Jeffersonian Democracy

Chapter 6: Jeffersonian Democracy * In April 1802 Jefferson urged Minister Livingston to attempt the purchase of New Orleans and Florida or, as an alternative, to buy a tract of land near the mouth of the Mississippi River where a new port could be constructed * Jefferson appointed his friend nd disciple James Monroe minister plenipotentiary and sent him to Paris with instructions to offer up to $10 million for New Orleans and Florida. * For 60 million francs- about $15 million- the United States was to have all of Louisiana. * Jefferson didn’t believe that the government had the power under the constitution to add new territory or to grant American citizenship to the 50,000 residents of Louisiana by executive act, as the treaty
* Lewis and Clark had established friendly relations with a great many Indian tribes to whom they presented gifts, medals, American flags, and a sales talk designed to promote peace and the fur trade. * By 1808 fur traders based at St. Louis were beginning to invade the Rockies, and by 1812 there were 75,000 people in the southern section of the new territory which was admitted to the Union that year as the state of Louisiana. * While still vice president, Burr began to flirt with treason. He approached Anthony Merry, the British minister in Washington, and offerd to “effect a separation of the Western part of the United States.” His price was £110,000 and the support of a British fleet off the mouth of the Mississippi. * The British didn’t fall in with his scheme, but Burr went ahead nonetheless. Exactly what he had in mind has long been in dispute. * He joined forces with General James Wilkinson whom Jeferson had appointed Governor of the Louisiana territory and was secretly in the pay of
* IN 1818 James Monroe, who had been elected president in 1816, ordered Generla Andrew Jackson to clear raiding Seminole INdiands from American soil and to persue them into Florida if necessary. Seizing on these instructions, Jackson marched into Florida and easily captured 2 Spanish fleets. * The Spanish feared for the future of their tottering Latin American empire, especially the northern provinces of Mexico which stood in the path of American westward expansion. * Luis de Onis set out on December 1817 to negotiate a treaty with John Quincy Adams, Monroes secretary of state. * ONis saved Texas for his monarch but accepted a boundry to the Louisiana territory that followed the Sabine, Red, and Arkansas Rivers to the Continetal divide ans the 42nd parallel to the pacific, thus abandoning Spains claim to a hige area beyond the Rockies that has no connections with the Louisiana