Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

DAR Essay Winner: Capitol Walls Tell Of Louisian, Missouri

The Louisiana Purchase and the

Missouri Compromise

If the United States Capitol walls could talk they would probably have many stories to tell. The 19th century saw the United States make its move from the Atlantic Ocean towards the Pacific Ocean. The years between 1800-1900 saw the end of slavery and the beginning of a new industrialized United States. Two stories that the capitol walls could tell about were the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The Louisiana Purchase was the most important event of Thomas Jefferson's first administration. In the Louisiana Purchase the U.S. bought 827,987 square miles for about $15 million. This area stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and between the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. This purchase doubled the size of the United States.

One reason for the purchase is that in 1795 Spain agreed to give the "right of deposit" at New Orleans. In 1798 Spain suspended this right. In 1800 Spain transferred Louisiana to France. Napoleon I then assigned an army and general to take control. In 1801 the "right of deposit" was given to the United States for a short time.

In the same month that Jefferson became President, Rufus King, minister to Great Britain, heard that Spain planned to cede Louisiana to France. Jefferson feared that France would interfere with western colonies. Robert Livingston, who was minister to France, was instructed to tell the French that the United States was not willing to see the colonies of Spain transferred to anyone else except the United States.

In 1801, King sent Madison a copy of the treaty in which Spain gave Louisiana to France. In 1802 Jefferson arranged for one of his friends, Pierre du Pont de Nemourus, to warn France that if they took Louisiana the United States would ally with Great Britain against them. Du Pont, being a businessman, suggested the United States offer as much as $6 million to buy Florida.

On October 18, 1802, Governor Salcedo again suspended the "right of deposit" in New Orleans. Jefferson decided to send James Monroe to try to negotiate with France. Congress decided to give the negotiators $2 million to try to buy the east bank of the Mississippi. Jefferson privately advised them to offer as much as $9,375,000 for the Floridas and New Orleans.

Instead of only purchasing New Orleans and the Floridas the American emissaries James Monroe and Robert Livingston were offered the whole Louisiana territory. They signed the treaty on April 30, 1803. The price was 60 million francs or $15 million U.S. dollars.

Another story to tell would be about the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise was a plan agreed upon by the U.S. Congress in 1820 to settle the debate over slavery in the Louisiana Purchase. The plan temporarily maintained the balance of free and slave states.

In 1818, the Territory of Missouri applied for statehood. Slavery was legal in the territory and most people expected Missouri a slave state. When Missouri was to be admitted there was an equal number of free and slave states, eleven each. Admitting Missouri threatened to destroy the balance of power in Congress.

Even though this balance had been temporarily upset a number of times it had been easy to decide what state would be free of slave. There was a boundary that separated free states from slave states. This time it would be different. Part of Missouri lay within the free boundary while the other part lay in the slave boundary.

A debate broke out when Representative James Tallmadge of New York introduced an amendment to the bill that let Missouri become a state. Tallmadge did not want any more slaves brought into Missouri. He also wanted to grant freedom to any slave children born after Missouri became a state. The Southerners, however, did not like it. The House of Representatives was dominated by free states so the bill passed the House, but it did not pass the Senate.During the next session of Congress, Maine applied for statehood. With Maine coming in as a free state and Missouri coming in as a slave state the balance in Congress would not be disturbed. This made the Missouri Compromise possible.

The compromise admitted Maine as a free state and authorized Missouri to form a state constitution. The compromise also banned slavery in the Louisiana Purchase of the southern boundary of Missouri except in the state of Missouri. The people of Missouri believed they had the right to decide if they wanted slavery in the state. They wrote a constitution that allowed slavery and that restricted free blacks from entering the state.

Before congress would allow Missouri to become a state a second Missouri Compromise was needed. It required Missouri not to deny black citizens their constitutional rights. With this understood, Missouri was admitted to the Union in 1821. Although the compromise worked it was repealed in 1854.

The Louisiana Purchase and the Missouri Compromise both had an effect on the history of the United States. The Louisiana Purchase, the best real estate deal ever made in the United States, made the westward expansion of the nation possible. The Missouri Compromise temporarily solved the dispute of slavery and allowed the admission of new states. These are just two of the many events that made history during 1800-1900.