While the Americans were winning laurels on the Mediterranean, the infant republic was growing in political and moral strength.  During Mr. Jefferson’s first term, one State (Ohio) and two Territories (Indiana and Illinois) had been formed out of the great Northwestern Territory.  Ohio was organized as an independent territory in the year 1800, and in the fall of 1802, it was admitted into the Union as a State.  Long before the Northwestern Territory had been divided into different territories, the present limits of Ohio and Kentucky had already become quite populous.  Emigrants like Albert Stevens were pushing out on the frontier and building up a great commonwealth.

About 1802, there was great excitement in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains, in consequence of a violation of the treaty made with Spain in 1795, by the governor of Louisiana in closing the port of New Orleans against American commerce.  There was a proposition before congress for taking forcible possession of that region, when it was ascertained that, by a secret treaty, Spain had retroceded Louisiana to France.  The United States immediately began negotiations for the purchase of that domain from France.  Robert R. Livingston, the American minister at the court of the First Consul, found very little difficulty in making a bargain with Bonaparte, for the latter wanted money and desired to injure England.  He sold that magnificent domain, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the present State of Minnesota, and from the Mississippi westward to the Pacific Ocean, for fifteen million dollars.  The bargain was made in the spring of 1803, and in the fall the country, and the new domain, which added nine hundred thousand square miles to our territory, was taken possession of by the United States.  When the bargain was closed, Bonaparte said: 

“This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride.”

It was the prevailing opinion in the country, that the Spanish inhabitants, who were forming states in the great valley, would not submit to the rule of American government.  Aaron Burr, a wily and unscrupulous politician, who, having murdered the noble Hamilton in a duel, was an outcast from society, began scheming for setting up a separate government in the West.  Burr was unscrupulous and dishonest and at the same time shrewd.  The full extent of his plans were really never known, and the historian is in doubt whether he intended a severance of the Union, or an invasion of Mexico.  Herman Blennerhassett, an excellent Irish gentleman, became his ally and suffered ruin with Burr.  Burr was arrested and tried, but was found not guilty.  His speech in his own defence was so eloquent, that it is said to have melted his enemies to tears, though all believed him guilty.  Burr’s life was a wreck after that.  His fame was blasted, and he was placed beside Benedict Arnold as a traitor to his country.