THE CONSERVATIVE REFORMER 177 



administration quietly followed the lines which Ham- 

 ilton had laid down. In other words, it was in the 

 hands of a constitutional magistrate who acquiesced 

 in the decision of such questions by the will of the 

 people. Moreover, as now wielding the administra- 

 tion and feeling the practical merits of Hamilton's 

 measures, Jefferson was no longer so ready to con- 

 demn them. In the most important act of his presi- 

 dency he deserted his strict constructionist theories 

 and ventured upon an exercise of power as bold as 

 Hamilton's assumption of state debts. Napoleon had 

 lately acquired from Spain the vast territory between 

 the Mississippi River and the crest of the Rocky 

 Mountains ; on the eve of war with England, he knew 

 that this territory was an extremely vulnerable spot in 

 his empire, and he was very glad to surrender it for 

 hard cash. Accordingly President Jefferson bought 

 it, and thus at a cost of $15,000,000 more than 

 doubled the area of the United States and. gave to 

 our nation its imperial dimensions. The Constitution 

 had not provided for any such startling exercise of 

 power. Probably the federal convention had not 

 so much as thought of such a thing. What is more, 

 this acquisition of territory reopened the question as 

 to slavery, which the framers of the Constitution 

 thought they had closed by their compromises. By 

 and by the question was to arise as to what was to be 

 done about slavery in states formed from the Louisi- 

 ana territory, a question to be settled only by civil 

 war and the abolition of slavery altogether. In Jeffer- 

 son's time no such result was dreamed of. The de- 

 sirableness of ousting European influence from the 

 mouth of the Mississippi River was very great, and 



