The Louisiana Purchase, Research Paper Example

With the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and as is famously known, President Thomas Jefferson literally doubled the size of the existing United States. Beyond this, it is as well commonly known that Jefferson was motivated to protect U.S. interests over the port of New Orleans and access to the Mississippi River. Less known is that the French were willing to part with the vast amount of land simply because Napolean Bonaparte was in desperate need of money to wage his European wars. In fact, a variety of complex, international interactions, including Spain’s transfer of Louisiana back to the French in 1802, and Napolean’s lack of interest in the territory because he no longer needed it to feed his Caribbean domains, all led up to this major event (Jaffe 18-23). The Louisiana Purchase was not a simple, if enormous, investment of America on itself, but a risky strategy in an era when European struggles still commanded the world, and the powers of the U.S. presidency itself were evolving.

In no uncertain terms, what the Louisiana Purchase presented was a major instance of a president applying broad, discretionary powers. As Jefferson himself acknowledged, the Constitution did not contain any provisions for the action of acquiring a massive territory from a foreign power. It was a gamble based on the ideology that, as it was for the welfare of the nation, the lack of authority justified carrying it out. Later, President Lincoln would summarize Jefferson’s policy in exactly this way, as he himself would enforce actions, such as the blockade on the South, without gaining the approval of congress (Krent 134). It very much seems that, as the country was continuing to understand its own foundation, Jefferson was acting to somewhat test and expand powers still very new to all branches of the government. Only decades earlier, England had been the power making decisions of this magnitude, and Jefferson writes of the attitudes of himself and his fellow members of the early legislature in 1769: “Our minds were circumscribed…by the habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country” (Jefferson 7). It is likely, then, that Jefferson was not out to deliberately exercise undue authority in making the Purchase; more simply, the Constitution itself was an evolving document, and history was unfolding in a way to excuse a liberal interpretation of it. Put another way, the nation’s leaders were “growing into” their roles as independent policy-makers without any guidance or orders from England.

It is easy to forget today that the Purchase was not a simple act of trade between nations; in that era, intense national conflicts were in place, with Spain and France competing for footholds in North America. These conflicts would often become military actions, and Jefferson prepared for potential trouble. He ordered troops to be ready in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee in 1804, in case the necessary transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France did not go as planned (Jefferson Message to Senate). Fortunately, the transfer went ahead with little trouble, and the nation was suddenly, by virtue of mere size, a major player in the global arena. It is probable that no one of the era, including Jefferson himself, could have predicted what this acquisition would mean for the U.S., as so much of the purchased land was virtually unclaimed and wild. Nonetheless, that single factor of land expansion gave the U.S. an international standing far beyond that of being the isolated collective of Eastern colonies that had established independence.

More importantly, and again,. Jefferson did not cavalierly abuse his office and expand his powers illegally. Rather, he was operating in an absence of authority, not in defiance of any, and he definitely recognized the vulnerability of his position. Jefferson was certainly aware of all of the tensions existing before the transaction, and that his action in negotiating with France was not unopposed. In 1805, delivering his second inaugural address, he refers to the controversy of the Louisiana Purchase. He also, however, reminds the nation that increased size translates to increased security: “The larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions” (Jefferson, 2^nd Address). Only three decades old, this was a country that very much needed as much sheer acreage as it could get, in order to protect itself from foreign interference. Consequently, the Louisiana Purchase was a risky venture in an unstable era, yet one that proved how presidential discretion could truly serve the national interest.

Works Cited

Jaffe, Elizabeth Dana. The Louisiana Purchase. Mankato: Capstone Press, 2002. Print.

Jefferson, Thomas. Message to the Senate and House of January 16, 1804. Yale Law Schoo, Lillian Goldman Library. Web. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/tj006.asp

Jefferson, Thomas. Second Inaugural Address, 4 March, 1805. Yale Law School. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Web. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp

Jefferson, Thomas. The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson. Mineola: Dover Publications, 2005. Print.

Krent, Thomas. Presidential Powers. New York: New York University Press, 2005. Print.