Public Reaction

The American public had a lot to absorb; imagine being told that the president bought enough land to double the size of the country.

Part of the problem with comprehending the size was that no one really knew where the Louisiana Purchase ended. "The only borders to which everybody agreed were the Mississippi River to the east and Canada to the north. France and Spain had never established a clear western boundary before 1763, and Spain saw no reason to do so afterward" (Kastor). It would take years to resolve boundary issues -- and additional treaties in 1818 and 1819 to get parts of Florida, which the United States had hoped they would get in the Louisiana Purchase.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images
American politicians Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) and Aaron Burr (1756-1836) take aim in the duel that would end Hamilton's life, Weehawken, New Jersey.

The eastern states, especially in the northeast, feared losing power to the new population. According to Betty Houchin Winfield, "The greatest volume of criticism in newspapers and pamphlets came from Boston, Hartford, New York and Philadelphia. In fact, slightly less than 25 percent of the publications commented on any advantages to be gained by an expansion of the population into the new territory. About 66 percent of the rural press had a favorable opinion of the acquisition of the new territory" (Kastor). There was even some fear that people would leave the east en masse to move to cheap land out west, thus decreasing eastern power even further.

Slavery was also behind much of the concern. Admitting new states meant deciding whether they were "free" or "slave" states, and each new state meant a tip in the balance of power between the north and the south. Out of this concern would come the Missouri Compromise, which declared that states had to be admitted in pairs -- one slave, one free -- so neither side could gain an advantage. This compromise would hold up until the 1850s and was one of the catalysts to the Civil War.

Some of the opposition to the Louisiana Purchase was purely political. Federalists, led by Vice President Aaron Burr and Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering, were upset about price and accused Monroe and Livingston of overstepping their boundaries. Federalist newspapers even charged that the only value the vast span of land had was that it could be traded with Spain for Florida later. But while the Federalists argued that the Purchase would hurt the eastern states, Jefferson's popularity spike was even more upsetting for them, politically.

The Federalists even tried to argue that the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional. This assertion followed a strict constructionist argument that the Constitution did not accommodate immediate naturalization of a new group, and the terms that the French signed in the treaty said that the people living in the Louisiana Territory were to be incorporated immediately. But the Constitution clearly stated guidelines and rules for admitting new states, and Congress agreed with President Jefferson that it was part of the federal government's implied powers in the Constitution that they could incorporate this land.

So how does history's view of the Louisiana Purchase compare with opinions when the transaction occurred? Read on to find out.