Excerpt from The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, 1803 1812 Having decided early in life to write a history of the United States, Plumer made use of every opportunity to collect mater ials to that end. His ambition as a historical writer was not gratified, but he left a vast quantity of manuscripts, invaluable for the history of his period. A small part of this collection was used by William Plumer Jr. In his Life of William Plumer. In that book, however, the younger Plumer practically ignored the very valuable memorandum which Senator Plumer kept of the debates in the United States Senate from 1803 to 1807. This memorandum gives detailed information on government matters seemingly nowhere else obtainable. Neither the Government nor the newspapers at that time kept a full report of the debates in Congress. Especially was this true of those of the Senate. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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From The Louisiana Purchase Like many other major events in world history, the Louisiana Purchase is a fascinating mix of destiny and individual energy and creativity. . . . Thomas Jefferson would have been less than human had he not claimed a major share of the credit. In a private letter . . . the president, reviving a favorite metaphor, said he "very early saw" Louisiana was a "speck" that could turn into a "tornado." He added that the public never knew how near "this catastrophe was." But he decided to calm the hotheads of the west and "endure" Napoleon's aggression, betting that a war with England would force Bonaparte to sell. This policy "saved us from the storm." Omitted almost entirely from this account is the melodrama of the purchase, so crowded with "what ifs" that might have changed the outcome-and the history of the world. The reports of the Lewis and Clark expedition . . . electrified the nation with their descriptions of a region of broad rivers and rich soil, of immense herds of buffalo and other game, of grassy prairies seemingly as illimitable as the ocean. . . . From the Louisiana Purchase would come, in future decades, the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and large portions of what is now North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Colorado, and Louisiana. For the immediate future, the purchase, by doubling the size of the United States, transformed it from a minor to a major world power. The emboldened Americans soon absorbed West and East Florida and fought mighty England to a bloody stalemate in the War of 1812. Looking westward, the orators of the 1840s who preached the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States to preside from sea to shining sea based their oratorical logic on the Louisiana Purchase. TURNING POINTS features preeminent writers offering fresh, personal perspectives on the defining events of our time.

The United States Constitution has no specific grant to acquire territory, yet the U.S. has expanded from the East Coast to the West, from thirteen colonies to fifty states. One of the nation's most important-and very early-acquisition In The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, author Everett Somerville Brown examines the legal aspects of this purchase and the constitutional interpretations the statesmen and legislators of the time developed as a consequence. Brown also EVERETT SOMERVILLE BROWN (1886-1964) also authored William Plumer's Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate 1803-1807 and Ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.