I wonder whether the Louisiana purchase was undertaken under general welfare reasoning
Just attended a reading of the Declaration of Independence at the local court house (an annual event for many years organized by the local chapters of the DAR and the SAR). Listening to the offenses of which King George was accused made me think how trivial many of them were compared to what we allow the federal government to do nowadays. What would the Founding Fathers think of present-day Americans?
Well, since Congress was not in session and available to act on the opportunity, Jefferson, in order to allow Congress to later exercise its discretion, had to step in and secure the territory. Congress could always have disposed of the land later, had it wanted. But the same people who would never object to the purchase of the Alaska territory have never stopped bitching about it because, in their opinion, the annexation expanded the wrong section of the country.