After the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson set out to shrink the national government: he cut the army and navy, paid down the debt, and let the whiskey tax end. Then a chance came that no strict reading of the Constitution had planned for.
Key idea
In 1803 the United States bought Louisiana from France for about \$15 million. It was about 828,000 square miles, from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, and it roughly doubled the country. All or part of fifteen later states came from it. Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore it (1804 to 1806).
Why it works
Why did Jefferson want it? Western farmers shipped their crops down the Mississippi to New Orleans, so whoever held the port held the West's trade. Jefferson only meant to buy New Orleans. But Napoleon, who had just lost an army fighting a revolution in Haiti and expected war with Britain, offered all of Louisiana. Jefferson took it, though the Constitution says nothing about buying land. He drafted an amendment to allow it, then dropped the idea and used the treaty power.
Worked example: A strict constructionist buys an empire
Jefferson had argued that the national government has only the powers the Constitution lists. Why was the Louisiana Purchase awkward for him, and how did he justify it?
- The Constitution does not list a power to buy territory or to add it to the Union.
- By his own strict reading, that was a reason to doubt the purchase was allowed.
- He wrote a draft amendment, but feared Napoleon might change his mind while it was debated.
- He used the power to make treaties, and the Senate approved the treaty 24 to 7 in October 1803.
Answer: It stretched his strict reading; he relied on the treaty power instead of waiting for an amendment.
Common mistake
The purchase was not just the present state of Louisiana. It covered the land drained by the Missouri and the western Mississippi, from New Orleans up to Canada and west to the Rockies. Check on the map: Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas came from it too.
France sold a claim, not empty land. Most of Louisiana was the homeland of Native nations, such as the Osage, Lakota, Mandan and Shoshone. Lewis and Clark depended on Native help, including the Shoshone woman Sacagawea, who traveled with the expedition with her husband and infant son.