in this lecture we're going to discuss the louisiana purchase of 1803. if you're unfamiliar with what the louisiana purchase is it involves this uh dark brown area of north america that you see on the screen there this is an area known as the louisiana territory and in a second we're going to discuss the history of this territory uh up until the purchase of this territory by the united states so without further ado let's just jump right in the story of the louisiana purchase goes all the way back to the end of the french and indian war actually one year before the end of the french and indian war in 1762 this territory that we're discussing here this louisiana territory uh used to belong to france but in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of the british as the french and indian war came to a close this territory was seeded over to the to the kingdom of spain and so from 1762 all the way to 1800 this territory of louisiana belonged to spain now how does the united states become involved in this territory the united states becomes involved in this territory as americans push westward they eventually cross the blue ridge mountains and the allegheny mountains and they flood into the ohio river valley and then from there they'll make their way to the furthest western regions of the united states which uh around the turn of the century was going to be the mississippi river so as americans pushed westward it became increasingly clear that the united states is a matter of economic security as well as national security needed to be able to navigate the mississippi river there's a mississippi river the big river that runs from minnesota all the way down to louisiana this river economically did a lot of things for the united states number one is it made it much easier for western farmers to get their commodities to markets in europe or to get their commodities to markets on the east coast to the big cities because without navigating this river and floating these commodities down a river which is much faster much more efficient they would have to move these commodities over land so it would take a lot of time it was oftentimes very expensive and so economically speaking the united states had a keen interest in being able to navigate the mississippi river but from a turn from a matter of from a viewpoint of national security the navigation of the mississippi was vitally important in order to secure our western borders we needed to be able to move troops and move military supplies in the event of a war up and down the mississippi river so that meant that we would need to talk to spain about all of this um because we were really in no position early on in our nation's history to dictate any terms to any major european power uh even the spanish so we were going to need to talk to them and try to come to some diplomatic agreement in which we could perhaps navigate this mississippi river and avoid a conflict with them and we were able to do this in 1795 when the united states ambassador to great britain a man by the name of thomas pinckney this was the u.s ambassador to great britain under the george washington administration pinkney was able to meet with spanish diplomats in london and negotiate a treaty in which the united states would seed over areas of florida to spanish control while at the same time we would be granted navigation rights of the mississippi river and that was what we were after the treaties known as pinkness treaty i don't really care if you remember it but it's important to understand kind of the history of this territory and the united states involvement in it so in 1795 with pinkness treaty the united states will now have free navigation of the mississippi river this is vitally like i mentioned vitally economic uh economically speaking for the country and it's vital in terms of national security so everything appeared to be fine in 1795. that's all going to change in the year 1800 in the year 1800 the chaos of the french revolution and the wars of the french revolution had finally come to an end and the uh authority and power and control of france was consolidated into the hands of its first emperor napoleon and in 1800 napoleon bonaparte became very much interested in building a north american empire and he was going to do this through a secret treaty called the third treaty of san idofonzo of 1800 negotiated by his foreign minister charles tallarand and what happened in this treaty is that spain secretly seeded back to france control of the louisiana territory now this was all done in secret until nobody knew the negotiations were going on uh had this been known i guarantee the united states would become would have tried to become involved in this but in 1800 this spanish louisiana is now transferred back to the control of france and into the hands of napoleon bonaparte through this secret treaty and the boeing napoleon bonaparte was going to use this territory louisiana to begin what he hoped would eventually become a con conquest of north america and a north american empire so the 1795 pinkneys treaty is now over with that was a treaty with spain we don't have a treaty with france and we were a little worried that our navigation rights of the mississippi river were not going to be respected by napoleon bonaparte and so we immediately began negotiations with tyler and with france trying to find a similar diplomatic agreement along the lines of pinkney's treaty in the meantime napoleon bonaparte began to make preparations to to secure the louisiana territory in preparation for his long-term vision of building a north american empire now the way he was going to need to do this is he would need a headquarters in the western hemisphere he would need a base of operations to begin launching military incursions into the louisiana territory in order to secure it and he chose uh a former colony of france that belonged to them for a long time up until 1791 uh and it was an island in the caribbean known as saint domingue now it's not actually the the island was known as hispaniola uh but half of the island used to belong to france and it was known as santa menge now on this map it is labeled haiti and france lost control of this colony in 1791 when the native inhabitants of haiti rose up against uh the french the french aristocrats and the french elite and wealthy people that were on the island uh the haitians had been enslaved by the french and in 1791 uh violence erupted into what was known as the haitian revolution one of the largest slave revolts in american history and this began a very long and bloody uh revolution and conflict in santa mingy so napoleon then chose saint domingue as the place he would establish his military headquarters in preparation for creating this north american empire but in order to do that he was going to need to put down the haitian revolution uh and establish french control and french dominance over santa mean and in 1801 that's what he did he dispatched the saint domingue expedition this was a very large french military that would be sent over to san domingo and its purpose was to put down the haitian revolution re-enslave the people and then establish french dominance uh in this uh former colony once again and then from there uh down the road we will they would begin launching military incursions into north america in order to secure the louisiana territory uh it was all a very good laid out plan there was only one problem this expedition needed to be successful and it was very clear very early on it was not going to be uh the french military suffered tremendously from uh yellow fever uh sickness disease and the their the haitians were very difficult to defeat the very difficult uh to engage in a battle and a decisive battle and so the expedition finally ended failure in 1803 with the decisive battle of the haitian revolution where the french military was ultimately defeated and this is where haiti won its independence now for the purposes of the louisiana purchase we don't really care too much about haitian revolution you get a lot of this uh in a world history course um but this haitian revolution and this decisive battle in 1803 that eliminated the french threat was very important for the united states it forced napoleon to have to give up on these ideas of a north american empire and so this presented an opportunity then for the united states so let's turn now to the actual negotiations for this louisiana territory and we'll put that story with what the american ambassador to france had been attempting since napoleon bonaparte came to power when napoleon came to power in france the president united states was of course thomas jefferson third president in american history author of the declaration of independence we've seen him numerous times already ambassador to france was a by the name of robert r livingston and livingston since bonaparte's emergence as emperor in france had desperately been trying to negotiate a similar uh treaty with france that worked along the same lines as pinkney's treaty the united states only cared about navigating the mississippi river and what livingston was actually attempting to do was he was attempting to negotiate the purchase of the city of new orleans which is that lies at the mouth of the mississippi river and this was the idea that if the united states could control the port city of new orleans then they would control the navigation of the mississippi river and that's what they're looking for and so this is what livingston had desperately been negotiating with france but he had always been stonewalled for obvious reasons because napoleon wasn't interested in doing any of this napoleon was very much interested at the time in building a north american empire but after the haitian revolution and after the defeat of the french in san dominge that's when president jefferson realized there was an opportunity so to bolster livingston's efforts with france jefferson dispatched a very trusted very close friend of his as a special envoy to france to help livingston continue these negotiations and that special envoy was james monroe monroe's mission is to help livingston right is to provide livingston more support and to make it clear to bonaparte that the united states is very interested this is not some run-of-the-mill negotiation the united states is keenly interested in getting something done that's monroe's mission and by the time monroe arrives in france and he helps and he starts getting into these negotiations he and livingston are shocked to find out that napoleon isn't interested in selling the city of new orleans napoleon's actually interested in selling the entire territory of louisiana and while monroe and livingston are only authorized to offer as high as 10 million dollars and only authorized to offer that for the city of new orleans napoleon is offering the entire territory and he only wants 15 million dollars now this presents a problem for monroe and livingston because they represent the president and they're under strict orders by the president of what they can do and what they're supposed to offer and so they really cannot they don't have any authority to agree to any of this yet monroe and livingston cannot pass this up and so james monroe having known jefferson for a long time and was a firm belief that jefferson would agree to this deal anyway went ahead and made the deal and this is a picture or a colorized lithograph from 1803 that that portrays the signing of the louisiana purchase there's napoleon signing it so the agreement was made here in 1803 between livingston monroe and napoleon bonaparte and talaran his foreign minister but this would not become legally binding and this had to be explained to bonaparte that what's been negotiated here is simply a negotiation and an agreement's been made it would have to be approved by president jefferson and so it's sent back then right all the details of this purchase all the details of the agreement it's all sent back to thomas jefferson for his approval and when jefferson received all the information that had been done here and the agreement that had been made he was ecstatic this is amazing for 15 million dollars the united states will be able to double the size of its country it's just an incredible offer that you can not pass up but after jefferson's initial enthusiasm waned it became abundantly clear to jefferson that he had a problem jefferson's problem was that how could he make this purchase how can he make this agreement with france legal and what i mean by that is that jefferson was a victim of his own political ideology an ideology that stems from the idea that the u.s constitution only grants the president and the congress the expressed powers written in the constitution meaning jefferson such an adherent to strict constructionism that it's going to make it difficult for jefferson to make this happen because nowhere in the united states constitution does it say that a power of the president of the united states is to purchase land it doesn't say that expressly in the constitution and according to jefferson and according to the party that he built if it's not in there you can't do it this was the foundation of their party but jefferson knows he can't pass this up so what's he to do well he's going to do what any good politician who's in power will do he's going to need to look at the united states constitution and look at article 2 which created the executive branch and he's going to need to look at section 2 of article 2 because in section 2 the powers of the president are laid out in express terms and what he needs to do is find a way to rationalize that one of his express powers gives him the implied power to make this real estate deal so this is section 2 of article 2 of the us constitution this lays out the powers of the president now if you want to take a little time and look at this try to see for yourself where is a power given to jefferson in this section that he could possibly make the argument that he had the implied power to make this real estate deal if you can't see it it's right there jefferson was going to argue that he had the power to make this deal with france because he had the power to negotiate treaties now treaties have to be ratified by two-thirds of the senate but presidents have the power to negotiate treaties and so what jefferson did is he argued that he had simply negotiated a treaty between the united states and france in which france was going to give land in exchange for money now that's not a treaty that's a real estate deal but that's the way jefferson rationalized it and he was then going to have to submit this to the u.s senate for ratification now his party controlled the senate but not by a majority which meant that the federalists would have to go along with this treaty and this idea that this was all legal in order for the senate to ratify this deal and after days of of speeches by the federalist senators who just dragged jefferson's name through the mud chastising him for the irony involved with all of this that making the argument that if they had tried this he and his party would have crucified them for it but even the federalist senators realized you couldn't pass this deal up and so ultimately the senate ratified this quote-unquote treaty with france then it had to go to the house because in the house of representatives they would have to allocate the 15 million dollars and while his party controlled a majority of the house they would still need federalist support for the allocation of the money and once again jefferson's name and and and arguments just get dragged through the mud it's all political it's all it's all for show but even then the house does vote to allocate the money and in 1803 for 15 million dollars the united states purchased the louisiana territory so let's bring it all together and talk about why the louisiana purchase is significant i'll give you two big reasons the first concerns the way jefferson rationalized all of this jefferson was forced to recognize that sometimes you're going to have to interpret the u.s constitution loosely you're going to have to look for implied powers in the constitution even when those powers are not apparent and not expressly written so what we have here then is an excellent case study and how a political party behaves when it's in power meaning that when you're in power sometimes you just have to get things done regardless of whether the constitution gives you the express power to do it the other reason the louisiana purchase is important concerns national security the elimination of a potential threat on our western border which used to be spain but they weren't much of a threat but with napoleon he was a threat a big threat on our western border and in 1803 for 15 million dollars we were able to eliminate that threat on our western border this has the effect of making them the country much more secure and if we are more secure we are much stronger so this lecture has been over the louisiana purchase of 1803 you