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- [00:02]
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- [00:38]
Podcast Narrator Intro
In general, I'm not a big fan of speculative history. What if the Nazis won? What if Lee Harvey Oswald missed? What if New Coke was a spectacular success because the butterfly effect is real, and the disruptions in the timeline that these hypotheticals pose are so enormous that there's no way of knowing what would have happened? History isn't a steady stream of events. It's a scintillating fractal that confounds the human mind with its sheer complexity. But speculative history sure is fun sometimes. And on today's Saturday matinee, we're asking the question, what if the Louisiana Purchase never happened? Would Canada be on the United States northern and western border? Would we be in serious competition with a much larger Republic of Texas? Would people in Kansas City, Omaha and Little Rock be speaking French? From an episode of the podcast History Analyzed comes well an analysis of the history behind the Louisiana Purchase, what it was, how it happened, who was responsible, and then the big speculative what if it didn't happen at all? I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow History Analyzed. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.
- [01:54]
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- [02:24]
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- [03:25]
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- [04:05]
Mark Palmer (Host, History Analyzed)
Welcome everybody, to History Analyzed. I'm your host Mark Palmer. This is a podcast which examines historical events and issues. The event we're analyzing today is the Louisiana Purchase. I'll explain in detail later on, but the Louisiana Territory was essentially all of the land between the Mississippi river and the Rocky Mountains, from Canada down to around Texas and including what is now the State of Louisiana. It's often called the greatest real estate deal in history. Thomas Jefferson bought the enormous Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, and it doubled the size of the United States. This set America on its expansion known as Manifest Destiny from the Atlantic to the Pacific, resulting in the Colossus. We know today a lot of things occurred by chance for the Louisiana Purchase to occur. I'll explain those in detail later on. I'll also discuss what would have happened if France did not sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States. We'll get into those hypotheticals later, but first let's go into what actually happened at the time of the American Revolution. The 13 colonies which would become the United States were located along the Atlantic coast from Maine down to Georgia. The western boundary was basically the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians run from the Northeast to the Southwest, starting in Canada and ending in Alabama. It's very strange, but the Appalachian Mountain range is has separate names in many states. In New Hampshire, the Appalachians are known as the White Mountains. In Vermont, they're called the Green Mountains. By the way, that's where the name Vermont comes from, A roughly anglicized version of two French words meaning green and mountain Vermont. In Massachusetts, the Appalachians are called the Berkshires. In New York, they're the Catskills. In Pennsylvania, they are the Poconos. In Virginia and West Virginia, they are known as the Blue Ridge Mountains. In North Carolina and Tennessee, they are the Great Smoky Mountains. And there are probably some other local names that I'm leaving out. The mountain range served as a natural boundary for the British colonies. In 1763, King George III issued a decree which included what has come to be known as the proclamation line of 1763. It prohibited British subjects in the Thirteen Colonies from moving west of the Appalachian Mountains. During the American Revolution, the people who came to think of themselves as Americans and no longer British subjects were essentially confined along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia with that western boundary of the Appalachian Mountains. Yet this drastically changed when the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. That treaty in 19 ended the American Revolution. It was one of a series of treaties signed at Paris in 1783 that also established peace between Britain and the allied nations of France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Those countries weren't doing this for some altruistic reason to help the Americans. It's just that the British were their enemies at the time. The second article of the Treaty of Paris set the boundaries for the new nation. Essentially, the borders of the new United States of America were from the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Mississippi river to the west, what is now Canada to the north, and Florida to the south. In those days, when they talked about Florida, that meant all of the present state of Florida as well as the Gulf coast all the way to the Mississippi River. Why did these European states agree to give such generous borders to the United States? As I explained earlier, at the time of the American Revolution, just about everybody lived between the Atlantic and the Appalachian Mountains. So why was the new country given all of that land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River? This basically doubled the size of the country. It's because the European powers would rather give this land to the new and weak US Instead of one of their European rivals having all of that land between the Mississippi and the Appalachian Mountains. So the United States doubled its territory with the conclusion of the Revolutionary war. That was 1783. Twenty years later, the US would double in size again with the Louisiana Purchase. This is probably A good time to discuss the Native Americans. First, let's discuss that term that means the people who were living in the Americas when Columbus first got here. The people that Columbus mistakenly called Indians. For people outside of the United States, it might be somewhat of a confusing term. I was born in the us, but I am not a Native American, at least not in that sense. The term Native Americans means the indigenous peoples and their descendants that were living here in the Americas when the Europeans arrived. Obviously, the Native Americans were never consulted and barely even considered when the Europeans or their descendants were decided who owned what land. Just bear that in mind throughout this episode when we are discussing the various transfers of land ownership. The people who were living there and had been living there for centuries had no say in the matter. To understand the Louisiana Purchase, you have to have a framework of the general colonization of the Americas. Of course, it all started in 1492 with Christopher Columbus. Columbus tried to find a way to Asia, but by sailing west. There is a common myth that Columbus sailed to prove that the Earth was round. Not true. For centuries, educated people knew that the world was round. Columbus wanted to find a new route to Asia by sailing west from Europe. He wasn't the first to have the idea that Europeans could reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic. However, most people who considered such a voyage calculated that it was much too far and that it could not be done because people on the ships would run out of food and water. So why did Columbus think that he could make such a voyage? It's because he miscalculated the size of the Earth. Columbus thought that the Earth was much smaller than it really is. So he believed that ships could reach Asia before they ran out of supplies. Amazingly, and by sheer coincidence, the distance from Spain to the Americas was roughly what Columbus thought the distance would be to reach asia. In the 1400s, nobody in Europe knew that the Americas existed. Yes, I'm aware that the Vikings had arrived in what's now Canada around the year 1000 CE. Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, led the first group of Vikings to North America. He named the area Vinland, but that knowledge had been lost. It was through sheer luck that Columbus found land approximately where he expected it. It's just that Columbus and his crew were in the Americas and not Asia until he died. Columbus insisted that he had found the Indies, which is what he called the lands of East Asia. That's the reason why he called the indigenous people Indians. But another Italian explorer who sailed on behalf of Spain and later for Portugal, named Amerigo Vespucci was apparently the first one to understand that the lands found by Columbus or were a new continent turned out to be two continents that nobody in the old world of Europe, Asia and Africa knew existed. In 1507, a German map maker named Martin Wolfseemuller made a map of the known world. This was the first map to clearly show a separate Western hemisphere as well as the Pacific Ocean. Although it had not yet been named the Pacific Ocean. Up until the time of Columbus, Europeans thought that the Atlantic Ocean stretched all the way to Eastern Asia, with the Indian Ocean on the south side of Asia and to the east of Africa. Since it was Amerigo Vespucci who first understood that these western lands were not Asia, but a separate continent, Wolfsey Muller named the new continent America, a Latinized and female version of his first name, Amerigo. When Europeans understood that the Western hemisphere was actually two continents, we got the names of North America and South America. There were other European powers at the time, but in the 1490s, only Portugal and Spain were seriously exploring the world. This brings us to the Treaty of Tordesillas. That was a treaty signed between Portugal and Spain in June 1494, dividing the world into two spheres of influence. The eastern half belonged to Portugal and the western half belonged to Spain. This was more than 23 years before the big event of October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany. This meant that the Treaty of Tordesillas occurred before the Protestant Reformation, meaning that this was a time when the Pope still had great influence over all the kings of Europe. It was the Pope that divided the world in half between the Spanish and the Portuguese. In a conference between the Spanish and Portuguese in the town of Tordesillas, Spain, a straight vertical line was drawn on the map from north to south. All lands east of that line belonged to Portugal, and all lands west of that line belonged to Spain. Think about how absurd this was. Nobody consulted the other European powers, and more important, nobody consulted the millions of people living in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This was before Europeans knew that Australia or New Zealand existed. The north south line of demarcation was defined as 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. That's a group of islands off the west coast of North Africa, directly west of modern Senegal. A league was a unit of measurement. In those days, it's no longer used. The length of a league was different in different countries, generally somewhere around three miles or just under five kilometers. The line of demarcation was eventually moved to 370 miles, 70 leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands. The two sides agreed to this so Portugal could claim the east coast of what is now Brazil. Of course, Brazil eventually expanded westward of that line. The line of demarcation ended up at approximately 46 degrees west of the prime meridian of Greenwich, England, roughly around modern day Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Treaty of Tordesillas is the reason why most of the countries south of the United States speak Spanish, except for Brazil, which speaks Portuguese. Most people know that there are Caribbean islands which speak other languages. But are there any countries south of the US that are not island nations that speak a language other than Spanish or Portuguese? Yes, there are four such countries on the mainland of North America and South America. One is Belize. It's a small country that borders Mexico and Guatemala. Its official language is English. Then there are three little countries on the northern coast of South America between Venezuela and Brazil. One is called Guyana, and its official language is English. Just to the east of Guyana is the country of Suriname. The official language of that country is Dutch. You have to remember that the Dutch at one point had a pretty extensive empire for such a tiny country. New York City was originally a Dutch colony called New Amsterdam. Just to the east of Suriname is French Guiana. With a name like that, obviously their official language is French. But here's the wild part about French Guiana. It's considered an overseas department of France. It's not a separate country or a colony. It's kind of the way we Americans look at Hawaii or Alaska. It's considered part of France. That means that officially France borders Brazil. Now let's talk about colonization in North America. The Spanish had an enormous colony called New Spain, which covered all of modern day Mexico, as well as other territories, including most of the southwest part of the United States and Florida, a country most people don't think about possessing. Part of North America was Russia. Shocking, right, Russia. Russia owned what is now Alaska and in those days was called Russian America. And Russia was one of the countries that also claimed what came to be known as the Oregon country or Oregon Territory, which I'll get to later. When William Seward was Secretary of state in 1867, he was the main reason the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia, which added over 600,000 square miles, or 1,554,000 square kilometers to the U.S. but Russia, like the Dutch, proved to be a minor player in North America. The two European countries that mainly fought with Spain for North America were Britain and France. The English developed the 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast, which eventually rebelled and became the United States. Okay, time to get sidetracked. Everybody talks about the 13 colonies which became the 13 original states, which is why we have 13 red and white stripes on the American flag. But were there really 13 colonies at the time of the American Revolution? Those 13 colonies were Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, which included Maine in those days, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Delaware. I listed Delaware last because there's an ongoing debate about whether Delaware was ever a separate colony. At the time of the American Revolution, Delaware was kind of part of Pennsylvania, but it was a semi autonomous region known as the lower counties on the Delaware. Beginning in 1704, a separate assembly governed the lower counties. According to the Delaware Historical Society website, Delaware declared its independence from Great Britain on June 15, 1776, and thereby also became independent of Pennsylvania, with which it had been connected since 1682. However, Delaware sent delegates to the first and Second Continental Congresses in 1774 and 1775. This would indicate that they were a separate colony, or at least they considered themselves a separate colony before they declared independence in 1776. And representatives from Delaware signed the Declaration of Independence. And while we're speaking of Delaware, if you've ever noticed their license plates, Delaware calls itself the first state. Why is that? It's because on December 7, 1787, Delaware was the first state to ratify the US Constitution. So I've given you an outline of the North American colonies belonging to the British, French, Russians, Spanish and Dutch. There's one that gets totally overlooked. Sweden had a colony called New Sweden, roughly in the area that's now Delaware and southern New Jersey. Nobody ever thinks that Sweden had a colony in what later became the United States. It didn't last very long. Approximately 17 or 18 years in the 1600s. Now, let's talk about the French. When people think of French colonies in North America, they of course, think of modern day Canada. Canada has 10 provinces, one of which, Quebec predominantly speaks French today. The French were claiming the areas along the St. Lawrence river and the Great Lakes. But France was also claiming an enormous area in the interior of the continent. In 1682, French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed the land around the Mississippi river and all of its tributaries for France. I had always thought that La Salle went up the Mississippi river from the Gulf of Mexico, but no, he explored the Mississippi river from the north from the opposite direction. La Salle went from the St. Lawrence river in modern day Quebec through Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan. La Salle led his expedition overland and then went down some tributary rivers until they reached the Mississippi. They went all the way down to the mouth of the Mississippi at the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed this land for France and named it Louisiana in honor of King Louis xiv, the Sun King. According to La Salle, France now owned all of the land encompassing the Mississippi drainage basin. That means all of the lands with rivers that eventually flow into the Mississippi River. If you look at a map, the Mississippi dominates North America. It's a giant river which runs pretty much north to south from Minnesota down to Louisiana into the Gulf of Mexico. And it's not just that one river. Look at a map of the tributaries of the Mississippi. There are major rivers that eventually flow into the Mississippi, including the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Illinois, the Missouri, the Arkansas, and the Red. For any of you Southerners who want to yell at me that the Tennessee does not flow into the Mississippi, yes, I am aware that the Tennessee flows into the Ohio, but the Ohio then flows into the Mississippi, so it counts as a tributary of the Mississippi.
- [22:29]
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- [22:45]
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- [23:15]
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- [23:45]
Mark Palmer (Host, History Analyzed)
Oh, no.
- [23:46]
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- [24:00]
Mark Palmer (Host, History Analyzed)
The Mississippi river system is an enormous drainage basin for everything between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains. And it all eventually flowed down into southern Louisiana, where it goes out into the Gulf of Mexico. The French understood this, and this is why they founded the city of New Orleans in 1718. They picked this spot approximately 95 miles, or 153 kilometers from the mouth of the Mississippi, because it was slightly elevated land, and I do mean slightly above the river. Most of this land was very marshy, and you could not build upon it. The area around New Orleans provided some stable land, and the French did not want to go too far inland from the Gulf because they felt that they would not be controlling the flow of river traffic to and from the Gulf of Mexico. Whoever controlled New Orleans could control this enormous watershed between the Rockies and the Appalachians. Some of you might be wondering why rivers were so important today. Rivers are still valuable as sources of fresh water, beauty, recreation, and transportation. But they've lost their importance for Commerce. In the 1700s and early 1800s, there were no railroads or motor vehicles. Goods were primarily moved by ships. That's why canals became such a big deal. Which brings us to New York City. There are several factors why New York became the center of commerce in the Western Hemisphere, but the two biggest factors both relate to water. Number one, New York City has one of the greatest natural harbors in the entire world. Two, the Erie Canal. According to the Library of Congress, the Erie Canal opened on October 26, 1825. That artificial waterway connected Lake Erie to the Hudson River. This meant that the enormous region around the five Great Lakes could now transport materials through the Great Lakes, through the Erie Canal, and down the Hudson river to New York City. It also meant that goods could go the other way and helped spur the growth of cities and towns around the Great Lakes. The fact that all of the commerce to and from this immense Great Lakes region was going through New York City helped make the Big Apple the business center of America. The Erie Canal allowed the young United States to develop the Great Lakes region. But what about all of that area south of the Great Lakes between the Appalachians and the Mississippi? All of the commerce for that area had to go down the Mississippi river and through New Orleans. Whoever controlled New Orleans had a stranglehold on this part of the United States, as well as that giant area west of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. That area referred to as Louisiana. Although the French claimed the entire Mississippi watershed, they did not do much to develop it, As I just Explained. They founded New Orleans in 1718. Around that time, they also developed Baton Rouge, which is now the state capital of Louisiana. A half century later, in 1764, the French founded St. Louis in modern day Missouri. St. Louis was named after King Louis IX of France. The French pronounce it Louis, we pronounce it Lois. But why was it named St. Louis instead of King Louis? Upon his death, Louis IX became the only king of France to ever be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church because of his involvement in the Crusades. In case you're not familiar with that term. The Crusades were a series of religious wars fought between Christians and Muslims in medieval times for control of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. Essentially a lot of killing in the name of God. Getting back to the city of St. Louis, it was a strategic position because it's near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, meaning where the Missouri flows into the Mississippi. Fun fact. The Missouri is the longest river in North America. Most people think the Mississippi is longest. However, according to the National Park Service, the Mississippi river is 2,350 miles, or 3,781 kilometers long. But the National Park Service states that the Missouri river is approximately 100 miles or 160 kilometers longer than the Mississippi. Before the time of the American Revolution, France lost all of its dominions in North America. This was the result of a war called the Seven Years War in Europe and called the French and Indian War in the United States. That was an enormous war being waged in Europe as well as North America, fought between the two superpowers of the time, France and Britain. When it looked like France was going to lose the war, the French realized they did not want all of their North American possessions to go to the British. So they made a smart move. In the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, the French secretly transferred ownership of the vast Louisiana territory to Spain. Why would the French give this giant piece of land to Spain? There were three reasons for this. Number one, France and Britain were mortal enemies at the time. It was kind of like the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Number two, towards the end of the Seven Years War, Spain joined the war as an ally of France and opponent of Britain. Three, Spain was relatively weak. Starting with the explorations of Columbus, the Spanish created an enormous empire throughout the Americas, the Caribbean and the Philippines. For a while, Spain was the richest and most powerful country in the world. But by the mid-1700s, Spanish power had greatly waned. France would rather see the relatively weak Spanish get Louisiana than the most powerful country in the world at the time, Great Britain. In 1763, the Seven Years War, also known as the French and Indian War, ended with the Treaty of Paris. Pursuant to that treaty, Britain took all of France's North American possessions. That included all the area east of the Mississippi and in the north, what is now Canada. France was allowed to keep two tiny islands off the coast of Newfoundland, St. Pierre and Miquelon. In fact, those two islands still belong to France today. The Spanish had already taken ownership of that giant area west of the Mississippi, meaning Louisiana. Okay, so that was 1763. Now you're probably wondering, how is it that 40 years later, Napoleon sold Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson in the United States? Didn't Spain own Louisiana? This occurred because Spain traded Louisiana back to France in a secret deal in 1800. This is called the 1800 Treaty of San Ildefonso. I know it's confusing. France was given the enormous Louisiana territory, and Spain got a small amount of land in what is now Italy. This seems like a terrible deal for Spain. Why would they do that? There are several reasons, but the main reason is that Spain was having great difficulty holding on to their colonies in the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish were stretched way too thin to control their enormous empire. They simply couldn't hold onto it. Louisiana was very sparsely populated by Europeans and people of European descent. Remember, nobody was counting the Native Americans in those days. Nobody consulted the Native Americans. They didn't care much about them and only wished to take their lands. The Europeans and people of European descent were mostly concentrated in New Orleans and St. Louis. The Spanish realized they probably could not defend Louisiana and against the ever expanding United States. By 1800, it was already clear that the US was expanding westward. The Spanish did not believe that they could stop the Americans if they started crossing the Mississippi in great numbers. So it seemed like a good deal to get at least something for Louisiana. But why did the French want Louisiana? Of course, one way to look at it is why wouldn't they want this giant piece of territory? Napoleon wanted to recreate the French empire in the Americas that centered around a colony which was a tremendous cash machine for France. Saint Domingue. That was the prior name for what is now the country of Haiti. After Cuba, the second biggest island in the Caribbean is Hispaniola. That island is now divided between Haiti on the western side and the Dominican Republic on the eastern side. Saint Domingue was an incredibly profitable colony for France because of sugar and to a lesser extent, coffee. Sugar was especially valuable. Any Caribbean island producing Sugar made tons of money. But in the days before machinery, this was a crop which required a lot of backbreaking labor. And of course, we all know who performed that labor. It wasn't the Europeans. It was the imported enslaved Africans and their descendants. By the late 1700s, the numbers of enslaved blacks and free blacks Greatly outnumbered the whites in Saint Domingue. Between 1791 and New Year's 1804, there was a revolution in Saint Domingue. The blacks eventually won and established the first country governed by black people in the western hemisphere. And I know there are people out there who like to argue that the division between the eastern hemisphere and western hemisphere is the prime meridian of Greenwich, England. Under that argument, some of the countries in West Africa, like Senegal and Liberia, would be considered the western hemisphere. I've never bought that interpretation. I go by the common definition that the western hemisphere comprises the Americas. And the eastern hemisphere comprises all of Europe, Asia, Oceania, and all of Africa. This brings us to Napoleon. Conquering most of Europe. And having almost constant wars proved to be very expensive. Napoleon needed to pay for all of those military costs. So he wanted all of that money France used to get from Saint Domingue from sugar and coffee. That's why Napoleon tried to re establish French control of Saint Domingue. How were these rebels in Saint Domingue, Haiti, going to resist Napoleon, who at this point, seemed invincible? The Haitians had a giant plus tropical diseases, primarily yellow fever and malaria. If you want a great historical depiction of irony, this is it. There were many European diseases which killed the native Americans, including measles and influenza. But by far the biggest killer was smallpox. The natives in the Americas had no immunity to these European diseases. The Europeans had immunity to these diseases because they had been exposed to the diseases such as smallpox. Growing up in Europe, European diseases eventually killed approximately 90% of the native Americans. And throughout the Western hemisphere, those people who are now occupying and running Saint Domingue, Haiti, were not the natives. When Columbus arrived at Hispaniola in 1492, those natives were the Taino. Unfortunately, European diseases killed the vast majority of the Taino. The black population who now lived in Haiti. Were descendants of those poor people. Who suffered from the African slave trade. These people were born and raised in the Caribbean. And had developed immunities to yellow fever and malaria. When Napoleon sent troops from France, the Europeans did not have any immunities to these tropical diseases. And the vast majority of them became seriously ill and many died. That is why Napoleon could not reconquer what the French still thought of as Saint Domingue. As I gave you this outline of the history of Haiti, you were wondering what's this have to do with today's topic of Louisiana. Napoleon wanted Louisiana to supply food for all of the free and enslaved peoples in Haiti. The French did not want to grow any food staples on Haiti. They wanted all of the land used for the cash crops of sugar and coffee. But they obviously needed to feed the people on Haiti. It would be a lot easier to supply food and other materials like lumber from Louisiana than from Europe. Louisiana was much closer and that mattered because Napoleon was almost constantly at war with the British, who had the largest navy in the world. So once Napoleon realized that he could not re establish the colony of Saint Domingue, he did not see much use for Louisiana. A giant territory in the middle of North America would cost France more than it would produce. And Napoleon needed money to finance his wars. That's why he was willing to sell it to the Americans. Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800. Actually, he wasn't truly elected president until 1801. That's because of poor planning by the Founding Fathers at the constitutional convention in 1787, the US Constitution set up the ridiculous electoral college system which is how we still elect the President and Vice President. The problem came from language in Article 2, Section 1, where it states that the electors would vote for two people and whoever got the highest number of votes would be President and who got the second highest would be Vice President. In the election of 1800, there were two political parties. The Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams and the Democratic Republicans were led by Thomas Jefferson. That second party was usually just called the Republicans for short. Both of those parties went out of existence. The current Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an anti slavery party and has no connection with Thomas Jefferson's party party. Since people voted along party lines, the Republican electors all voted for the same two. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr with the intent that Jefferson would be President and Burr Vice President. However, under the Constitution as it existed at the time, the electors did not designate who they were voting for to be President or Vice President. They Simply voted for two people pursuant to Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. Since there was a tie, the House of Representatives had to choose between Jefferson and Burr. This is when Alexander Hamilton stepped in. Hamilton and Jefferson really disliked each other. They were both members of George Washington's cabinet and fought each other on most issues. But Hamilton told the Federalists that as much as he disliked Jefferson, he knew that Jefferson would be much better for the country than Aaron Burr. This swung the election to Jefferson, and Burr became Vice President. This also added to the animosity between Hamilton and Burr, eventually resulting in the duel on July 11, 1804, at Weehawken, New Jersey, whereby the sitting Vice President of the United States killed the prior Secretary of the Treasury. By the way, this problem of electing the President and Vice President was resolved with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified on June 15, 1804. The 12th Amendment specifically states that electors shall name in their ballots the person voted for as president, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as vice president. Jefferson learned of the secret transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France. This caused Jefferson great concern because Spain was weak at this point, but Napoleonic France was one of the two superpowers of the world. As Jefferson explained in an early 1802 letter to Robert Livingston, American minister to France, there is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of 3/8 of our territory must pass to market. Jefferson only wanted to purchase New Orleans and the area around the city. Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to assist Robert Livingston to try to purchase New Orleans. If the name James Monroe sounds familiar, it's because he later became the fifth President of the United States and is most famous for the Monroe Doctrine. Although it's called the Monroe Doctrine, a lot of historians believe that Monroe's Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, deserves a lot of the credit. It was stated as part of Monroe's annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823, wherein Monroe stated as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. In other words, no new European colonies in the Americas. When Monroe stated this policy in 1823, there were very few remaining European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the Spanish colonies had already gained their independence or were in the process of doing so. But the Monroe Doctrine was 20 years in the future. In the spring of 1803, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand surprised Livingstone and Monroe when he told them that Napoleon was willing to sell the entire Louisiana territory to the United States. President Jefferson had authorized up to $10 million to purchase New Orleans. What were the two American negotiators to do? It's not like today where communication is instantaneous. If they wrote back to President Jefferson and asked for instructions. It would take weeks for the messages to go into each way across the Atlantic by ship. Livingston and Monroe realized that this was an incredible offer that was too good to pass up. So after some haggling about the price, the Americans agreed to purchase all of Louisiana for $15 million. The treaty for the Louisiana Purchase was signed on April 30, 1803. The news did not reach Thomas Jefferson until July 3rd of that year. It took a long time for news to travel by ship across the Atlant. The next day was Independence Day and the Louisiana Purchase was announced to the nation. You would think that all Americans would be incredibly happy about the Louisiana Purchase. Thomas Jefferson just doubled the size of the country. Who could argue against that? It was mostly the Federalists who were based in the Northeast and New England in particular. Jefferson and his Democratic Republicans loved the idea of a country based on small farmers. Most of this land in the middle of the continent would probably become farms. The Federalists generally felt that America's future lay in industry. All of this new farmland would take factory workers and sailors away from their businesses. They would go become independent farmers in the Midwest. Federalists also complained about the 15 million dollar price tag. That was an awful lot of money in those days. In fact, the United States did not have it. The Louisiana Purchase was primarily financed through US government bonds. I think the Federalists were being incredibly short sighted. The Louisiana Purchase was an extraordinary deal and would have been worthwhile at a much larger price. Did Thomas Jefferson have the legal authority to buy Louisiana? This was a big debate at the time. Jefferson himself really doubted whether he had such power under the US Constitution. In a letter to John Dickinson dated August 9, 1803, Jefferson but there is a difficulty in this acquisition which presents a handle to the malcontents among us, though they have not yet discovered it. Our confederation is certainly confined to the limits established by the Revolution. The general government has no powers but such as the Constitution has given it. And it has not given it a power of holding foreign territory and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this. Jefferson realized that a constitutional amendment would take way too much time and Napoleon might change his mind and this incredible deal might slip away. In a 180 degree political turn, he decided to act like his nemesis Alexander Hamilton. During the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, Jefferson was always arguing for strict construction of the Constitution. The basis of his party, the Democratic Republicans, was in opposition to too much federal authority. Jefferson and his followers wanted small national Government. Government. Jefferson was not at the constitutional convention in 1787 because he was the American ambassador to France. Jefferson did not support the Constitution as originally drafted. He only supported it when his close friend James Madison, called the father of the Constitution, assured Jefferson that he would add a Bill of Rights after the Constitution was passed. Of course, that became the first 10amendments to the Constitution. When Alexander Hamilton was the Secretary of the treasury under the Washington administration. Jefferson opposed practically everything that Hamilton wanted to do. But Jefferson did have a price. The location of the new nation's capital. Let me explain. At the time that George Washington was inaugurated, the national capital was in New York City. Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin were probably the smartest of the Founding Fathers. And Hamilton was a financial genius. He developed his plan whereby the federal government would assume all of the debts from the individual states resulting from the American Revolution. Hamilton believed that the consolidation of the national debt, along with the debts of the individual states, would establish a stable public credit. This would put the national currency on a sound financial footing. Jefferson and his close friend James Madison opposed this plan. They were both from Virginia. At a dinner held at Jefferson's home, located at 57 Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan, the three men worked out what has been called the Compromise of 1790. Jefferson and Madison would agree to Hamilton's financial plan if the nation's capital was moved next to their beloved Virginia. To get the powerful congressional leaders from Pennsylvania to agree to this plan, the Capitol was moved to Philadelphia for 10 years, while a brand new city was created with land carved out of Virginia and Maryland along each side of the Potomac River. Apparently, the Pennsylvanians thought that once the Capitol was located in Philadelphia for 10 years, that people would decide that it was just best to keep it there. But that's not the way it worked out.
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Those of you who are familiar with DC Might be thinking that there is no part of Washington D.C. on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Well, there had been in 1847, the part of the District of Columbia on the south side of The Potomac was given back to the State of Virginia. That is why all of Washington D.C. is on the Maryland side of the river today. I've always thought that this bargain to move the nation's capital down to the Potomac river made Jefferson and Madison look bad and Hamilton look good. Hamilton was trying to do something for the good of the entire country. And by the way, Hamilton lived most of his adult life in New York City, so he was giving up something personal to him. Jefferson and Madison only went along with this plan so they could selfishly get the nation's capital next to their home state. Another time that they were on opposite sides was when Hamilton wanted to create a national bank. Jefferson opposed it because there was no specific provision in the Constitution saying that the federal government had authority to create a national bank. Hamilton said that it was an implied power since the proposed bank would assist Congress to carry out its fiscal responsibilities. Congress had the constitutional authority to incorporate a national bank now that he was President. Jefferson was making the same argument regarding the Louisiana Purchase. There is no specific provision in the Constitution that allows the federal government to buy land from a foreign country. Now it was Jefferson who was arguing that this power was implied under the authority to make treaties with other countries found in Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution, which gives the President the power to make treaties, provided such treaties are ratified by 2/3 of the Senate. On October 20, 1803, the US Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase by a vote of 24 to 7. What exactly did America buy from France? What constituted the Louisiana Territory? The parties had some general guidelines. The Louisiana Territory was all of the land on the western side of the Mississippi that encompassed the Mississippi River Basin. That means the land area where all of the rivers drain into the Mississippi. From a practical point of view, that meant the area between the Mississippi river on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west, from what is now Canada to the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. But the southern part of Louisiana was very narrow, squeezed between the Mississippi river and what is now Texas, but was then part of New Spain. The actual boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were settled by later treaties with Britain and Spain. To be accurate, that area was no longer being called the Louisiana Territory by the time those treaties were signed. By 1818, most of that area was called the Missouri Territory because the State of Louisiana had been formed in 1812. Anyway, the northern boundary of what the US obtained in the Louisiana Purchase was resolved in the Convention of 1818 between Britain and America. And I say Britain because Canada did not become an independent country until 1867. Although Canada was still considered a dominion within the British Empire, the US and Britain agreed that the border would be the 49th parallel from the Lake of the woods in what would later become Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains. This formed most of the northern borders of what are now the states of Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana on the American side, and the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta on the Canadian side. Pursuant to that treaty, America and Britain agreed to joint control of the Oregon Territory. That was a huge region in the Pacific Northwest, roughly defined as everything north of California all the way to Alaska between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. One year later, the Adams Onus Treaty of 1819 set the borders between the Louisiana Territory and New Spain. Besides defining the border between the United States with its new Louisiana Territory and New Spain, the Adams Onus Treaty also transferred ownership of Florida from Spain to the US without going into details, there was actually about a 20 year period from 1763 to the 1780s that Britain officially owned Florida before it went back to Spain. As I explained earlier, East Florida constituted most of the current state of Florida, and West Florida was that remaining strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana. Even before this treaty between Spain and the U.S. american settlers in West Florida had declared their independence from Spain, and the United States claimed that area as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Spain did not see it that way, but the Adams Onus Treaty resolved it once and for all. With these later treaties with Britain and Spain, the US finally clarified what it had purchased from Napoleon in 1803. I've read different figures as to the size of the Louisiana Purchase. I go with the amount listed in the National Archives as well as the website for the Office of the Historian of the US Government. According to those government sources, the Louisiana territory covered approximately 828,000 square miles, or an estimated 2,144,500 square kilometers. So Louisiana Territory covered all of the land in what is now Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, as well as most of the land in Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, and even parts of New Mexico and Texas. And before the northern border was settled in that 1818 treaty between the U.S. and Britain, small parts of the current Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were also presumed to be part of the Louisiana Purchase. Now that America owned all of this new territory, President Jefferson wanted to find out what was actually located in this vast region. Very few white people had been to this area. It was essentially a completely unknown region. The biggest question that Jefferson had was whether there was a feasible water route to the Pacific. This meant following the Missouri river to its headwaters, which would be hopefully somewhere close to the Pacific. Obviously they knew that the Missouri did not go all the way to the Pacific. Rivers do not go in two directions. The Missouri river flowed generally from the northwest to the southeast through the middle of the continent and discharged into the Mississippi river near St. Louis. But the hope was that the headwaters of the Missouri river would be close to some other navigable river that would go to the Pacific. This would open up trade to Asia and all of the other regions that border the Pacific Ocean. The answer turned out to be no. There was no easy water route to the Pacific. Jefferson wanted a relatively small group to follow the Missouri river all the way to its beginnings and then cross over the Pacific Ocean. He put in charge Meriwether Lewis. Jefferson chose Lewis because he had been a captain in the army and was Jefferson's personal secretary. This was somebody Jefferson really trusted and somebody that the President thought could handle such a tough mission. Lewis convinced another man named William Clark to be the co leader of this expedition. They had known each other in the US Army. Lewis and Clark led a group of men with the incredibly cool name of the Corps of Discovery. I've read various numbers for how many men were in the Corps of Discovery. It seems that There were about 40 to 45 men at the start of the expedition. At the beginning there were no women, but that would change. In what is now North Dakota, the Corps of Discovery met a Frenchman named Toussaint Charbonneau who joined the group as a guide. More important, Monsieur Charbonneau was married to a young Native American woman named Sacajawea. Sacajawea was part of the Shoshone tribe, but she had been kidnapped as a young girl. I've read that she may have been sold to Charbonneau. I've also read different versions of her name. That might be because she had one name from the Shoshone tribe and a different name from the tribe that had kidnapped her. Supposedly, the name Sacagawea meant bird woman. Lewis and Clark believe that's what her name meant and named a river for her. Now known as Sacajawea river in present day Montana, Sacagawea is usually referred to as a young woman, but in actuality she was just a teenager. We think she was only 15 or 16 years old at the time she joined Lewis and Clark. That adds to how incredible she was on this journey. Not only did she accompany the Corps of Discovery for the Rest of the expedition, she did so with a baby. Think about that. I have no idea how she did this. Everything that the Corps of Discovery encountered, from horrible weather to rough terrain to incredibly dangerous animals, makes it amazing that any of them survive, let alone a young mother with a baby. She was the only woman on the entire expedition. Sacagawea was critical to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition in three main ways. Number one, she acted as an interpreter with some of the Native Americans. Number two, when the expedition encountered new Native Americans, she would be in the front along with Lewis and Clark. The appearance of a woman with a baby made it clear that they were not a war party and that the Corps of Discovery was there for peaceful reasons. This made it a lot easier to deal with new Native American tribes. After they reached the headwaters of the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark realized that they needed horses because they were now traveling over land. It was Sacagawea that was able to negotiate with some Native Americans for horses. I have not seen any actual statistics, but I've read in a few places that there are more statues of Sacagawea than any other woman in the United States. Presuming that's true, that's pretty cool. Of course, there are plenty of other honors for her. Starting in 1994, she was on a United States postage stamp. From 2000 to 2008, the US government issued a $1 coin with Sacagawea on it. Not many people get to be on the US Money. Amazingly, only one person from the Corps of Discovery died during the expedition. And it was not the result of an animal attack or falling off a cliff or any of the other multitude of dangers that they faced. Sergeant Charles Floyd Jr. Died of natural causes towards the beginning of the trip in what is now Iowa. Historians believe he probably died of a pursed appendix. One of the main things that Lewis and Clark discovered is the fact that the Rocky Mountains are enormous. This was a time when Americans were just familiar with the Appalachians, which are not that high and not that wide. Across the Rockies make the Appalachians look like small hills. According to the National Park Service, the tallest mountain in the Appalachians is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684ft or 2,037 meters above sea level. According to the U.S. forest Service, the highest peak in the American Rocky Mountains is Mount Elbert in Colorado. With an elevation of 14,433ft or 4,400 meters above sea level that is well over twice as high as the highest point in the Appalachians. The Height of the Rockies makes them so onerous to cross, you have to go up great elevations and the high altitudes mean you have a longer snow season. But the width of the Rockies adds to the difficulty. According to the U.S. geologic Survey, although the width varies a lot, the area considered the Middle Rockies in Wyoming and Utah are approximately 375 miles or 600 kilometers across. I've driven through the Rocky Mountains plenty of times. It's easy to do on paved freeways, but the idea of crossing those mountains without roads seems almost impossible. I find it amazing that the Corps of Discovery was able to do it it. They started the expedition from St. Louis in May 1804. They spent the winter of 1804-1805 in what is now North Dakota. They were following the Missouri river. But the outbound trip was very difficult because they were going against the current of the river. When they reached the headwaters of the Missouri, they had to cross over the Rockies in search of another river. To take them to the Pacific Ocean. They had to trek overland until they finally reached the Clearwater river in modern day Idaho. They can now travel by water again. They took the Clearwater river to the Snake river and took that until it flowed into the Columbia River. They traveled the Columbia river all the way to the Pacific Ocean. They spent the winter of 1805-1806 on the south side of the Columbia river in what is now Oregon. The trip home was much faster. For one thing, they knew the route. It was rough until they reached the Missouri. But once they got onto the Missouri river, they were going with the current and had a fairly easy time and could travel much faster. The entire expedition took two years and four months. From May 1804 to September 1806, they covered approximately 8,000 miles or 12,900 kilometers. To put that into perspective, that is approximately one quarter of the circumference of the entire earth at the equator. So what happened to Lewis and Clark afterwards? After their famous expedition, William Clark served as the Governor of Missouri Territory and later the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. The story of Meriwether Lewis is tragic. He became the governor of the Louisiana territory. However, in 1809, only three years after the completion of his incredible exploration, Lewis killed himself. There are debates through today as to whether or not it was a suicide or a murder. We'll probably never know for sure, but it was most likely a suicide. There was no actual evidence of a murder. Over the last couple of centuries, there's been a lot of debate as to how history would have been different. If the Louisiana Purchase had not occurred, some argue that there could have been a large independent, French speaking country in the middle of what's now the United States. Under that view, the US Would have remained a much smaller country bounded on the west by the Mississippi River. Most believe the US probably would have still acquired Florida if this occurred. America does not become the Colossus it is today. The US Would probably become a world power, but not the superpower that it has been since World War II. And how would this have affected major events like World War II? Would the Allies have won the war without the enormous economic output of a coast to coast America? I think this scenario is unlikely. I just don't see how France under Napoleon or any following French government could have devoted the money, people and other resources to develop that vast area. Louisiana was predominantly populated by Native Americans. There were very few people of European descent. If the French did not sell Louisiana, it is doubtful they could have held on to it. There's no way that the Spanish could have reclaimed it. As history showed, the Spanish and the later independent country of Mexico were unable to hold on to Texas and what's now the western United States. Could the British have tried to take this land? Maybe, but doubtful. The British already had possession of an enormous area of what later became Canada. They might have been tempted to seize their strategic western bank of the Mississippi River. But would it have been worth it? With the further conflicts it would cause with the rapidly growing United States? My guess is that the US probably would have taken over the Louisiana Territory in any event, it just might have been a more bloody acquisition. Just look at the way Americans poured into Texas, which later led to the Texas Revolution with an independent Texas for nine years and eventually the annexation to the US and then the desire for the rest of the land between the US and the Pacific led to the Mexican American War with the US Taking half of Mexico's territory. Most of that expansion occurred because of President James K. Polk. If you want to hear more about how America expanded all the way to the Pacific, I did an episode on this topic entitled James Polk Is America's Most Overlooked President. It's my opinion that even without the Louisiana Purchase, the US Would have expanded all the way to the Pacific. Americans believed in Manifest Destiny, meaning that the US Was destined to expand westward across North America all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Americans genuinely believed in the goal of expanding the republican form of government, civilization and the American way of life. Obviously the Native Americans and the people of Mexico certainly did not see it the same way. There's a famous painting from 1872 by an artist named John Gast that you may have seen online or in a book. It's called American Progress. It shows Americans spreading westward. Floating above the scene is a woman who is supposed to be the personification of the United States. This woman represents progress and civilization as her left hand is extending telegraph wires and her right hand carries a book which says School book representing education. The most honest part of that painting is on the left hand side with the Native Americans being displaced from their lands. Manifest Destiny is a phrase that you may have heard, but probably don't know where it came from. There's a debate as to who actually coined the term Manifest Destiny, but historians agree that the term was popularized by a man named John O' Sullivan in 1845 when he wrote an essay called Annexation in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. O' Sullivan was advocating for the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Territory. He complained that other countries were trying to limit our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. Throughout the 1800s, most Americans truly believed in Manifest Destiny and today most Americans are happy that the US Goes from the Atlantic all the way to the Pacific and even extends to Alaska, Hawaii and some territories. We just don't like to focus on how America expanded from sea to shining sea. We don't like to think about the war with Mexico which accounted for most of the American Southwest, including where I live here in California, or how the US Annexed Hawaii over the objections of most Native American Hawaiians. The Oregon Territory was from a treaty and the US Simply bought Alaska and the Louisiana Territory. So those acquisitions are guilt free, right? Just because we made deals with the leaders of Britain, France and Russia does not mean that the natives in those vast regions consented to becoming Americans. Today, most Americans are happy that all of this vast territory is part of the United States. We just don't like to think about how we acquired it. That's it for today. Please subscribe to this podcast. Please like this and my other episodes. Please tell your friends, relatives, co workers. Word of mouth is the best way to increase the audience for history analyzed. If you are listening on a podcast app which allows ratings, I would greatly appreciate a 5 star rating. Reviews really help. Spotify allows reviews and comments for particular episodes. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, it's easy to do. Scroll down the History Analyze show page, select a rating, hopefully five stars, and then tap write a review, check out my website, historyanalyze.com where you will find links to fun items for all the history geeks out there. Thank you for listening. Catch you next episode.