4.2 Historians on Louisiana Purchase

"The issue, then, is not whether Jefferson's policies toward Louisiana were right or wrong but rather how he managed to implement decisions that defied in so many ways his long standing commitment to limitations on executive power and the near-sacred character of republican principles...Jefferson was not simply seized by power-hungry impulses once he assume the presidency, since in a broad range of other policy areas he exhibited considerable discipline over the executive branch and habitual deference to the Congress; ...he did not suddenly discover a pragmatic streak in his political philosophy,...he clung tenaciously to Jeffersonian principles despite massive evidence that they were at odds with reality...The answer would seem to be the special, indeed almost mystical place the West had in his thinking...For Jefferson more than any major figure in the revolutionary generation, the West was America's future."

"The story of the Louisiana Purchase is one of strength, of Jefferson's adaptability and, most important, his determination to secure the territory from France,...A slower or less courageous politician might have bungled the acquisition; an overly idealistic one might have lost it by insisting on strict constitutional scruples....The philosophical Jefferson had believed an amendment necessary. The political Jefferson, however, was not going to allow theory to get in the way of reality...(He) expanded the powers of the executive in ways that would have likely driven Jefferson to distraction had another man been president. Much of his political life, though, had been devoted to the study and the wise exercise of power. He did what had to be done to preserve the possibility of republicanism and progress. Things were neat only in theory. And despite his love of ideas and image of himself, Thomas Jefferson was as much a man of action as he was of theory."