10 Sep 2008 - HIST465 Notes - Jefferson and the "Empire of Liberty"

• Jefferson abandons small government ideals for expansionist dreams, greatly increases executive powers
• Louisiana - French ceded to Spain, which gave it back to Napoleon
• Spanish were allowing American settlers to flow into LA; officials weren't sure that France would do the same
• Napoleon wants to reassert French power in the Caribbean, recapture Haiti (and use New Orleans as a launching point for this campaign)
• Jefferson initially in favor of French pacification of Haiti - doesn't want precedent of a successful slave revolt to take hold - but hesitant about extreme French power in new world, especially what French might do to Mississippi navigation rights
• writes Livingston in Paris: "The day French takes New Orleans, we must marry ourselves to the British"
• January 1803 - Jefferson empowers James Monroe to go to Europe to assist Robert Livingston in negotiations for New Orleans, with an offer of 10 million dollars, despite lack of Constitutional backing of this power
  
• At the time, Americans believe New Orleans includes Spanish west Florida
• Jefferson is authorized by Congress to call up 80k militiamen to prepare to fight someone in New Orleans
• In the meantime, the Caribbean isn't going well at the same time Napoleon decides to restart the European war - this convinces him he wants to sell LA
• Talleyrand approaches Monroe - won't sell New Orleans for 10 million, but will sell all of LA for 15 million
• Napoleon understood he was making the US into a power - hoping for an ally in his neverending war against Britain - over 800 sq mi for 15 million - doubles the size of the US
• Not everyone in Congress approved of Louisiana Purchase - Federalists complained of Jefferson's usurping of executive power
• Some also squabbled about including mixed-race citizens
• Treaty ratified 24-7
• Boundaries with West Florida are undefined- Jefferson sends troops in 1804, claiming territory for US
• Spain would continue to claim something was fishy with deal, that US had purchased stolen goods
• Quickly after ratification of treaty, Jefferson begins plans to explore - Lewis and Clark
• L&C go all the way to Oregon Territory, which isn't clearly American but also claimed by British
• Zebulon Pike - 1806-07, traveled into Spanish Territory, discovered Pike's Peak in Colorado
• Aaron Burr - shoots Hamilton, goes on the lam, starts to raise money and troops to try and found an independent nation, is finally caught and brought back to stand trial for treason, is acquitted
• John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Company - envisions a line of forts along L&C line to guard fur empire against British/Spanish/Indian interference
• Jefferson - was naturalist, wanted to know what was in territory to help build agrarian civilization - vision of the West as engine of American political system
• Settlers would develop the West and themselves as republican citizens
• "If the Indians did not willingly abandon traditional ways, take up the plow, and melt into the white population, they would be banished beyond the frontier."
• Louisiana would be a front for American liberty
• First War with the "Barbary Pirates" 1801-05 - Jefferson realizes American commerce is necessary, and determined to protect it; 1801 - longstanding tensions finally erupt in full out war; 1803 - USS Philadelphia is run aground in Tripoli, surrenders; 1804 - Decatur leads a daring raid, burn the ship