Impact Of Louisiana Purchase Of 1803

The Louisiana purchase of 1803 acted as a turning point in the aid of furthering the development of westward expansion by nearly doubling the size of the United States. The westward expansion assisted in the establishment of jobs, land, hope, and a new beginning.

President Thomas Jefferson desired to purchase New Orleans and the surrounding territory, which later took the name known as the Louisiana Territory, from the French in order to secure trading routes for the United States. He wanted to prevent any disruption in American economics that would come from disrupted trade. Jefferson, was aware of the need for action and he was concerned with the threat of disunion. Jefferson in January of 1803, recommended that James Monroe join Livingston

It was no longer the New England Puritans or the Virginia Cavaliers who ruled the country. Jackson’s base was a new coalition, which he described as composed of “the humble members of society the farmers, mechanics, and laborers.” While many of the mechanics and laborers lived in the original colonies, particularly Irish immigrants in New York, westerners formed a significant part of the Jacksonian coalition. They opposed monopolies and vested interests, leading Jackson to eliminate the Bank of the United States in favor of state chartered institutions. Settlers in the South and West also sought protection from Native Americans, and Jackson was ruthless in relocating them to present day Oklahoma and other locales, segregating them there away from American settlers. Absent the Louisiana purchase, one can only wonder how different the United States would be today. Slavery would probably have lasted longer in the South, and Lincoln would never have been president, since he reentered public life only in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The American populace, at least before the mass immigrations of the later nineteenth and early twentieth century, would have been more homogeneous. Finally, the American government would have longer been run by Southern aristocrats, to the vast detriment of both black slaves and commercial interests in the