Thomas Jefferson's Major Challenges During The Louisiana Purchase

Thomas Jefferson during his time in office faced many challenges with the new country. One major challenge and one of the biggest accomplishments during his presidency was the Louisiana Purchase. This turned out to be a huge issue for Jefferson because of the ordeals and the way he wanted to run the government. This was a major conflict in interest for Jefferson because he was a strict constitutionalist and followed it word for word. In the end what he did was completely overstep his powers as president doing what he feared would happen by purchasing the Louisiana territory without any approval from congress for 15 million dollars. Jefferson was forced into action to make this deal by the French, Who cut access off to New Orleans to the American

The city of New Orleans was a major need for Americans west of the Appalachians and vital for the economy. Jefferson decided to send James Madison and the regular minister to France, Robert Livingston, to France to negotiate a deal for New Orleans. Jefferson sent the envoy with ten million dollars to purchase the city of New Orleans and Florida. If France wouldn’t except that they were to purchase New Orleans alone for ten million dollars. So When the American envoy arrived in France they were presented with an offer from the French to purchase the whole Louisiana Territory for 15 million dollars. Due to financial problems in France and a war in Europe, Napoleon was having problems keeping his colonies under French control. One of the major impact in this decision was the loss

Did he want to go against everything that he has preached about since he started into politics? Jefferson was a strict constitutionalist and an anti-federalist and did not believe in what Alexander Hamilton called the “Elastic Clause” which allowed for the laws of the constitution to be stretched and not taken word for word. He also believed that the president did not have the power to increase the national domain by treaty of purchase.1 The problem Jefferson saw was this that if the constitution was not followed word for word the president and the central government would take too much power and take away states right. This just happened to be what them just gotten down fighting for just a mere 15-20 years before the purchase. The problem in what Jefferson did is stated in Article two of the constitution is states, “The President... shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur....”4 This basically states that the president does not hold the power to make treaties with foreign countries without a 2/3 consent of the senate, which is exactly what Jefferson did not have in the purchase of the territory. Jefferson himself questioned the constitutionality of the purchase. He was worried because the constitution did not state whether the president had the power to increase the national domain by treaty of