Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Table
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 “The execution of laws is more important than the making of them”: Reconciling Executive Power with Democracy
- 2 Executive Power and the Virginia Executive
- 3 Executive Power and the Constitution of 1787
- 4 “To place before mankind the common sense of the subject”: Declarations of Principle
- 5 The Real Revolution of 1800: Jefferson's Transformation of the Inaugural Address
- 6 To “produce a union of the powers of the whole”: Jefferson's Transformation of the Appointment and Removal Powers
- 7 The Louisiana Purchase
- 8 To “complete their entire union of opinion”: The Twelfth Amendment as Amendment to End All Amendments
- 9 “To bring their wills to a point of union and effect”: Declarations and Presidential Speech
- Development and Difficulties
- Index
7 - The Louisiana Purchase
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Table
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 “The execution of laws is more important than the making of them”: Reconciling Executive Power with Democracy
- 2 Executive Power and the Virginia Executive
- 3 Executive Power and the Constitution of 1787
- 4 “To place before mankind the common sense of the subject”: Declarations of Principle
- 5 The Real Revolution of 1800: Jefferson's Transformation of the Inaugural Address
- 6 To “produce a union of the powers of the whole”: Jefferson's Transformation of the Appointment and Removal Powers
- 7 The Louisiana Purchase
- 8 To “complete their entire union of opinion”: The Twelfth Amendment as Amendment to End All Amendments
- 9 “To bring their wills to a point of union and effect”: Declarations and Presidential Speech
- Development and Difficulties
- Index
Summary
By the time Jefferson was elected president, he was an experienced lawmaker as well as a seasoned executive. As two-term governor during wartime, ambassador, secretary of state, and vice president, Jefferson was well aware that necessity sometimes required extraordinary acts of executive discretion. As representative of his state, participant in the formation of his state's constitution, reformer of his state's laws, discussant with Madison, and cofounder of his party, Jefferson also understood the sometimes strained relationship of executive prerogative and consent. Throughout his career, he attempted to preserve the law by interpreting it strictly while at the same time explaining that a strict construction of the law would require that the law be set aside during times of necessity or enterprise, on the condition that the executive submit to political judgment by announcing his extralegal activity. His transformation of the prerogative power turned on what he believed to be the connection between executive power and majority rule.
The Louisiana Purchase has been considered the greatest achievement of Jefferson's administration but also an example of political principle yielding to practical necessity. Henry Adams called the event “so momentous” that it “defied measurement” and speculated that the purchase “ranked in historical importance next to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution.” But, in Adams's view, the Purchase's importance derived as much from its constitutional legacy as from its size, for Jefferson's purchasing and incorporating Louisiana was the fatal blow to the strict construction of the Constitution.
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- Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power , pp. 171 - 194Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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