The Louisiana Purchase The biggest event to take place in U.S history was the Louisiana Purchase. The constitutionality of The Louisiana Purchase is a very controversial subject in U.S history. Federalist could argue that Jefferson ignored the constitution to purchase the land, and others could argue that the treaty provision in the constitution makes his decision constitutional. The founding fathers of America who wrote the constitution, never put anything in there about buying foreign land, but there are ways to get land through a treaty. According to Napoleon Bonaparte, the deal was on the table for a certain amount of time. The U.S could not ratify the constitution in time, however, President Jefferson used this way to buy the Louisiana land. …show more content…
It was a purchase of land amounting 827,000 square miles and costing 15 million dollars. According to Adam Kloppe of History Happens Here, James Madison, who was one of the primary men responsible for the drafting of the Constitution, tried to talk Jefferson down, assuring the President that the deal was legal.(Kloppe) Jefferson initially tried to get the Constitution amended, so the federalist would support it, but James Madison who was a very influential person at the time did not think they needed to pass the amendment to make buying Louisiana legal. Although James Madison told Jefferson the deal was legal, some could say it was unconstitutional. According to Thomas Carson of Gale Encyclopedia, “The authority to purchase new territory was not among those powers.” (Thomas Carson) There was no direct article in the constitution of which they could show that getting this land could be constitutional, so the government found a way to make it possible to get this