to be no longer than 11 inches. Witnesses claimed that Hamilton never fired his fine pistol, but Burr took deadly aim, firing a.54-caliber ball that hit Hamilton in the chest. It ricocheted off his rib, punctured his liver, and lodged in his backbone. Hamilton died the next day.
The national debt—which he promptly sold to European investors. If Hamilton had not established the nation’s credit so soundly, such a large issue could never have been so easily disposed of.
It was ironic—and a man as perceptive as Hamilton must surely have recognized the irony—that the acquisition of Louisiana ensured Jefferson’s reelection and further contributed to the downfall of the Federalists. The purchase was popular even in the New England bastions of that party. While the negotiations were progressing in Paris, Jefferson had written the following of partisan political affairs: “If we can settle happily the difficulties of the Mississippi, I think we may promise ourselves smooth seas during our time.” These words turned out to be no more accurate than most political predictions, but the Louisiana Purchase drove another spike into the Federalists’ coffin.
<*?>iSee the Map The Louisiana Purchase at myhistorylab. com •••-[Read the Document
Myhistorylab. com •••-[Read the Document Fisher Ames on the Louisiana Purchase at myhistorylab. com
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