Thomas Jefferson And The Louisiana Purchase

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Did Thomas Jefferson make the right deal on purchasing the Louisiana Territory in 1803? I believe Thomas Jefferson made the right choice of accepting the deal Napoleon Bonaparte offered. The Louisiana Purchase was one of the biggest and cheapest land deals in United States history. The Louisiana Purchase involved two countries, the United States and France, and a big bill for the newly formed United States. Thomas Jefferson doing his best to follow the constitution would soon find it difficult to do so. When Spain gave the Louisiana territory back to France, Jefferson was hit with a dilemma. Thomas Jefferson was caught between his ideas and reality, and with the Pinckney Treaty now void, Jefferson had to find a way to get access to the Mississippi …show more content…

The purchase was a struggle mentally that he would debate about for the rest of his life. Even though, Thomas Jefferson was a strict interpreter of the constitution, he could possibly be considered a hypocrite, for example, Jefferson told Alexander Hamilton that the President does not have “so-called” implied powers to construct a National Bank to later go on and use implied powers on the Louisiana Purchase; Going as far as to say “I stretched the constitution till it cracked.” (Jesse Greenspan pg. 3) Thomas Jefferson had many factions pushing and pulling on him. On one side a Federalist who was quoted by saying “We are to give money of which we have too little for land which we have too much.” (Greenspan pg. 2) On the other Jefferson had War Hawkes and farmers who wanted to go to war over the New Orleans. The most noted of whom was Alexander Hamilton who wrote under a pen name, Pericles, saying “The United States should seize at once Florida and New Orleans and then negotiate.” (Greenspan pg. 3) Thomas Jefferson possibly saved the nation from a premature civil war. Jefferson also believed with the France in the picture it would stop the United States from expanding westward. It also stopped Jefferson’s vision of an “Empire of Liberty.” (Clifford E. Clark Jr. pg. 241) Where Jefferson thought the United States would be the “benchmark of democracy” that other countries would …show more content…

Without the United States, being a global superpower, Germany may have won World War I or II, China and Russia might be the ones in the Cold War, they may never constructed The Panama Canal, France, Spain, Great Brittan, Canada or even Mexico could possibly own the United States. There are many of “what ifs” but one thing is for certain, with Thomas Jefferson buying the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte, The United States would not be the superpower, global force, the benchmark of democracy, or economic powerhouse it is

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