ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Louisiana Purchase:

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a cup of coffee, two baguettes,

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and a handful of beads. Mm-hmm.

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All right, and here's the map.

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Yep. That's the Louisiana Purchase.

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All right. Federalists opposed to the Louisiana Purchase

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might argue that the treaty authorizing its sale

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was unconstitutional because... what?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ baby giggle ]

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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Hmm. Well why would Federalists

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have opposed the Louisiana Purchase?

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Hmm? Well, first of all, Thomas Jefferson

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was a Democratic-Republican,

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so maybe they didn't like it because

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he was from the opposing party.

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Yeah. Not like partisan grudges happen anymore.

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Or maybe it had to with Federalists worrying about giving

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too much power to the executive branch, which was a major

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cause of the American Revolution.

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Let's keep that second one in mind as we look to the answers.

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Were the Federalists upset because the Louisiana Purchase B -

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would require the levying of a new tax?

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Well, actually, the U.S. paid France three million bucks

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up front in gold and sold a bunch of bonds

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to pay the remainder, so taxes weren't really

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the issue here for once. [ chuckles ]

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Therefore we can ignore B.

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Did Federalists question the Purchase's constitutionality

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because they thought C -

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it would lead to a war between the United States and Spain?

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Well, there definitely were some unresolved issues

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about whether the Spanish government actually owned

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the territory, but the conflict never had the potential

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of escalating to war.

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Looks like you should really keep better track of your receipts

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there, America.

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Well, maybe the Federalists were upset because the Louisiana Purchase

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D - would circumvent the approval of Congress.

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Well, actually, Congress had to ratify the treaty

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which led to the Purchase in the first place,

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so they definitely had a say in what was about to go down.

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That takes D out of the running.

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Which means that the Federalists opposed

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the Louisiana Purchase because A -

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the Constitution didn't grant the president

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the power to acquire territory.

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Remember what we said about Federalists worrying about

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the expansion of executive power?

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Yeah. Well, the Constitution doesn't explicitly give the

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president the power to acquire new territory.

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So the Federalists thought that if it wasn't in the Constitution,

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the Purchase was, well, surprise, surprise,

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unconstitutional. So A is the right answer.

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To the pleasure of Thomas Jefferson, though, the Purchase

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went through and the United States acquired part or all of

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15 new states for about 236 million dollars in today's dollars.

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Guess you really can put a price on happiness -

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and South Dakota.

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[ woohoo! ]

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