Territorial Expansion 1800-1850Territorial Expansion 1800-1850From the years 1800-1850 the nation was full of battles and prosperity. Territorial expansion was a cause in most of the battles, but also gained prosperity for the nation. There were many impacts on national unity between those time periods, but the main impact was territorial expansion. This is true because of the Louisiana Purchase, the purchase of Oregon territory, and the Mexican War.
The Louisiana Purchase was the most important event of President Thomas Jefferson’s first Administration. In this transaction, the United States bought 827,987 square miles of land from France for about $15 million. This vast area lay between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Border. The purchase of this land greatly increased the economic resources of the United States, and cemented the union of the Middle West and the East. Eventually all or parts of 15 states were formed out of the region. When Jefferson became president in March 1801, the Mississippi River formed the western boundary of the United States. The Florida’s lay the south, and the Louisiana Territory to the west. Spain owned both these territories.
Farmers who lived west of the Appalachian Mountains shipped all their surplus produce by boat down rivers that flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. In a treaty of 1795, Spain agreed to give Americans the “right of deposit” at New Orleans. This right allowed Americans to store in New Orleans, duty-free, goods shipped for export. Arks and flatboats transported a great variety of products, including flour, tobacco, pork bacon, lard, feathers, cider, butter, cheese, hemp, potatoes, apples, salt, whiskey, beeswax, and bear and deerskins. Spain suspended the right of deposit in 1798, arousing a strong reaction among Westerners. The Louisiana Purchase was the first notable acquisition to national unity, for it allowed contact between states to expand and helped to unite some the of the southern states.
A long history of dispute characterized the ownership of the Oregon territory, which included present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho and portions of Montana, Wyoming, and British Columbia. Spain and Russia had surrendered their claims to the region, but the United States and Britain were active claimants in the early 19th century’s early years. The matter’s resolution was delayed by the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, in which both parties agreed to a temporary policy of “joint occupation” of the region. This accommodation was extended in 1827. During the 1830s, the American position came to favor establishment of the northern border arguing that the nation required no less. The British, however, wanted to see the southern boundary of British Columbia established at the Columbia River and based their claims on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s long history in the area. The British position weakened in the early 1840s as large numbers of American settles poured into the disputed area over the Oregon Trail. Possession of Oregon became an issue in the election of 1844. Democratic candidate James K. Polk took an extreme view by advocating the placement of the border at 54 degrees 40’ north latitude. Expansionists chanted, “Fifty-four of Fight!” After the election, Polk put the British notice that joint occupation would not be extended, but quietly entered into diplomatic discussions.
In June 1846, the Treaty of Washington was signed between Britain and the United States, the latter represented by Secretary of State James Buchanan. Provisions included: the boundary between Canada and the United States was set from the Rocky Mountains to the coast; the line was extended southward through the Gulf Islands and the followed the mid point through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific ocean, and navigation through the Gulf Islands and the Strait of Juan de Fuca was to be ensured for both nations. The United States achieved a favorable resolution on the main boundary issue and the British retained full control of Vancouver Island, a matter of prime importance to them. The purchase of the Oregon Territory allowed migration to the west in increasing numbers year to year. Also, it unified many different people migrating and several states in the Oregon Territory. This helped national unity
–46–
and the provision of free-trade between the two nations through the territorial waters gave the British power to trade and trade, and to receive land for their purposes. This included trading in a variety of commodities and the transport of goods in them.
By 1895 the United States had been occupied by the British for a number of years. American territory was thus at one time occupied by two nations.
The territory of Virginia was considered a confederation with Great Britain—with the exception of her capital, Richmond (and its vicinity), which became a boundary. As soon as the United States had entered her newly occupied territory, her treaty with Britain gave her the right to settle as many of these territories as were of her own, provided the British did not make any attempt to make any attempt over the territories they had occupied.
The Virginia Purchase was a significant accomplishment in the economic and social well-being of the United States—a victory that led to a great improvement in a number of people’s standard of living and a great number of improvements in their economic lives. We have no doubt that that was ultimately achieved.
(Note the two states of New Mexico and Arizona—these also became more or less independent territory.)
While in some respects the treaty of March 28, 1863, did not give the United States immediate control, in others it had a direct influence. In the 1864 election of General John Adams—the only former Revolutionary president elected to the U.S. Congress in America—the agreement with the new government had a more profound and important purpose. In 1864, the United States did not annex or exclude Northern Territory from the confederacy.
John Adams was a popular figure in the United States. His ideas on land, trade, and individual independence were deeply rooted in American belief in American independence, which was based on the premise that the people of the continent should not be divided into three tribes. Adams and his people did not support secession and did not want their nation to become an independent nation. The agreement with Virginia—first ratified by Congress March 16, 1864, also included a commitment to “negotiate a confederacy of two and three equal, independent States to all the territory in the United States.” This pledge was based on the principle that the United States had the means of establishing an independent government over all the territory of the world, including Canada and the New England, under two separate and equally independent governments.
The treaty made its final form known in 1867, when the United States, for one year after the ratification of the treaty, negotiated in secret the establishment of the Confederation of American States (or the ‘Constitution’).
–47–
The Declaration of Independence. During this period “under the legal head of the first President under the United States, on behalf of the People of the United States,” the Government of the United States also granted an authority to issue the United States the laws of the union by way of Article I, U.S. Constitution. In March 1866, after Congress reconstituted Articles V, VI, and VII of the Constitution, the President of the United States wrote to Adams, “Here was placed my proposal to the President of the United States of America: That the one Province of all the Territories in this Union ought to be one State, and one people, and one People to be united.”
–48–
The “Confederacy of Virginia” was the same as the existing Union.
–49–
President Abraham Lincoln wrote to James Monroe, Secretary