The Louisiana Purchase:

A Dangerous Precedent

WALTER LAFEBER

Students of the past have long debated what determines the course of history. There are

those who maintain that great "forces" shape the direction and composition of human so-

cieties; some even argue that people, individuals, are not important. There are others,

however, who focus on the human side of the past, examining how the interaction of

people and events dictates the course of subsequent events. From this view, human beings

are not mere cogs in the engines of history; they can and do make a difference. Portrait

of America stresses the latter view of history. In the next two selections, the authors de-

scribe in human terms some major political and judicial developments in the young Re-

public, from the dawn of the nineteenth century to the turbulent 1820s.

Let us pick up political events where Edmund S. Morgan leaves off in his assessment

of George Washington in selection 10. When John Adams replaced Washington as

president in 1196, Federalist leaders were extremely apprehensive about the French

Revolution -and the anarchy and violence that seemed to characterize it. Might the

French virus spread to America as it appeared to be spreading across Europe? Might a

conspiracy already be under way in the United States to fan the flames of revolution, to

unleash the American mob on Federalist leaders, to destroy the order and stability they

had worked so hard to establish? Since 1793, when a Frenchman, Citizen Genet, had

tried to enlist American men and privateers for the French cause, the Federalists had

feared revolution in their midst. Champions of a strong government to maintain order,

apostles of elitist rule and the sancity of private property, the Federalists soon equated the

Republicans under Madison and Jefferson with revolution, chaos, and destruction. After

176

all, did the Republicans not support the French? Did they not defend the mob here at

home? Did they not call for more democracy in government (although many of their

leaders paradoxically were southern slave owners)?

The harried Federalists barely fought off a Republican attempt to seize the govern-

ment in 1796, when Adams defeated Jefferson by only three votes in the electoral col-

lege. Then, as though the Republican threat were not bad enough, trouble broke out

with revolutionary France. In the notorious XYZ affair, French agents tried to extract a

bribe from American representatives sent to negotiate about deteriorating Franco-American

relations. Many Americans thought the nation's honor had been besmirched and de-

manded a war of revenge. In response, the Federalists undertook an undeclared sea war

against France that lasted from 1798 to 1800. Using the war as a pretext to consolidate

their power, bridle the Republicans, and prevent revolution in the United States, the

Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. These, they declared, were necessary for

the nation's security in the war with France.

The Alien Act severely restricted the rights and political influence of immigrants, who

usually joined the Republicans after they were naturalized and who might be carrying

the French virus. The Sedition Act made hostile criticism of Federalist policies punish-

able by fine and imprisonment. The Republicans, decrying such government censorship,

launched a counterattack against Federalist "despotism." The Federalists were so dis-

credited by the Alien and Sedition laws, and so divided by an irreconcilable feud between

Adams and Hamilton, that the Republicans were able to win the government in 1801.

Their victory marked the decline and eventually the end of the Federalist party as a na-

tional political organization.

Jefferson liked to describe his rise to power as "the revolution of 1800." But was it

really a revolution? True, the Republicans allowed the hated Alien and Sedition Acts to

expire in 1801, reduced the residence requirement for naturalized citizenship from four-

teen years to five so that America could again function as an "asylum" for "oppressed

humanity," inaugurated a new fiscal policy of government frugality and efficiency, and

strove to retire the national debt of $83 million in sixteen years. Jefferson also repudiated

the idea of government by and for a political elite. Yet he and his top administrators were

as educated, talented, and upper class as their Federalist predecessors. Moreover, while

Jefferson embraced the laissez-faire principle that that government is best which governs

least, he found that reversing all Federalist commitments could cause confusion and con-

sternation across the land. Therefore, he and his followers permitted the United States

Bank to continue operating (it closed in 1811 when its charter ran out), and they main-

tained Federalist measures for refunding the national debt, stimulating American ship-

ping, and assuming the states' Revolutionary War debts. Nor did Jefferson's "revolu-

tion of 1800" change the condition of America's enslaved blacks. As president, the

author of the Declaration of Independence carefully avoided the subject of bondage.

177

"Wliat is practicable, "Jefferson said, "must often control what is pure theory, " As

Washington's secretary of state, Jefferson had demanded a strict construction of the

Constitution, arguing that what was not specifically delegated to the federal govern-

ment was reserved to the states. By that argument, he had opposed Secretary of the

Treasury Alexander Hamilton's sweeping economic schemes. But ivhen he became

president and saw a chance to double the size of the United States by purchasing the

Louisiana Territory, Jefferson abandoned strict construction and embraced the Feder-

alist doctrine of "loose construction," for that was the only way he could justify the

annexation of territory. In the next selection, distinguished historian Walter LaFeber

discusses the intriguing case of Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, pointing out how

the Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans switched roles when it came to inter-

preting the president's constitutional authority. As LaFeber sees it, Jefferson and his

supporters set "a dangerous precedent" in the Louisiana Purchase: they transformed

the Constitution into "an instrument for imperial expansion," he argues, and made

it possible for the president and Congress to stretch and even violate the Constitution

if they considered it to be in the national interest. As Jefferson proved, any president

could stretch the Constitution in order to pursue an expansionist foreign policy —

especially if his party controlled Congress. Indeed, as LaFeber says, later presidents

did exactly that.

In selection 8, we saw Jefferson in a different light, as reluctant slaveholder, philosopher

of liberty, and author of the Declaration of Independence. In this selection, we see a prag-

matic politician who abandoned his own political philosophy and party doctrine in order to

gain a practical objective — to annex Louisiana and thereby enlarge "the empire of lib-

erty. " How do you reconcile the Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence and

who demanded a strict construction of the Constitution with the Jefferson who used party

politics to force through Congress a measure of questionable constitutional legality? Wliat

does this tell you about the nature of American politics? About Jefferson himself? In selec-

tion 8, Douglas Wilson argued that Jefferson intended to include blacks in the proposition

that all men were created equal and entitled to the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the

pursuit of happiness. Yet in the debates over Louisiana, Jefferson opposed a proposed ban

on slavery in the new territory, arguing that Creoles — Louisianans of French ancestry —

were incapable of self-government, and permitting only white men of his own choosing to

govern there. How do you account for this apparent inconsistency?

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13 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE: A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

GLOSSARY

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY Newly electedmember of Congress from Massachusetts whofavored the Louisiana treaty but was appalled thatJefferson interpreted the Constitution so broadly asto let himself rule the Louisiana Territory as acolony.

BRECKINRIDGEJOHN Kentucky senator•who had helped Jefferson write the Kentuckyresolutions and who longed to control theMississippi Paver.

GALLATIN, ALBERT Jefferson's secretary of thetreasury, who advised the president that the UnitedStates, as an "aspect of its sovereignty," had the rightto annex territory.

HILLHOUSE, JAMES Senator from Connecticutwho proposed that slavery be banned in theLouisiana Territory, thus precipitating a debate thatanticipated arguments that would later threaten todisrupt the Union.

KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS Written byJefferson and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky,these state resolutions denounced the Federalists forexpanding federal power beyond constitutionallimits and argued that the states should have theauthority to decide the constitutionality of federalacts.

LINCOLN, LEVI Jefferson's attorney general,who tried to get around constitutional objections tothe Louisiana Purchase by saying that the Frenchdefined the territory as aft extension of the state ofGeorgia or of the Mississippi Territory.

LIVINGSTON, ROBERT R. United Statesminister to France who, with James Monroe,negotiated the treaty that purchased Louisiana forthe United States.

RANDOLPH, JOHN Virginia member ofCongress who broke with Jefferson when thepresident violated his own constitutional doctrine.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the greatest ex-pansionists in an American history full ofardent expansionists. But then, he believed

the success of America's great experiment in democ-racy demanded an expanding territory. In the Vir-ginian's mind, the republic must be controlled byambitious, independent, property-holding farmers,who would form the incorruptible bedrock ofdemocracy. As he wrote in 1785 in his Notes on the

State of Virginia, "Those who labour in the earth arethe chosen people. . . . Corruption of [their] morals. . . is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation hasfurnished an example." Americans who worked theland would never become dependent on factorywages. "Dependence begets subservience and venal,ity," Jefferson warned in Notes, "and prepares fittools for the designs of ambition."

But Jefferson's virtuous farmers needed land, andtheir population was growing at an astonishing rate.Jefferson and his close friend and Virginia neighbor,James Madison, had studied the birthrate carefully.The two men righdy perceived that Americans werenearly doubling their population every 25 to 27 years.Moreover, the number of immigrants seemed to beincreasing so quickly that as early as 1785 Jeffersonhad actually suggested restricting their numbers. Vir-ginia provided a striking example of how fast land wasbeing peopled. The region on the state's westernfrontier had filled with settlers so quickly that in 1792it became the state of Kentucky. Unless somethingwas done,--Jefferson declared, Virginia would withinthe next century be burdened with "nearly the state ofpopulation in the British islands." Given Jefferson'sconvictions about the corruption to be found inBritain's cities, the analogy was damning.

During his first term as President (1801-1805),Jefferson had the chance to obtain that "extension of

Walter LaFeber, "A Dangerous Precedent," Constitution, vol. 5,no. 3 (Fall 1993), 4-7, 74-80. Reprinted by permission of the au-thor.

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THE N A T I O N TAKES SHAPE

territory which the rapid increase of our numberswill call for" by purchasing Louisiana, an area largerthan Western Europe. In a single step he could dou-ble the size of the United States and open the possi-bility of an "empire for liberty," as he later describedit, of mind-boggling proportions.

The President was playing for large stakes. Lou-isiana stretched from the Mississippi westward to theRocky Mountains, and from Canada's Lake of theWoods southward to the Gulf of Mexico. If an-nexed, these 825,000 square miles would give thenew nation access to one of the world's potentiallyrichest trading areas. The Missouri, Kansas, Arkansasand Red rivers and their tributaries could act asgiant funnels carrying goods into the Mississippi andthen down to New Orleans. Even in the 1790s,with access to the Mississippi only from the east, thehundreds of thousands of Americans settled alongthe river depended on it and on the port of NewOrleans for access to both world markets and im-ported staples for everyday living. "The Mississippiis to them everything," Secretary of State JamesMadison observed privately in November 1802. "Itis the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and allthe. navigable rivers of the Atlantic formed into onestream."

Louisiana had long been a focus for imperial am-bitions. The French had largely controlled the regionuntil 1763 when, after losing the so-called SevenYears War, they were forced to cede it to Spain. Butin 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte became head of theFrench government, and the next year he seized theopportunity to retake the territory. In exchange forhis promise to make the Spanish royal family rulersof Tuscany, Spain handed over Louisiana. ThoughBonaparte never bothered to carry out his end of thebargain, he set in motion plans for a New Worldcolonial empire that would make Louisiana the foodsource for the rich French sugar island of SaintDomingue (Haiti) in the Caribbean.

Jefferson and Madison reacted with alarm. A de-caying Spanish empire along the western American

border was little threat. But Napoleon was some-thing else. He would dam up American expansion-ism and perhaps attract settlements east of the Missis-sippi away from the United States. In 1801, afterhearing rumors of Napoleon's bargain with Spain,Jefferson ordered Robert R. Livingston to Paris asthe new U.S. minister. He instructed Livingston totalk Napoleon out of occupying Louisiana or, if thatwas impossible, to buy New Orleans. By 1802 bothJefferson and Livingston began to mention the possi-bility of acquiring not just the port, but also its vastinterior. /

Jefferson told Livingston that if France insisted onoccupying New Orleans, he would consider anAnglo-American alliance against France. That threatwas probably empty. But others were not. In Febru-ary the Senate authorized Jefferson to create an80,000-man army to defend the Mississippi. Al-though the House adjourned before acting on themeasure, the President had already begun strength-ening forts along the river. He sent three artilleryand four infantry companies into position north ofNew Orleans. The commander of these forces,William C.C. Claiborne, assured him that thesetroops could seize New Orleans if they attacked be-fore French forces arrived to strengthen the Spanishgarrison.

But just as war with Napoleon loomed in theearly months of 1803, Jefferson faced a crisis of quiteanother kind. He knew that the Constitution had noprovision giving him the power to take New Or-leans— let alone an area such as Louisiana thatwould double the nation's size — and he believed hecould take no action not explicitly authorized by theConstitution.

This conviction was no mere infatuation •withtheory. As George Washington's secretary of statefrom 1790 until 1793, Jefferson had fought Secretaryof the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's attempt to in-terpret the Constitution's phrases in broad terms.Beaten by Hamilton over such critical issues aswhether the Constitution permitted the United

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13 THE L O U I S I A N A PURCHASE: A D A N G E R O U S P R E C E D E N T

States to create' a national bank, or the federal gov-ernment to assume state debts, Jefferson resignedfrom, the cabinet. He retired to Monticello and —even as Vice-President under the Federalist PresidentJohn Adams — organized the Republican Party totake power and, as he saw it, restore the Constitu-tion's true meaning. "The powers not delegated to.the United States," he wrote in a debate withHamilton in 1790 and 1791, "are reserved to theStates respectively, or to the people." He warned, inwords that were later to cause him anguish, that "totake a single step beyond the boundaries thus spe-cially drawn around the powers of Congress is totake possession of a boundless field of power, nolonger susceptible of any definition."

In 1798 Jefferson's fears seemed to come true.Enmeshed in undeclared war with France on the,**high seas, the Federalists tried to force Americans tocooperate with Adams's war plans by passing theAlien and Sedition Acts. These measures gave Pres-ident John Adams the power to arrest and imprisonhis critics. Jeffersonians believed the acts were aimedat them — and with good reason: the 14 indict-ments and 10 convictions that occurred under theact were against members of the Republican Party.In secret, Jefferson and Madison helped the Virginiaand Kentucky legislatures draft resolutions that con-demned the Federalists for enlarging central govern-ment — especially presidential — powers beyond thelimits set by the Constitution. The resolutions ar-gued that a state should have the power to decidewhether federal governmental acts were constitu-tional or not. Demanding that Congress support astrict construction of the 1787 document, Jeffersonwon •what he called "the revolution of 1800,"which threw Adams and the Hamiltonians out ofoffice. The "sum of good government," he ob-served in his 1801 inaugural address, was small andlimited government.

Thus Jefferson's dilemma in January and Febru-ary 1803. As he and his closest advisers agreed,nothing in the Constitution explicitly permitted the

Tliis painting shows Americans James Monroe and Robert Liv-

ingston and the French finance minister signing the Louisiana

Purchase treaty in 1803. The transaction enlarged the size of the

United States by "about 140per cent," adding nearly 100,000

inhabitants — half of them white, the rest mostly Indian and

African-American — to the national realm. (The Granger Collec-

tion, New York)

government to annex and govern new territory —let alone a territory so immense that it would trans-form the nation's political balance. Reading thatpower into the Constitution's general wording, Jef-ferson warned, could so twist and distort the docu-ment that American liberty would be threatened."Our peculiar security is in possession of a writtenConstitution," he wrote privately to a close friend.

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THE NATION TAKES SHAPE

^

"Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."By no means, however, was he willing to turn awayLouisiana.

In January 1803, Jefferson discussed these difficul-ties with Attorney General Levi Lincoln and the bril-liant young secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin.Lincoln suggested that Jefferson have the French, ifthey sold any part of the territory, designate it as anextension of the Mississippi Territory or the state ofGeorgia. Gallatin retorted that if the central govern-ment lacked the constitutional power to annex newterritory, then so did the states. By mid-January hehad given Jefferson his rather Hamiltonian view of thematter: "1st. That the United States as a nation havean inherent right to acquire territory. 2nd. That•whenever that acquisition is by treaty, the same con-stituted authorities in whom the treaty-making poweris vested [that is, in the President and the Senate] havea constitutional right to sanction the acquisition. 3rd.That whenever the territory has been acquired, Con-gress have the power either of admitting into theUnion as a new State, or of annexing to a State withthe consent of that State, or of making regulations forthe government of such territory."

In acquiring a territorial empire over the nextcentury, Americans were to follow precisely theseprinciples. But Gallatin's vjews did little to quell Jef-ferson's uneasiness, which reached a climax on July 3when he learned that the two U.S. diplomats inParis, Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, hadsigned a treaty in which Napoleon sold Louisiana tothe United States for $11,250,000. A separate agree-ment stipulated that the United States would assume$3,750,000 more for claims of U.S. citizens againstFrance. The two diplomats also agreed that for 12years French and Spanish ships would receive specialtariff rates over other foreign ships and merchandisein New Orleans. The inhabitants of the vast terri-tory, moreover, were to receive full constitutionalrights as soon as possible.

These last provisions were to bedevil Jefferson.Giving French and Spanish traders preferences in

New Orleans violated the Constitution's provisionsthat duties be levied uniformly throughout the na-tion. Granting full constitutional rights to the manynon-Americans, especially nonwhites, in this vastarea went against Jefferson's better judgment — notto mention the devout wishes of conservative andincreasingly agitated New Englanders.

On July 16, Jefferson placed the agreements be-fore his cabinet (or "executive council" as it wasthen known) and suggested that Congress "beobliged to ask from the people an amendment to theConstitution authorizing their receiving theprovince into the Union, and providing for its gov-ernment." Gallatin, Madison, Lincoln, Secretary ofWar Henry Dearborn and Secretary of the Navy *Robert Smith vigorously disagreed. They did notshare the President's constitutional sensitivities.«

The council pointed out a more immediate dan-ger: the treaty provided for an exchange of ratifica-tions within six months of the signing on April 30,1803. No constitutional amendment could be passedby the necessary two-thirds vote in both houses ofCongress and the three fourths of the states in thetime remaining. But if there were any delay,Napoleon could renounce the agreement andrecommence his empire building along the Missis-sippi. The advisers urged that Jefferson call a specialsession of Congress in October and rush the treatyand conventions through without mentioning theamendment.

Jefferson's friends warned him that if he so muchas hinted at the need for an amendment, the treaty'senemies — most notably, New England Federalistswhose fear of a vast western empire beyond theircontrol was matched only by their hatred of Jeffer-son — would delay and probably kill the agreements.The President realized this. Nevertheless, that sum-mer he tried to write at least two drafts of an amend-ment. He admitted to his close friend, Senator JohnBreckinridge of Kentucky, that in agreeing to thepurchase he had gone far beyond what the Constitu-tion permitted. Breckinridge, •who had written the

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13 THE L O U I S I A N A PURCHASE: A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

Kentucky Resolutions with Jefferson just four yearsearlier, disagreed. He had long nurtured the ambi-tion to control New Orleans and the trans-Missis-sippi— an ambition that in the 1790s had led him toplot secretly (and in some Easterners' eyes, treaso-nously) with a French agent to gain control of theriver without the knowledge or approval of theWashington administration. In any case, the Presi-dent's desire for empire was becoming overwhelm-ing. "I infer," he wrote Madison later in August,"that the less we say about constitutional difficultiesrespecting Louisiana the better, and that what is nec-essary for surmounting them must be done subsilentio."

Jefferson found these "constitutional difficulties"distinctly less important after he received twojetters.In the first, which arrived from Paris on August 1J,Livingston warned that Napoleon now regrettedhaving signed the treaty. The French leader wassearching for any excuse ("the slightest alteration"made by the United States, in the envoy's words) toavoid carrying it out. If Congress did not act withinthe six-month limit, the First Consul would re-nounce the deal. The second letter carried a long-expected message from the Spanish minister inWashington, Marquis de Casa Yrujo. It reached Jef-ferson on September 12. The king of Spain, Yrujowrote, was shocked that Napoleon had soldLouisiana. The French leader had no right to do so.The President now had to fear that either his majestyor Napoleon might use this message as an excuse toreclaim New Orleans and the interior.

Livingston's note decided Jefferson, and Yrujo'sprotest reinforced his determination. The Presidentconcluded that although it would be advisable topush for an amendment, it could be done only afterCongress had acted on the agreements and the terri-tory was safely in hand. In the meantime, Jie toldGallatin, Congress should approve the documents"without talking."

Jefferson needed two thirds of the Senate to ratifyhis treaty and a simple majority of the House to carry

the agreements into effect. In the Senate, where hisforces were led by the loyal Breckinridge, his partyheld 25 seats to the Federalists' nine; in the Housethe numbers were also overwhelming—103 to 39.Jefferson, however, left nothing to chance. Regu-larly working 10 to 13 hours a day to ensure that hiswishes were carried out, he became the most power-ful party leader in the republic's short history. Such aregimen left, according to this remarkably organizedman, "an interval of 4 hours for riding, dining, and alittle unbending." Even then he used the dinnerhour several times a week to invite congressionalmembers, stoke them with excellent food and wineand, as Jefferson delicately put it, exchange informa-tion for the sake of the "public interest."

Many New England Federalists feared the idea ofannexing a vast territory whose people would overtime develop immense political power — and, nodoubt, be forever grateful to Jeffersonians. A BostonFederalist newspaper sniffed that Louisiana was noth-ing more than "a great waste, a wilderness unpeo-pled with any beings except wolves and wanderingIndians. . . . We are to give money of which we havetoo little for land of which we already have toomuch." Senator William Plumer, a Federalist fromNew Hampshire, warned that New England wouldnot "tamely shrink into a state of insignificance."

On October 17, 1803, Jefferson told the Congresshe had summoned into session that he was sending itthe treaty_and the accompanying agreements. Noth-ing was»said about a constitutional amendment. Themeasures were being whipped through after onlythree days of debate when a crisis developed. SenateFederalists demanded that Jefferson send the docu-ments proving that Napoleon had rightfully obtainedLouisiana from Spain and so had the power to sell theterritory. This demand presented a problem: the doc-uments did not exist. Republicans nevertheless closedranks and "with unblushing front" (as Plumer sarcasti-cally commented) voted down the resolution on thegrounds that such information was not needed. Theagreements were then rammed through, 24 to 7.

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THE NATION TAKES SHAPE

"The Senate," Plumer complained, "have taken lesstime to deliberate on this most important treaty thanthey allowed themselves on the most trivial Indiancontract."

Next the papers went to the House for legislationthat would authorize monetary payments to carryout the agreements. Again the Federalists demandeddocuments, particularly a deed of cession from Spainto France. The request touched a nerve. Seven yearsearlier, Madison, then the Jeffersonian leader in aFederalist-dominated House of Representatives, hadtried to kill the Jay treaty with Great Britain by de-manding all appropriate documents. President Wash-ington had refused on the grounds that the Housewas obliged to carry out treaties that, under theConstitution, only the Senate had to ratify. Madisonprotested, but he was beaten in a showdown votethat had large implications for the constitutional rolethe House was to play in future U.S. foreign policy.Now, in 1803, the roles were reversed. As the Fed-eralists demanded the deed, Samuel Mitchill of New

York rose to reply on behalf of the Jeffersonians thatif the President had thought the House needed tosee any more papers, he certainly would have sentthem. After that disingenuous response, the Housevoted down the Federalist demand by two votes.

In his pioneering analysis of how rapidly presiden-tial power grew during the Jeffersonian years, Abra-ham Sofaer argues that the Virginian set a precedentin refusing to acknowledge the Federalists' call forthe documents. President Washington had taken theposition that, yes, papers that Congress had re-quested did exist, but, no,-he did not have to sendcertain confidential papers to Congress. The Jefferso-nians had responded vigorously that such official in-formation could be demanded and used by the peo-ple's representatives in the legislature. In 1803,however, (and again during the treason trial of for-mer Vice-President Aaron Burr in 1807) Jeffersontook the position that it was unnecessary to tell theCongress (or the court) that such papers even ex-isted. Instead, he labeled the documents "private" or

"confidential" and kept them out of sight. The peo-ple's representatives in Congress apparently had a

limited right to know, and the limits were deter-mined by the President.

This embarrassment eased in December 1803when Jefferson learned that Napoleon had finallypressured Spain into giving him official possession ofLouisiana. In January 1804, the forces Jefferson haddispatched under Claiborne's command a year earliercontrolled the region. The Stars and Stripes replacedthe French Tricolor over New Orleans.

One major obstacle remained, however. Jeffersonhad to create, and Congress approve, a governmentfor this vast territory. The region held fewer than100,000 inhabitants, and Jefferson believed, rightly asit turned out, that only half of those were white and

, that the remainder were largely Indian and African-American. The President indicated from the start ofthe debate that he thought only whites could governthe territory. But even some of them were suspect.New Orleans had attracted renegades and runaways,like former New York district attorney, Edward Liv-ingston, who had moved to New Orleans after hewas suspected of having illegally siphoned moneyfrom his office. Roman Catholic groups, long pro-tected by Spain, were fearful and suspicious of Jeffer-son's intentions. As for the large population of Cre-oles (those with French ancestry born in Louisiana),the President believed they were "as yet as incapableof self-government as children." When a Creole del-egation travSled to Washington to demonstrate itsability to lobby, it was turned away.

Congress divided the region into two districts:Orleans (the future state of Louisiana) and Louisiana.Late in 1803 the President sent Congress a bill forgoverning the area during the next year. This mea-sure gave the inhabitants guarantees for their "lib-erty, property, and religion," which the treaty hadobligated him to grant. There was, however, no self-government, no indication that, to repeat one of Jef-ferson's earlier principles, governments derived"their just powers from the consent of the gov-

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13 THE L O U I S I A N A PURCHASE: A D A N G E R O U S PRECEDENT

Canadian boundary settled in 1818

Spanish boundarysettled in 1819

LOtSSl&mPURCHASE

Map of the Louisiana Purchase

erned." Military officers, chosen by the President,

•were to rule in the iron-handed manner of the for-f

mer Spanish governor. They were responsible to no

local authorities, but only to the President in the far-

away city of "Washington. Senator John Quincy

Adams, who had just won election from Massachu-

setts, supported the annexation, but he was appalled

that the Constitution was being interpreted as giving

the President authority to rule the territory as a

colony. When Adams moved that a constitutional

amendment be considered to make such rule legiti-mate, no senator seconded his proposal. Jefferson'sgoverning bill passed the Senate 26 to 6.

The House's view of Jefferson's constitutionalpowers was revealed when angry Federalists attacked

the treaty provision that gave French and Spanishmerchants trade preferences in New Orleans. JosephH. Nicholson of Maryland replied for the Jeffersoni-

ans that the whole of Louisiana "is in the nature of a

colony whose commerce may be regulated without

any reference to the Constitution" and its provision

that duties be uniformly imposed throughout the

Union. Madison, with his sensitivity to such issues,

excused the Jeffersonians' tough approach by grant-

ing that while "Republican theory" would not im-

mediately govern the newly annexed people, "it may

fairly be expected that every blessing of liberty will

be extended to them as fast as they shall be prepared

and disposed to receive it." The secretary of statewas known for choosing his words carefully.

From January through March 1804, Congress dis-

cussed Jefferson's plans for a more permanent gov-

ernment, which would last until both sections of

Louisiana had enough white settlers to be entrusted•with regular territorial government. Few problems

arose in the debates until Senator James Hillhouse of

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fl

THE N A T I O N TAKES SHAPE

Connecticut proposed that slavery be prohibitedfrom both parts of the purchase. A struggle eruptedin the Senate that previewed some of the argumentsthat later threatened to splinter the Union. Whenone slave-state senator tried to stop the uproar bysaying, "I am unwilling to think let alone speak onthis subject," another grimly warned that "if weleave it, it will follow us." Jefferson notably refusedto support Hillhouse, and Senator James Jackson ofGeorgia led the opposition to the Connecticut sena-tor by declaring that Louisiana could "not be culti-vated" without slavery. He urged that the people onthe scene (many of-whom owned slaves) be allowedto decide. "You cannot prevent slavery. .. . Menwill be governed by their interest not the law." Inthe end, though, Congress again broadly construedits power by recognizing slavery where it existed inthe purchase, while allowing a previous act to standthat stringently limited the slave trade. Provisionswere added to prevent Orleans, a center of the for-eign slave trade, from becoming a state until after the1810 census. This delay not only appeased NewEngland Federalists but also prevented Orleans' entryas a state until after 1808 when, as the Constitutionprovided, the foreign trade in slaves was to end.

The final bill gave the President the power to ap-point governors over Orleans and Louisiana who,with a small legislative body they were to choose,would rule autocratically. The rights of the inhabi-tants were not "self-evident," as Jefferson had oncedescribed them, but were granted by the •will of thecentral government. The law became effective Oc-tober 1, 1804.

In less than one year Jefferson had enlarged thecentral government's constitutional powers morebroadly than had Washington and Adams in 12years. He had set a dangerous precedent, moreover,by arguing that when time was of the essence, thePresident and Congress could ignore, perhaps vio-late, the Constitution if they considered it to be inthe national interest. Critics called Jefferson's gov-ernment in Louisiana "about as despotic as that of

Turkey in Asia." The President and his supportersresponded that such a government was, unfortu-nately, necessary to ensure that the vast territorywould remain orderly until enough white Americanscould populate the region. The new states wouldthen prosper as a part of the Union with rights equalto those of the older parts.

Critics were not reassured. "We rush like a cometinto infinite space," Fisher Ames of Massachusettswarned. "In our wild career we may jostle someother world out of its orbit, but we shall, in everyevent, quench the light of our own." John Ran-dolph of Virginia had a less apocalyptic response toJefferson's actions. He had helped the President pushthe Louisiana legislation through the House. But by1806 he had turned against his fellow Virginian forCaving overthrown Republican constitutional doc-trine. There were only "two parties in all States,"Randolph concluded, "the ins and the outs." The insconstrued governmental power broadly for the gainof their own "patronage and wealth," while the outstried to limit such power. "But let the outs get in ...and you will find their Constitutional scruples andarguments vanish like dew before the morning sun."

As the ins, Jefferson and his supporters realizedlarger objectives than "patronage and wealth." Theysucceeded in transforming the Constitution into aninstrument for imperial expansion, which made itpossible for Jefferson to resolve the crisis in his greatdemocratic experiment.

But the transformation of the Constitution for thesake of "enlarging the empire of liberty" had a price.The President, as Jefferson had demonstrated, couldfind in the Constitution virtually any power heneeded to carry out the most expansive foreign pol-icy, especially if his party commanded a majority in

' Congress. Loose construction was given the seal ofbipartisanship as. the Republicans, now the ins, out-Hamiltoned Hamilton in construing the 1787 docu-ment broadly. Such loose construction would beused by others, among them President James K. Polkfrom 1845 to '46 as he maneuvered Mexico into a

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13 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE: A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

war in order to annex California, President WilliamMcKinley between 1898 and 1901 when he ex-panded U.S. power into the Philippines and landedtroops in China, and President Harry S Trumanwhen he claimed the authority to wage war inKorea. Jefferson's experiment in democracy cast longshadows.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 Why was Louisiana such an attractive prize to somany? Why was Jefferson in particular tempted byit? Who was generally opposed to the acquisition ofthe Louisiana Territory and why?

2 Describe the constitutional questions raised bythe acquisition of Louisiana. What was Jefferson's*decision, and how did it compare with the position

he took during his constitutional debates withAlexander Hamilton and the Federalists in the1790s? How do you reconcile this portrait of the po-litical Jefferson with the one drawn by Douglas Wil-son in selection 8? How do you think Jefferson com-pares with the President Washington of selection 10?

3 What kind of government did Jefferson recom-mend for the Louisiana Territory and why? Whatsocial and political ironies are there in this choice?

4 What position did Jefferson take on slavery in thenew territory, and how does it jibe with his feelingson slavery as portrayed by Douglas Wilson in selec-tion 8? How did Congress deal with this issue?

5 In what ways does LaFeber find the LouisianaPurchase "a dangerous precedent"? Do you agree?What might have happened if we had not boughtLouisiana?

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