Topic: Expansion
Media › image
Map of the United States of North America
This map of the United States was made by an English mapmaker in 1796. Kentucky and Tennessee were the only western states and the state of Georgia still claimed the...
Media › image
Map of Western North America
This map–based on the best geographical knowledge of the time–was made especially for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Note the vast and mostly empty space between the Mississippi River and...
Media › image
Meriwether Lewis
This portrait shows Meriwether Lewis, who, with William Clark, explored the Louisiana Territory. A native of Jefferson’s home county of Albemarle, Lewis was the president’s secretary before Jefferson chose him...
Media › document
Message to the Senate and House
In this January 1804 message to Congress, President Jefferson applauded the successful occupation of the recently purchased Louisiana Territory by U.S. civil and military authorities. Jefferson believed that acquiring this...
Media › document
Northwest Ordinance
Based on principles put forth by Jefferson a few years earlier, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established a three-step process for turning territories into states. When the white population of...
Media › image
Plan of New Orleans
This map shows New Orleans in 1815. Most of the buildings pictured along the map’s borders were erected after the U.S. acquired the city in 1803. The decorative scene surrounding...
Media › document
Reflections on the Missouri Question
In this diary entry, John Quincy Adams questioned the wisdom of the Missouri Compromise, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state. Adams had supported the compromise...
Media › document
Restriction on the State of Missouri
In this speech, Senator William Pinkney of Maryland defended the Missouri Compromise. Pinkney believed that the compromise would help preserve the Union, but he also insisted that the white inhabitants...
Media › document
Senate Debates on the Louisiana Purchase
In this 1803 speech, Senator Samuel White of Delaware expressed his strong opposition to the Louisiana Purchase. Although White believed that the United States needed access to the port of...
Media › image