Recently we were talking about the Louisiana purchase, which was President Thomas Jefferson’s dream. Well, originally he didn’t dream that big. To begin with, he only wanted New Orleans. The dream of “from sea to shining sea” came later. It was one of those "greatness is thrust upon them" things.
The US population was expanding, already at five million, and more land was needed, but the immediate problem for Jefferson was New Orleans. While Spain owned Louisiana, the US could use the Mississippi river and New Orleans under a treaty dating back to 1795. New Orleans controlled the shipping that channeled down from the Mississippi. Almost half (3/8) of all products: corn, fur, hogs, etc., passed through New Orleans. Jefferson realized that if the US owned New Orleans, then no other country could block the river trade, plus owning New Orleans would improve Jefferson’s chances for a second presidential term, but if France owned New Orleans then all bets were off. The inability to trade goods through New Orleans could prove fatal to the country as a whole.
Napoleon, on the other hand, had his own plans. He wanted to invade Britain but needed money. He had tried to conquer Santo Domingo for its riches (sugar, coffee, indigo), but failed due to the uprising of the black slaves, not to mention the pesky mosquitos, that killed most of his men. So Napoleon was looking for other options. Now Louisiana, in 1803, was owned by Spain, who was tired of the governing expenses. The Queen loved Tuscany, which Napoleon owned, so he proposed, and she happily traded, Louisiana for northern Italy. Napoleon rightly figured he could flip Louisiana to the US to finance his war with Britain.
Jefferson sent Livingston and Monroe to France to buy New Orleans, giving them a budget of around $10 million. The good news was that Napoleon needed a little more money than that, so he offered up all of Louisiana for $15 million. (Well, that’s like going to Neiman Marcus to buy a pair of fur lined leather gloves for $10 and being told that for $5 more a matching full length fur coat could be had; even a man wouldn’t say no to that.) The bad news, of course, was that the US didn’t have the money to pay for Louisiana. Jefferson thought that he could ask for a tax increase, but when was raising taxes ever a good idea, especially before an election. Various sources say the money was borrowed from either the Dutch, or the Dutch and England, or it all came from England, which was ironic, since Napoleon wanted the money to finance a war against England.
Next was the issue of the constitutionality of the purchase. Jefferson had no legal authority to make the purchase, then again when did illegality ever stop a president (remember Presidents FDR, Johnson, Nixon, etc). There were no provisions in the Constitution to acquire new land or give citizenship to its current inhabitants (rather like illegal Mexicans inhabiting Texas or California, which, let's face it, belonged to them in the first place). Jefferson knew it would take a long time to amend the constitution and knew that Napoleon was already regretting his sale. Buyer’s remorse. Fortunately, the treaty was rushed through Congress in four days and ratified by a vote of 24 - 7.
The US now owned New Orleans and Louisiana, but what did it own? It was like the reality show Storage Wars — what’s in the box? (Or like Nancy Pelosi telling us we have to sign the ACA in order to find out what was in it). Jefferson next asked Congress to spring $2500. for the exploration of the new territory and off went Lewis and Clark. The rest is history.
Well, there is a bit more history. Post Jefferson Louisiana — Louisiana was admitted to the union in 1812, but it was a slave state, which made the northern states unhappy. In 1819 the Missouri Compromise was reached: the Louisiana territory would be broken down into two states at a time: one free, one slave. Any state north of Arkansas’ borders would be a free state, while those below would be slave states. The Missouri Compromise held until the civil war.
So, has anything changed in politics? Illegal dealings, rushing bills through Congress. It goes on and on. Nothing changes, does it.
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