payment page
Louisiana Purchase
Treaties that ended the Napoleonic Wars gave France control of the Mississippi River. A previous arrangement had allowed Americans to have trading rights in the port of New Orleans and along the Mississippi River. It was very important for the United States to have access to the river, which was essentially a water highway that ran from New Orleans in the South all the way into what was then Canada.
President Thomas Jefferson sent a delegation to France to negotiate access to the river. The delegation offered $10 million to buy the port of New Orleans from France. Needing to consolidate his power in Europe, Napoleon instead sold the whole of the Louisiana Territory (nearly all the territory west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, including the port of New Orleans) to the United States for $15 million. This massive piece of land, the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubled the territory of the United States. To explore and survey this huge new addition, Jefferson commissioned the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led an expedition across its expanse, spending more than two years crossing the American continent before returning.
Embargo Act and Impressment
While the United States was expanding westward upon its own continent, the great powers of Europe were competing for influence overseas. The new French Empire, headed by Napoleon, sought to dominate Europe and considered Great Britain its primary enemy. These two nations had trading relations with the United States, and both sought to control trade in the Atlantic. American ships often found themselves caught in the middle, attacked, or harassed by one side for trading with the other. Short on sailors, the British began to impress—or forcibly remove—sailors on American ships whom they claimed were British citizens who had escaped the navy. By Jefferson’s second term, the war between Great Britain and France caused Jefferson to declare an embargo—a refusal to trade—with both parties until more peaceful terms could be made. This Embargo Act of 1807 severely damaged the American economy by limiting trade, hitting Federalist merchants in the Northeast especially hard. One positive effect of the embargo was that, as British-made goods became less available, American industry grew to meet the demand.
When James Madison entered the presidency after Jefferson, he inherited this foreign policy problem. Those who supported a more aggressive foreign policy against Great Britain and its allies were called War Hawks. They saw war as a way to expand into both Florida (held by Spain) and Canada (still held by Great Britain). Issues including the impressment of sailors, Britain’s support of Native American groups hostile to the United States, and other aggressive acts led to a public outcry for Congress to act. In response, Congress passed a declaration of war beginning the War of 1812 with Britain.
War of 1812
The actual fighting of the war was less than encouraging for the United States. American attempts to invade Canada failed, and, when the British landed troops to attack the United States, they managed to capture Washington D.C., setting fire to the Capitol and White House. Overall, however, the war ended in a stalemate on the battlefield. However, the effects of the war were important for both domestic and foreign policies. Federalists heavily criticized the war, as British motives were similar to the Federalists’ interests. In 1814, the Federalists met in Hartford, Connecticut to formally discuss their opposition to the war. At the Hartford Convention, some Federalists threatened to secede from the Union. When the war ended a year later, this seeming lack of loyalty resulted in the downfall of the Federalist Party in national elections.
The War of 1812 also signaled the birth of a new American nationalism—identification with the American nation and the willingness to support its interests. For example, during the war, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem, which later became the U.S. national anthem. “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and new military heroes, such as Andrew Jackson, rose in popularity. The Treaty of Ghent that settled the conflict in 1814 ultimately did very little to change the state of affairs for the average American. However, it did lead to a cooling of tensions between the United States and Great Britain in North America. It also set the stage for agreements to limit warships on the Great Lakes and for Britain to give up its claims on land in the Northwest Territory (an area that is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin).
Monroe Doctrine
When James Madison became president in 1817, the United States entered an age of expansionism. In 1818, the United States entered into an agreement with Great Britain to jointly occupy the Oregon Territory. In 1819, a treaty gave the United States control over the Spanish territory of Florida. As many former Spanish colonies in Latin America freed themselves from Spanish rule in the 1820s, President Monroe grew concerned that other European countries might want to take the former colonies. In response, he issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. The doctrine stated that the United States would consider any attempt by a European nation to interfere with any nation in the Western Hemisphere to be a hostile act. However, the United States promised to stay out of European affairs as well. While few of the great powers felt threatened by this proclamation, the confidence it displayed showed that a sense of American nationalism was growing.
