Jefferson had not won the election outright but he had tied with Aaron Burr so the result went to the House of Representatives who chose him over Burr. This stumble lead to the adoption of a constitutional amendment of voting for president and vice president not just having the second amount of votes for president become the vice president. One of Jefferson’s first actions as president would be fighting a war against Tripoli who had broken the treaty and began taking hostages and demanding money for their release and yearly tribute. US ships arrived in the Mediterranean and joined in on the Swedish blockade already in place and would raid the harbor several times and capture several ships at sea. In 1804 US Marines lead by William Eaton with 500 Greek, Arab, and Turkish mercenaries marched from Alexandria Egypt to put Hamet Karamanli on the throne which had been usurped by his younger brother Yusuf. After capturing the city of Derna and beating back a counter attack they carried on the march towards Tripoli raising support for Hamet eventually arriving at the capitol in late 1804. The US ships in the harbor started firing on the fortress allowing the smaller land forces to take the city and restore Hamet as Yusuf was killed during battle. Jefferson also founded the West Point Military Academy tough it had few standards for admission or length of study. His second foray into foregin relations was his attempt to buy the port of New Orleans but Napoleon, seeing it as untenable to implement his plans in the new world after Haiti defeated the force sent to reassert control and needing the money to fight his wars on the continent, sold all of the Louisiana territory. The purchase saw much opposition some on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, countered by Jefferson that it was in his power to negotiate treaties which this was, and others opposed it because the potential addition of new states would dilute the power of already existing states. On October 20, 1803 the senate formally approved the purchase then authorized the establishment of temporary military government and provisions for local civil government to continue as it had under French and Spanish rule with the exception that slavery was to be gradually abolished. Canada was particularly excited to have more French speaking Catholics in the country seeing it as additional support in defending their culture. Delaware in 1803 took the next step in freeing their slaves voting to pass state legislation for gradual emancipation of slaves having already voted to ban slave ships from their ports and preventing slaves from being sold to outside the state they would be followed in 1804 by New Jersey becoming the last states to voluntarily vote to end slavery, though slaves would exist throughout America even in the north for decades to come. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton duel but neither is injured in the embarrassing act though both of their reputations take a massive hit. Merriweather Lewis and William Clark begin their expedition to map the expansive new western territories lasting for 2 years. Jefferson would also win reelection in 1804 by a massive margin. Approval for the National Road Going from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia is given and would start a drive to get federal funding for many projects to spur development in the west. Congress in 1807 at Jefferson’s urging at the first possible time voted to end the import of slaves starting in 1808 though it would be loosely enforced perhaps not as loosely as it would have been if Jefferson had been able to dismantle the navy in favor of gunboats.
1808 Would see James Madison elected and his largest competition came from within his own party though he was still easily selected over the candidates though there was a growing disparity of what the northern D-R wanted and what the southern branch of the party desired. 1810 saw a confrontation between British and American ships. The British had been stopping American ships and impressing people they claimed were deserters and when the U.S.S. Constitution came upon one such case and moved to intervene between the ships and exchanged fire with the British ship delivering a disproportionately heavy broadside and it was also said that the few shots that did hit the Constitution bounced off the sides it would be the first of several such incidents which would give the Constitution her nickname, Old Ironsides. The incidents and those with other American frigates convinced the British that it would not be a good idea to get involved in further conflicts at sea given their current state of war with France so they came to an agreement to cease their stops and searching of American ships. The US also courted war with Spain at the time with an occupation of West Florida in 1810 that was invited by American settlers who had moved into the area and then overthrown the government and again latter as General Andrew Jackson lead and invasion into East Florida after several Indian attacks originated from there, as a part of the larger on going indian wars, the Americans also supplied some of the rebels in the Spanish Colonies mainly those in Mexico and New Grenada, later to become a larger part of the large state of Columbia. Shawnee leader Tecumseh organized a pan-tribal alliance to fight against the encroachment of white settlers on their land and in 1811 had gone south to recruit and coordinate with the tribes there but while he was in the south Indiana’s military governor William Harrison moved first and attacked the confederacy at Tippecanoe from where they marched northeast until they were rejoined by Tecumseh. Not long after rejoining his confederacy he started a series of raids on white settlers in the Michigan Peninsula pulling Benedict Arnold, eldest son of the late war hero, and the local militia out of Detroit resulting in a battle that would kill Tecumseh and the confederacy, the battle was also notable for being one of the largest use of colored troops since the Revolutionary War* and the first use of conical bullets in America**. Besides fighting indians, capturing the Floridas, and supporting rebellion in South America Madison also began slowly supporting infrastructure improvement in America. Albert Gallatin his Secretary of Treasury would propose a massive infrastructure project which would include a national turnpike from Georgia to Quebec, improvements to several canals across the great necks, roads west across mountains, roads to extremes such as Detroit and Halifax, several different options for canals to connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers, and quite fantastically a canal that would connect the Mississippi to the Atlantic that was never even seriously considered. It would take several years of negotiating before the plan was molded into what would pass through congress it would be money for a road connecting Halifax to Quebec and the National Turnpike that would run south to Georgia, roads connecting St. Louis, New Orleans, and Detroit, money for improvements to rivers connecting to the Atlantic, and eventually canals connecting Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers Lake Erie to the Ohio River Lake Michigan to the Illinois River and lastly one connecting the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. During his term he added 2 more sates more territory in Florida and the start of a decades long infrastructure program and Europe saw an end to the Napoleonic wars.