Recently I had the pleasure of attending a wedding in the Charlottesville, Virginia, area, where I decided to visit James Monroe’s home (Ashlawn – Highlands) between nuptial festivities.
I also had the pleasure of reading a book by Coy Barefoot entitled Thomas Jefferson on Leadership.
Interestingly, there was a discrepancy – of sorts – between an account in the book regarding the particulars surrounding the Louisiana Purchase, a deal with France consummated during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, and a story related by the docent conducting our tour of James Monroe’s house. Monroe was Thomas Jefferson’s neighbor in Charlottesville. According to the tour guide, their properties abutted each other – the only time, she said, that presidents’ lands were so intertwined.
Central to my point is that the docent and the book related two differing accounts regarding Jefferson’s maneuvering to double the size of the United States. These accounts are not incompatible, but the reader will quickly see that they are neither fully congruent nor complete.
Mr. Barefoot said that Robert Livingston was the Ambassador to France when Jefferson decided to procure this real estate. He wished to squeeze out France (and others) from controlling keys portions of this area, most notably the port of New Orleans, through which much U.S. commerce would traverse. Therefore, to close such an important deal, Mr. Jefferson removed the Ambassador from the negotiations in favor of James Monroe, who was the President's friend and also a Virginian.
Our confident and informed tour guide asserted that Mr. Livingston had repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to gain access to Napoleon’s Court to plea Jefferson’s purchase plan for the property recently turned over to France from Spain. Jefferson, either trusting Monroe as a fellow Virginian, as asserted by Mr. Barefoot, or, as the tour guide said, knowing that Monroe’s daughter had developed a relationship in Boarding School with a relative of Bonaparte’s, sent Monroe to France believing that he could gain access on the basis of that personal connection. He did, and France sold the U.S. a huge land mass for about three cents per acre.
So, which version is correct?
If you Google “Louisiana Purchase,” you will be told that a member of the du Pont family played a pivotal role in this transaction.
Perhaps only one of these stories is true. Perhaps all are. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. What these renditions of history could tell us is that no one story is complete. Maybe the Louisiana Purchase was accomplished by a close friend of President Jefferson, a fellow Virginian, whom he trusted, assisted by a French compatriot willing to help, and a daughter who befriended royalty related to the Court of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Whatever the real story is, if it is any, none, or all of the above, the point is that it is difficult for people, historians and laypeople alike, to properly and comprehensively discern all the relevant factors influencing any historical event.
This puts a recent comment by President George W. Bush into bright relief and better perspective. When asked in the spring of 2004 if he will be judged kindly, he said: ‘History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.’
In looking back at only one point in Jefferson’s administration -- an important one -- I am not so certain that if I were President, I would so blithely rely on history to correctly assess my actions on any issue. Yet, we cannot control the manner in which future generations review, analyze, and interpret past events.
Who said history was boring?
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 585 words.
© October 21, 2008
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YETMO: “You’re Entitled To My Opinion,” A Balanced Point of View
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