American History Hit - The Truth About the Louisiana Purchase

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

We're all taught in school about the Louisiana Purchase, supposedly the greatest bargain in American history. Napoleon's deal with the Americans is widely remembered as a triumph for the United States… but is this history really as simple as we’re often taught?Our guest today is historian Alexander Mikaberidze, Professor of History at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. He is the author of award winning books including ‘The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History’ and, most recently, ‘The Louisiana Purchase: The Grand Bargain and the Making of America’.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It is late April 1803 in Paris. Inside a government office, the American diplomat Robert Livingston sits opposite the French

Treasury Minister, Francois Barbé-Bombard. Livingston has come with a very specific mission to secure New Orleans and access to the Mississippi for the United States. But now Mubois counters with an extraordinary proposition. France is willing to sell him France's claim to all of Louisiana, a territory stretching from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. This is far beyond anything Livingston was authorized to buy. The price, $15 million, Livingston hesitates. This isn't what President Jefferson sent him to Paris for. It's something vastly larger. They decide that the deal is too good to pass up. Within days, Livingston and James

Monroe will sign the treaty and the purchase will soon be announced. This moment is widely remembered as a triumph for the United States. but this history is far more than meets the eye. Hey everyone, I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit. Thanks for listening. My guest today is historian Alexander Micahborica, Professor of History at the Louisiana State University in Shreveport. He is the author of award-winning books like The Napoleonic Wars, a global history. His most recent book, The Louisiana Purchase, The Grand Bargain and Making of America has been published just this summer, released in July. The book and his teaching, reflect a new and more complex perspective on the Louisiana purchase. So let's explore it.

Hello, Alexander. Thanks for joining us in American History Hit. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I've been your listener for quite some time. And now to be here, yeah, that's quite a treat. Get out of here. Thank you so much. This is a fascinating story because there is such a vast misunderstanding about what was the Louisiana purchase, aside from the great school facts, but certainly the causes of it. And it's tied. to a greater global perspective. So let's get into this all throughout this episode. First of all, what was Louisiana before the U.S. came along?

I think to understand Louisiana purchase, and at least that's the argument I'm making the book, you have to take a step, not just a couple of years or five or ten years, but all the way back to the beginning to look at the founding of the French imperial claims to North America. And in many ways, we tend to picture this huge block of territory with the clear borders and imagine France controlling everything inside those lines. But that was never the reality. Louisiana began as an extraordinary, ambitious imperial claim over North America that never

really came to be. And of course, at the beginning of it is the process where the French claim really crystallized around Sir de la Zalle, the French explorer who in the late 17th century traveled down the Mississippi to its mouth and claimed the enormous Mississippi watershed. So there's this remarkable scene in April of 1882 when La Zalt, so to speak, plants the French flag in the estuary of Mississippi. And his vision is strategic. If France could control the Mississippi and establish settlement near its mouth, it could connect French Canada with a Gulf of Mexico and contain the English colonies from expanding from the east. and at the same time to challenge Spain to the southwest and to dominate this commercial artery running through the center of the entire continent.

And Lazal believed that this single strategic settlement in South Louisiana would allow France to be a dominant hegemonic power in North America. But of course, there's enormous difference between claiming territory and actually controlling. And I think one of the fundamental elements of Louisiana purchase is, the repeated challenges and kind of failures of France and Spain to actually control the territory that they claim. Yeah. It's a massive territory that stretches from what is today Canada all the way down to the

end of the Mississippi River, that massive amount of the central part of what is today, the United States. It was named Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV. But after the defeat in the seven years war, what we call the French and Indian War, 1763, the French cede the territory to the Spanish, who went on to administer the territory for decades. This confuses the picture a lot, doesn't it? There's a back and forth between France and Spain. Absolutely. In fact, one of the reasons why I wanted to kind of broaden the framework of Louisiana purchase is to show that none of the powers that claimed Louisiana necessarily attached the value to Louisiana

that we now attach to this territory. In fact, between 1660 and 1763, France alone tried to get rid of Louisiana on five different occasions. It is only after the calamitous, results of the seven years' war for Spain, that Louisiana is finally able to convince Spain to take on Louisiana, even though Spain is perfectly aware of the challenges that France has experienced there over the previous 80 years. And I think an element here that we absolutely should emphasize is that, yes, France has claimed it. Yes, it has transferred to Spain in 1762, 62 to 63. But, of course, the vast majority of the territory, we talk about well over, in fact, at the height of American claims, we talk about a territory that is 1.3 million acres.

Well, this territory is actually populated by numerous independent indigenous societies. So in the book, I try to point out the agency of the choktas and chikasas and cattos, I live in a cattle parish, and show that each of this nation pursued its own political and economic interests and actually quite successfully until the end of the 18th century. Correct. I mean, there's a lot of people living in this area that have nothing to do with the American nation that's to come. And plus there are 60,000 European settlers there, half a million natives across that country. I want to understand the respective American and French views on Louisiana. Why would the Americans want this? I mean, obviously, the Mississippi River,

but it's a tremendously different kind of nation we're talking about when you add that to what we already have. We didn't have a huge population. It was all on the coast. Now you're talking about a massive amount of land to manage. Yes, and I think when we kind of look at how Americans and the French, let's say, perceived or thought about Louisiana, The immediate answer is that they looked at the same territory and, of course, saw two different futures. Americans increasingly saw Louisiana and, above all, the Mississippi River and New Orleans, as essential to the survival and expansion of their young republic.

The French, on the other hand, increasingly saw this territory as an opportunity to reconstruct the North American Empire, which, as you pointed out, ended in 763. So for Americans, the issue initially was not necessarily, hey, we must own all. of these land, but rather the immediate question was far more practical. And that is, how can we get our produce from the western states to markets? American settlement, of course, was pouring westward across the Appalachians into Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio Valley. Those farmers could grow enormous quantities of flour, tobacco, timber, pork, other commodities. But getting those products eastwards across the mountains was extraordinary, difficult, and expensive.

And so geography, therefore, pointed them to the south. The Ohio flowed into Mississippi. Mississippi flows to New Orleans. New Orleans then opens onto the Gulf and the Atlantic world as a whole. And so I'm repeatedly pointing out how geography is a destiny, right? So that without access to the Mississippi, crops and the future, in many ways, of Western American states, could become... very, very difficult. And so that's why New Orleans is becoming so key to the American interests.

Americans did not need to control every acre west of Mississippi, and they recognized that. What they did need to control it was the poor town of New Orleans. And this would become very important as enslavement becomes a much bigger issue in the south. Thomas Jefferson is concerned with this. As far as the French are concerned, though, their focus has shifted really to the Caribbean and the lucrative sugar islands of Domingo, right? Absolutely. It's not surprising. If you look at the negotiations of 7862 at the end of seven years war, the French delegation, for example, was willing to forsake all of North America as long as it retained small islands like St. Lucia and Guadalupe and Martinique, which are just specks of dust in the middle of the ocean, right? And the reason, of course, is because those islands had a far more robust plantation economy that produced commodities that dwarfed in terms of value, anything produced.

in Canada or Louisiana, and certainly Louisiana, and the French colony of San Doming, which was on the island of Hispaniola, which is today the Republic of Haiti, well, that little, essentially a third of an island, was more valuable than anything that France had in North America. So when Napoleon comes to power, in fact, even before Napoleon, in 1790s already, the French revolutionary governments and certainly Napoleon, they're trying to, quote, unquote, make France great again by rebuilding the colonial empire. And to do that, they're facing several major challenges. So one, you have to reclaim the islands militarily, since there was a slave rebellion

that began in 1791 in San Doming. And you had to suppress that rebellion in order to assert the control from Paris. But second, and probably even more important, is that San Domingue and other French colonies, like most colonies in the Caribbean, have been deforested and they don't have sufficient resources to sustain the cash crop-based economy. So to feed, for example, half a million slaves on San Domingal, you need a lot of food. Or to package the goods that they are producing, you need timber and the islands themselves, they don't produce it. And so that's why the French government, especially Napoleon, is looking to Louisiana

as the support base for the colonial empire that will be centered on the Caribbean. The Haitian rebellion is a two-part thing, and the French come back later on to do this. But is that happening in this period? 1791 to 1804 is what we're talking about because the sale happens toward that time. How much does the Haitian revolution have to do with the decision that Napoleon makes? I think it's a crucial factor, but I'm taking a little bit of a different stance from the traditional narrative, that usually argued that the French failure to reassert control over Haiti was the factor. So my argument is that if not for the outbreak of a much larger, truly global conflict between France and Britain in May of 1803,

Napoleon actually would have poured enough resources to reassert control over San Doming. So it would have been a protracted and bloody struggle, but I think without the larger conflict with Britain, France would have persevered. But because of the outbreak of the war with Britain, and Napoleon already anticipates it in April of 1803, Napoleon understands that he will lose the most important kind of strategic element, and that is the control of the ability to project the power across the sea. And without that, the colonial empire will crumble. And so he preemptively, therefore, makes a decision. So therefore, Haitian revolution is, of course, important. It's important in terms of challenging the prospect of the French. colonial enterprise in Western Hemisphere, but it is the conflict between France and Britain that really makes that enterprise untenable. Seals the deal there, yes. 1803 American Representative Robert Livingston and James Ronro, along with him, traveled to Paris to negotiate a settlement over New Orleans. Their objective was really just get this trading centers solidified for us. Did they want to actually own that part of what we could call Louisiana now? That was it.

That's right. If you look at the instructions that Jefferson and Madison sent to Livingston and then to Monroe, American focus is exclusively on the southern part of Louisiana territory and especially the port of New Orleans or at the larger kind of vision was what the contemporaries called the island of New Orleans. So it's a much larger territory around New Orleans, plus maybe western Florida. So the administration repeatedly emphasized that it was not seeking a continental, acquisition. In fact, when the French initially offered kind of very sort of justly kind of hinted at the territory outside New Orleans, Livingston initially refuses it because his instructions are not to seek purchase of the land west of Mississippi. The situation, of course, changes in the spring of 1803. Well, I would say fall A of 1802 into 803, and there is a couple of urgent matters.

The first is that in October of 1802, Spanish authorities closed Mississippi to American trade. And so that created a political and economic crisis in the United States that Jefferson understand needs to be resolved as soon as possible. There is a remarkable debate in Congress on how to reopen Mississippi. In January of 1803, for example, the Congress very narrowly defeated a resolution to use force against Spanish authority in New Orleans. But Jefferson needs a resolution. And then at the same time, as I said, there is a growing conflict or tensions leading to the outbreak of a conflict between France and Britain. And so Napoleon also needs to make sure that by the time the conflict actually begins, the French interests in the Western

Hemisphere are kind of protected in either directly or indirectly. And for him, giving up on French claims to Louisiana is a long-term grand strategic vision. And that is of empowering United States to serve as a counterbalance to the British dominance in the Atlantic. And this is where I think Napoleon's vision truly comes to fruition over the 19th century. You can't imagine. At that time, the geography is so vast. And the idea of what they'd have to do, building forts and moving men around and securing those rivers, all of that is much far beyond the capacity of the United States at this time. So they're really very focused singularly on that trading post, which is New Orleans, and the ability to move in and out of the Mississippi

River. Along comes this counteroffer, which leaves them, these two men, dumbfounded, $15 million for the entire territory, which breaks down to about four cents an acre. There were several elements in their reaction, right? I mean, it's not just, oh my gosh, that's an amazing real estate deal. This is a tremendous, first of all, they come over at a time when they just can't pick up the phone and call the president. They don't have the power to okay this kind of thing, nor, in fact, does the president, even in the Constitution. Oh, yes. And I think that's what makes the kind of conventional story of Louisiana Purchase is this needy, very kind of cozy affair where we went over and negotiated and got it actually far more complex. Living San Monroe absolutely understand that they're

exceeding their instructions, but they also understand what the opportunity it is. And so that rather then risk losing the opportunity while waiting for Jefferson's approval, which usually took about a month one way to send a message and then another month to come back. So they negotiated for the entire territory, hoping the administration will accept it and then the administration will convince Congress to approve it. Now, I think one element in the story that is particularly interesting is that Livingston, for example, in his letter says, listen, we can keep what we want and then decide what can either sell or just not claim the rest of it, right? And what we want is New Orleans. And if we just get for the price and Jefferson administration was willing to pay

$6 million for New Orleans alone, well, if we're getting this enormous territory in addition to New Orleans, then I think it's a bargain. Now, I think the conventional story where it gets really complicated is what we actually bought in April of 1803. And this is where the $15 million, right, is just a convenient story that is not necessarily true. Let's take a short break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the truth of this deal and really the details behind it. So we're back with Alexander and McAbreitz. If the deal seems done and dusted, I mean, my God, these guys came over to get a city and they got practically. another country. But it's never as simple as the history were taught. So let's talk about this.

You make a very specific argument, Alexander, about the complexity of this, right? Yes. And what I'm trying to kind of argue is that, or convince people that the traditional story to American diplomats going to Paris and making a purchase of land and kind of imagining this something like a modern real estate transaction, that is not entirely correct or true. The critical distinction is that what we need to kind of emphasize is between European claims of sovereignty and actual control of land. So France could transfer the places it generally controlled, let's say New Orleans, let's say San Luis and the scattering of forts along the Mississippi. But across 95% of this enormous territory, France exercises little authority. In fact, I would say, I would say,

say no authority. Even better, the French don't even know what's in the hinterlands of Louisiana territory. Instead, what we see here is that in April of 1803, when Americans are negotiating with the French, they are negotiating the right of preemption. And the right of preemption is essentially United States inheriting Francis' claim to Louisiana and the exclusive position to negotiate. the purchase of the land from the natives

who actually hold the sovereignty over it. And I think this is an important distinction. In 1803, we did not buy land as such. What we bought was the legal right to it. So France gave us a claim. And for that, we paid slightly over

$11 million. That meant, of course, that Spain is still present, and Spain has claims to the territory. Certainly Britain is still present in northern parts of the continent, and it still has claims. But from the American point of view, removing France is the beginning of this process that will not end with ratification of Louisiana Purchase in the fall of 1803, but rather will

take another almost two decades to finally sort out and gradually remove Spain in 1819 through Adams' orders treaty and then a separate negotiation with Britain to remove British claims to the territory. And once that is done, then United States can, you know, use the right of preemption to start negotiating through coercion, through conquest, or diplomacy with the actual people who hold the sovereignty on the territory and these are the Native nations. Let me just make this clear for myself. I think this is important. The $15 million that we're talking about, and first of all, Alexander, you said $11 million. What did that refer to?

All right. So $15 million is a traditional number, but we are grouping here two things. So Louisiana Purchase consists of two separate documents. One is settling debts or claims, to be precise, that American citizens held against France for the loss of property. Now, remember, during 1790s, France, United States, who fought together against the British. Well, in 79s, after the American independence, the relationship became a little bit tense, let me put it this way. And we actually fought a war, undeclared war, or what we now. called quasi-war, where the French privateers targeted American commerce. And American merchants lost a lot of property, in fact, to the tune of over $3 million. And so in negotiating this deal,

we convinced the French to include over $3 million worth of claims, but that is not for the Louisiana territory. That's to settle claims. And then the remaining sum, therefore, is for the right of preemption. It's even more tempting to say, oh, my God, even better deal, $11 million. That's even better. But the fact of what you're making, the point that you're making is that this was about the claim to sovereignty. It wasn't about land per se. It was the ability to then go in and buy the land to negotiate the land with those native nations that the French were all too aware of. Had they decided to settle and develop this inner part of the North American continent, they would have had to deal with all of that.

And they were basically resigning themselves to the fact that we don't need that to do that. do what we want to do in the Western Hemisphere. So here we are at this point. The Americans have bought the right to do this. We have our own plans about how we're going to do that, and that plays out through the 19th century. But basically, that's the difference between how we perceive it as a real estate deal, which is not the case. It's more of a sovereignty deal. Yeah, you're absolutely right. In fact, in the book, I point out that the actual cost of Louisiana purchase are infinitely higher than the convenient number of 15 million, and it runs in billions, billions of dollars. Yes. How does this play out for Jefferson? I mean, at the time, is he seen as glorious as we now

consider him, you know, in pulling this off? Well, depends on who you ask, because the Federalists absolutely were aghast at the deal. And I spent last two years reading Federalist newspapers, and for anyone who thinks that we're living in the polarizing political times, they should read the newspapers of the period. The vitriol is, quite stunning. And of course, the Federalists believed that Louisiana Purchase posed an existential threat to American Republic. They were very concerned what this deal will do to the fabric of American state and society. Not the least was the financial cost. We could not afford paying, you know, $15 million. In fact, federalist newspapers loved pointing out that $15 million was more than cash we had.

And you have actually these headlines, right, saying that Louisiana Purchase will drain our treasury and make us bankrupt. But more crucially, Jefferson was lambasted and repeatedly so for hypocrisy. And that is for being, before becoming president, being a staunch advocate of state rights and speaking in favor of a limited federal government. And then in 1803, three, suddenly discovering the virtue of having a federal government that dwarfed anything that, the founding fathers envisioned in the Constitution. And so Louisiana Purchase, therefore, becomes a very important constitutional crisis in our history. I mean, they did try to paint a pretty good picture. I mean, Jefferson does play it up for himself. And there's the French flag coming down in December 20th, 1803, and we're trading things over. How does the United States planning to deal with the native tribes?

There's what's called the U.S. Indian treaty system, right? Yeah, actually, before I can answer, my favorite event of Louisiana purchase, thinking of the flags, is actually what happens in March of 1804, and that is in St. Louis, you have a so-called three flags day, and that where the Spanish flag is lowered, French flag is raised for 20 minutes, then it is lowered, and then the American flag goes off. So kind of a quick succession of change of sovereignty. But to answer you a question, so initially, When Jefferson hears from Livingston and Monroe that they actually negotiated acquisition of almost 1.3 million square acres of land, so he immediately thinks of this territory as an opportunity to relocate, whether willingly or not, the native nations living east of Mississippi. And so this way, the idea is we will force the native nations to abandon their ancestral lands in Georgia and Carolinas and Alabama and move across the Mississippi to this quote-unquote immense wilderness. And that will allow American colonies to expand and prosper and fill in this geographic space. but then later on, of course, already as years past, we began the process of consistently expanding across the Mississippi and turning the territory or reorganizing this lands first into territories and then eventually to the states. But in order to do that, of course, we had to, as I know that first resolve our disagreements with the great powers, Spain and Britain, but then negotiations.

directly with the native nations. And this is where the U.S. Indian treaty system is developed. And what is important about this is that if we look at the U.S. Indian treaty system, then we realize that there is not a single Louisiana purchase, but actually 222 Louisiana purchases. And this is a number of treaties. It took us to negotiate acquisition of the land west of Mississippi. And of course, each of this session, again, with a complete. through coercion, through outright conquests, or through diplomacy. Well, each of this session costs money. In fact, for some of them, as I point out in the book, we still pay money,

and anyone with a spare time can check our annual allocation, annual budget, and they will see that we're still paying annuity to the Pony Nation for the session that they made of land back in mid-19th century. Well, of course, yes, yes, yes. I mean, the true financial cost of this real estate, as we call it, the territory, would be eventually closer to billions of dollars. For the rights, essentially, for the claiming of sovereignty, I calculate that it cost us, as of today,

over $12 billion. But that, of course, does not count the expenditure of the settlement, occupation, building military infrastructure, and so on and so on. So that would make, as I kind of argue, this process is probably the costless enterprise in American history. Yeah, that does not sound so good in the history books. That gets taken down to about $15 million. And the four cents an acre I learned as a fifth grader. And so that's the beginning of, you know, this divine right to this land of manifest destiny. All of that begins with that real estate deal, as perceived. After the break, Alexander and I are going to talk about how the Louisiana purchase shaped America into a modern nation had a huge impact.

Welcome back. We're talking to Alexander Micahberica about the Louisiana purchase. There's a wider impact of this phenomenal era, you know, of acquiring this territory through the much more complicated means as we've discussed, how does this begin to transform the very definition of America, really? I mean, first of all, it's now becoming a continental power. And that's being perceived both by the European powers, but also by ourselves, which is new. Yeah. And I think this is where I want to point out that I think the traditional story of Louisiana Purchase, in fact, if you read most of the accounts, and certainly the ones that we teach our K-12 children, is the story that Louisiana Purchase is signed in April of 1803. It is ratified. We have that ceremony in New Orleans in December. And then overnight, it almost immediately, United States, quote unquote, doubled its territory. And the truth is certainly different. We already talked about the U.S. Indian treaty system that the United States began developing. We have to remember that the actual process of taking control of the land will last through this 19th century, and then that

will involve moving these so-called Indian boundary lines gradually across the Mississippi and then further to the west through contract and conquest. In fact, in the book, I'm arguing that this is the process of a conquest by contract where we use the sessions, the treaties that we negotiated with the natives as a way of curse them into surrendering the sovereignty and land. And that's one part of it. And of course, that creates a lot of problems in itself. But the second kind of element is that of the impact of the Louisiana purchase on the United States is what it actually did to us as a nation, right? It certainly gave us a sense of unique place in the world.

It seemed like divinely inspired and blessed enterprise, and it reinforced the notion of us as a shining city on a hill. And I think one of the most important ramifications was that expansion itself became normalized as an instrument of a national policy. United States now demonstrated that its boundaries are not fixed. The territory could be acquired, incorporated, governed, settled, and that therefore Louisiana changed this scale on which American decision makers, policy makers could imagine the nation. Think about Lewis and Clark expedition that is taking place within this context, right? It eventually became the basis for American claims far beyond Louisiana itself, for example, in Oregon country.

And your listeners probably are familiar that by 1840s, the claims fed directly into this expansionist politics symbolized by the slogan of 5440 or fight, meaning that we want to expand our territory to the 54th parallel, or we will fight for it. And so there is therefore this important conceptual progression here, Louisiana Purchase, this belief in the manifest destiny, this content of exploration, leading to territorial claims, leading to the settlement, and then further expansion. Now, part of it is that expansion was increasingly understood, not merely as an opportunity, but as a strategic necessity, as a national security.

And this is what Louisiana Purchase, I think, what makes Louisiana Purchase still relevant for anyone paying attention to modern politics and following, for example, Trump administration's efforts to acquire Greenland on the grounds of national security and economic interest. Well, that paradigm is what, you know, is created by Louisiana Purchase. And then is repeated then throughout the 19th century, when, for example, the United States engaged in acquisition, of Gadsden purchase or Alaska purchase and purchase of U.S. Virgin Islands or even

acquisitions of territories in the Pacific. So think about Hawaii or acquisition of the former Spanish colonies. In fact, the fact that we are still holding on to Puerto Rico as a territory, right, that legal premise, is the repetition of the concept, legal concept that was first tested in the wake of Louisiana purchase when the Louisiana purchase. this land would turn into a territory that the federal government managed. Well, it's important, as you say, security buffer. You know, at this moment, of course, the Spain is right there out in the West.

That's not going to get resolved until 1850s. And so this whole idea of, gee, you know, we need to protect ourselves by having a buffer suddenly becomes, you know, through the 19th century, the Pacific Ocean. That's the ultimate buffer. And this two ocean defense system becomes the norm for the continental America thing. And so that's a really important aspect that's triggered by the Louisiana purchase, I believe. I'm still fascinated by the redefinition that it does to the governance of America. I mean, you've got a president, ironically, Jefferson, who was the Democratic Republican,

who didn't believe in a strong federal government, suddenly becomes this powerhouse transformed office. Really, we never talk about this as its effect on the presidency. He is not constitutionally allowed to do what he's done. and by doing it suddenly makes the presidency a much more powerful office, doesn't he? Absolutely. And I think this is where anyone reading the congressional debates in the fall of 1803, and well into 1804, if you follow the press, we'll see just the degree to which the contemporaries perceived Louisiana purchase

as a crucial, at a pivotal moment. I mean, this book is published in Oxford series called Pivotal Moments of American History. Well, it is a pivotal moment. So let's start with Jefferson. So Jefferson in the summer of 1803 knows that Louisiana Purchase is a constitutional problem. In fact, I would go as far as to say that he knows it is unconstitutional. And the reason why is because Jefferson, probably better than most people, knew that the Constitution nowhere explicitly said that the federal government could purchase foreign territory, incorporate hundreds of thousands of foreign inhabitants into the United States.

And of course, the big question was, well, when we incorporate this territory, how are we going to manage it? Are we going to turn them into states? Essentially this notion of how do we create states? Now, in the articles of Confideration, in the beginning, there was a talk of extending existing states, kind of extending their territories, but there was a little about creating new states. Then if we don't create new states and we simply claim territory, well, are the people living there citizens of the United States, and if they are, then can they vote? And if they are not, how are we going to again administer them? And so Jefferson grapples with this complexity of it. So his instinct, his political instinct was that the safest solution to this brewing constitutional crisis would be constitutional amendment. And in July of 1803, he actually drafts two constitutional amendments that would expressly authorize the acquisition of this land and effectively remodel kind of the concept of the federal government. But ultimately, he chose not to do it. And instead, he went for political expediency. And this is where expediency is

the fact that he, well, his party, so to speak, controls the Congress, both the Senate and the House of Representatives. And he understood that he can simply push the approval because from Jefferson's point of view, there was a moment of time. There was this fear that French actually very skillfully played on that Napoleon might reconsider, that Napoleon might withdraw the offer. We know from the French side, if anyone looking on the French side, knows that Napoleon would not have withdrawn offer or reconsider because he was in a difficult spot. But he played upon those fears by telling living extent that he is reconsidering. And so that created this environment in which the Congress was urged to approve the deal, even though there are these issues of constitution

hanging over it. Now, the big issue that is always in the background is, if we acquire this territory, will this territory be managed as a state or as the federal land? And for federalists, interestingly, people traditionally associated with a very broad definition of federal power, at least when they were in power, they believed that. Well, suddenly they became defenders of strict construction interpretation of Constitution and a strict kind of vision of a small, limited government. And then Jeffersonian Republicans, who had spent years attacking Hamiltonian doctrines of implied powers and the broad vision of federal power, well, they suddenly discovered that the Constitution contained considerable flexibility. I was reading Governor

Mori's kind of correspondence, and he jokes that Jefferson's Republicans had expanded presidential power more than federalists dared to think, even in the days of Hamilton. And so the hypocrisy, I think, was politically potent because Jefferson spent years opposing precisely the kind of expansive constitutional reasoning that he now championed it. And that idea would be then, especially made complex by the institution of slavery. So if we turn this land into states, you know, if we turn this land into states, are we going to allow slavery to spread? And if we do, then it will inherently change the balance of power between the northern and the southern states. Oh, it has a, you know, it's just decades that passed before this is.

The nature of this acquisition has these echoing effects throughout the next, you know, four decades, the antebellum period. It is because of Louisiana Purchase and what that represents as a market, the territorial expansion for plantation owners, that really motivates a lot of the feelings that end up with the creation of the Confederate Nation. You've written this wonderful book, Alexander. Why do you think that Louisiana Purchase still matters to a modern audience? Well, certainly, actually, when I was finishing the book and Trump began talking about Greenland, it certainly made the book far more relevant. Well, let me maybe start by saying that I think one of the reasons is that we need to confront our history straight on, kind of be forthright about this story that we are telling ourselves or how we are crafting this story. And Louisiana purchased it a good one because in a traditional narrative, it certainly tells us a convenient narrative of us buying land. There is a book, for example, that says it was the greatest real estate.

state purchase, bloodless, peaceful transition of power. And that goes to the inherent national myth that we subscribe to it. But I want us to grapple with the complexity, because as we all know, I mean, the lives we're living right now, it's complex. And we cannot simply bowl them down to platitudes and just easy narratives. The second is that, I mean, this is the beginning of the rise of America is a great power. And I think it is important. important for us to understand what that process entailed. We are still grappling with the concepts of the federal government. What is its role? What is Americanness? What is American identity? In fact, there is a wonderful book that I've really enjoyed reading while working on this project,

Peter Castor's Nations Crucible that goes, that offers a deep dive on the role of Louisiana the purchase played in shaping American identity and what it was that both the contemporaries in 1803 in the subsequent decades kind of came to identify as Americanness. And certainly that is relevant as we are debating the issues of American identity and immigration. I think one of the important elements in the book is that Louisiana has always had a demographic, well, posed Louisiana Territory as a side, posed a demographic problem. even before it became this kind of diplomatic transaction. I argue that immigration is at the heart of this story.

And you'll see anyone who reads the book, sees that France struggled in convincing people to move to Louisiana. Spain had its own issues, both in terms of moving people into Louisiana, but also more crucially, actually containing an illegal immigration from United States to the Spanish-Lusiana. So it's a kind of process that is playing out in reverse. to what we are debating nowadays. I absolutely loved reading the Spanish colonial correspondence and seeing how the Spanish officials, like Governor Carondelet, for example, try to contain or solve the immigration issue and the political, social, and economic

challenges that created for Spain. And that is as relevant to us as any other aspects of Louisiana purchase. Yeah. Well, it is a mythology that continues to unfold. I mean, even in modern times and it's not as simple as we learned, and it has massive repercussions that are continually being reinterpreted. My guest has been Professor Alexander McAverice. He is the author of award-winning books, including the Napoleonic Wars, a global history. And his most recent book, The Louisiana Purchase, The Grand Bargain and the Making of America was published in July of 2006 and go and get it. I like the cover of this book. It's really very attractive. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to talk.

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