Posted on 01/11/2005 6:57:16 AM PST by Valin
Actually it was blundered into since Jefferson was only attempting to buy New Orleans. Napoleon threw it into his lap when it became clear that the French would not be able to reconquer and hold its New World empire and the British would seize it. He figured better to let them fight the Americans for it.
Jefferson was so oblivious of Napoleon's intentions that he helped him try and defeat the slave rebellion in Haiti.
Napoleon planned to defeat the slaves then move the 20,000 man army to Louisiana. An army far bigger than that of the United States which J had done his best to destroy along with the navy.
Yellow fever and Toussaint put an end to that dream and made Jefferson look like a political genius.
Jefferson's negoitiator was stunned to be offered all of Louisiana and accepted without authority to do so. Fortunately J put his screwed-up understanding of the Constitution aside long enough to buy it. He could not understand that there was sufficient authority to purchase it just from National Security perspectives alone.
It is interesting that Quigley's magnum opus is MISSING from the public libraries of the land (or at least Chicago.)
Is this what I THINK it is? (Spooky music rises)
Hahaha. Jefferson was good at talking the talk but could never walk the walk. His pretenses were great but rarely were translated into coherent action.
Only idiots proclaim one of our greatest patriots a "traitor" a man who spent his entire adult life fighting for freedom. A man who sacrificed great wealth to serve as the Jeffersonians whipping boy because he knew the crucial importance of establishing a strong fedgov. A man whose greatest admirer was Washington who supported him in every policy and who loathed Jefferson after 1792 or so following his treachery while still a cabinet member.
The only thing funnier than your cartoon Jefferson is the idea that HE would give up the foreign indulgencies he loved: the fine wines, scientific instruments, furniture, books and other goods which eventually bankrupted him. THAT is hysterically funny.
At least that letter was to one who did understand something of economics rather than a crank like Taylor.
What source have you seen this in?
It's very different from what I've seen which is that Sec State Madison held Jefferson's feet to the fire to support the slaves and that is why Napoleon surrendered Louisiana -to get us to stop supporting them so France could have her rich plantations back.
Before his presidency Jefferson did advocate crushing those rebel slaves.
And you are incapable of seeing the difference between passive resistance and active rebellion? There was no rebellion outside western Pennsylvania as I said. Apparently there was a greater ability in the other areas to hold one's liquor than exhibited in Penn and therefore the cranks were not able to agitate violence.
Of course, your quote gets the sequence all wrong. The violence in Pa. caused the fedgov to move to protect its officers. It did not "chose to make a fuss" but RESPONDED to that fuss.
Nor is there a coherent argument against the tax in the list of dubious complaints about it.
The Rebellion did have a positive effect since it showed that the fedgov would not back down to violence and would back up the law rather than surrender to the lawless. Its negative effect was that it allowed the Jeffersonians to agitate and distort reality to attract enough of the gullible to attain power. No wonder it appeals to you.
Probably theft. And the theives are not exclusively Birchers; I reckon some of them are on the Left!
Not sure what that book has to do with the subject of the thread but I might read it someday.
Hamilton was a monarchist who chose to impose an oppressive form of taxation on the American People, much like his aristocratic, British predecessors whom he admired.
Try The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson by Forrest MacDonald.
Jefferson's very first act as president was to order Madison to impose an embargo on trade with the Haitians and try and starve them into surrender.
Adams had established diplomatic relations with the rebels and Jefferson put a stop to that immediately. He in no way supported the slaves and the entire South was terrified over this development. So much so that any news from the island was repressed. Papers were not allowed to publish information about it and ships from the region were carefully controlled to prevent spread of such news.
The first, because it provides a definitive refutation-once and for all-of the baseless assertion that the South-which, at the time, consisted of only five states-would have irrevocably severed its ties to the other thirteen colonies, had chattel slavery been abolished in the original framing of the U.S. Constitution.
The second, because it illustrates-in enthralling detail-why Abraham Lincoln was the single greatest wartime leader that this nation has ever had.
That is a complete LIE without a shred of truth to it or evidence for it. He admired the British government because of its unique combination of stability and freedom. It was after all the BEST that was available in his day during a period when the Constitution was still an experiment. There was nothing oppressive in the British government that he admired.
Hamilton's taxation was TINY per capita and in no way "oppressive" particularly to the lower classes which imported little.
His policy immediately created 25 million in capital and made US debt the strongest in the world because he was not willing, unlike Jefferson, to welsh on it and screw its holders.
Attempts? To whom are you referring? My comment was addressed at the false contention that Abe freed slaves outside the occupied areas of the Confederacy nothing else.
If by "free", you mean that this group was excluded from the Emancipation Proclamation and the federal orders pursuant to that document.
Lincoln, along with Attorney General Bates and other members of the cabinet did attempt-with partial success-at enacting a policy of compensated manumission during the war years, post-1862.
I don't believe there is a convincing argument to be made that the Southern states would have ratified the Constitution had it freed slaves (assuming it could have purchased them which is a hell of an assumption given the bankrupt Confederation). Hell for that matter that might have defeated it in New York since areas of that state had as high a concentration of slaves as any area of the nation.
It barely passed there as it was.
I do not need convincing of Lincoln's greatness all I have to do is read some of the garbage posted here by the Lincolnhaters such as the latest "Lincoln was Gay" absurdity. But I would not place him above Washington in that regard.
The South, especially Georgia, South and Carolina, would have never seceded at a time when the settlers living there were under the possible threat of constant warfare against native tribes.
Most of this talk was bluff, on their part.
Speculation is interesting. Not necessarily convincing but at least interesting.
However, it should be noted that there was no use of federal forces in fighting the tribes in the South. That was done with state militias for the most part nor was the federal forces particularly effective in the North until Anthony Wayne showed up.
Even wrt the Whiskey Rebellion the forces Hamilton led were state militias not federal troops.
There's no way that you can travel back-short of inventing a time machine-and alter the decisions that were made over two centuries ago.
However, I don't think that Nash's conclusions are any less convincing than the history that has been engraved into the public consciousness, as far as the issue of slavery and early, post-colonial America is concerned.
and I thought the Yaps was who Audie Murphey defeated in World War twice.Money the size of Yugo spare tires ya say?
Bet they had deep pockets for the ACLU attorneys to dip into.
There is probably a picture on the net of this money. It did have a great advantage in that stealing it was pretty difficult for those without a frontend loader.
The stickler is the financing of emancipation through the fedgov which I don't believe would have EVER happened at the founding.
There is no doubt that the attitude of almost all slaveowners about slavery was negative at that time and they were anxious to find a way out of it. They considered it to be a pernicious situation not one they praised to excess as came to be the next century.
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