President Jefferson's Gamble: Slavery Prohibited in the Louisiana Territory

[Hnau]

IOTL October 20, 1803 the US Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty with a vote of twenty-four to seven. There was worry that Napoleon would revoke his offer if they waited too long to approve it, and that thereby the United States of America would lose this miraculous opportunity to double the size of their territory. The debate was short and very little scrutiny given to the treaty.

What if, as suggested in the book American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic by Joseph Ellis (page 235), the Federalist opposition to President Jefferson had brought up fears of the expansion of slavery into the congressional debates? There was enough abolitionist fervor in the northeastern states at the time that their senators could have made it a major item during their discussions over the treaty, and decided to make it conditional for their ratification of the treaty. President Jefferson had tried to prohibit slavery from the territories before, in 1784, so it is not unthinkable that he would have consented had the subject been brought up by other voices. We must posit here also not just increased Federalist attention to the issue, but that the President finds some amount of political courage that in our timeline he did not seem to have.

I'm imagining that Senate ratification takes another two weeks of wrangling from this, and it ends when Jefferson gives his word in secret to the Federalists that he would prohibit slavery if Congress could give him control over the drafting of the Louisiana Territory's new constitution (which IOTL was given to him anyway through "enabling legislation"). In December 1803 the new constitution is revealed, identical to OTL's (making the territory essentially a military autocracy for the time being), but also including an article that prohibits slavery in the Louisiana Territory and abolition of slavery a condition for acceptance of any part of the Louisiana Territory into the Union as a state. The federal government would compensate any current slaveholder in the territory for any slaves that now had to be freed. Another article mandates that one-fifth of the profits from the future sale of any federal territory in Louisiana Territory to private interests be placed into a fund only to be spent for the emancipation of slaves in the southern states and their relocation.

And with this, on paper at least, Jefferson would have blocked expansion of slavery westward. It will be seen as a betrayal to the slave states, and the fallout would be huge. First of all, there may be significant energy devoted to getting the Supreme Court to rule on whether Jefferson's drafting of the the territorial constitution is legal. Second, the move could fracture the Democratic-Republican Party into much more pronounced pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, perhaps even ending the party as we know it. Third, the southern states could start discussing secession, after all, if the northeastern states could rally behind the idea, which they did in OTL, why not the slave states? A fourth item to consider is that the fifty thousand non-Indian residents of Louisiana Territory, many of which were slaveholders, could begin an armed revolt against federal power instead of organizing peaceful protests.

Does this WI look possible and what might happen to the United States as a result?

 

[Falecius]

IOTL October 20, 1803 the US Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty with a vote of twenty-four to seven. There was worry that Napoleon would revoke his offer if they waited too long to approve it, and that thereby the United States of America would lose this miraculous opportunity to double the size of their territory. The debate was short and very little scrutiny given to the treaty.

What if, as suggested in the book American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic by Joseph Ellis (page 235), the Federalist opposition to President Jefferson had brought up fears of the expansion of slavery into the congressional debates? There was enough abolitionist fervor in the northeastern states at the time that their senators could have made it a major item during their discussions over the treaty, and decided to make it conditional for their ratification of the treaty. President Jefferson had tried to prohibit slavery from the territories before, in 1784, so it is not unthinkable that he would have consented had the subject been brought up by other voices. We must posit here also not just increased Federalist attention to the issue, but that the President finds some amount of political courage that in our timeline he did not seem to have.

I'm imagining that Senate ratification takes another two weeks of wrangling from this, and it ends when Jefferson gives his word in secret to the Federalists that he would prohibit slavery if Congress could give him control over the drafting of the Louisiana Territory's new constitution (which IOTL was given to him anyway through "enabling legislation"). In December 1803 the new constitution is revealed, identical to OTL's (making the territory essentially a military autocracy for the time being), but also including an article that prohibits slavery in the Louisiana Territory and abolition of slavery a condition for acceptance of any part of the Louisiana Territory into the Union as a state. The federal government would compensate any current slaveholder in the territory for any slaves that now had to be freed. Another article mandates that one-fifth of the profits from the future sale of any federal territory in Louisiana Territory to private interests be placed into a fund only to be spent for the emancipation of slaves in the southern states and their relocation.

And with this, on paper at least, Jefferson would have blocked expansion of slavery westward. It will be seen as a betrayal to the slave states, and the fallout would be huge. First of all, there may be significant energy devoted to getting the Supreme Court to rule on whether Jefferson's drafting of the the territorial constitution is legal. Second, the move could fracture the Democratic-Republican Party into much more pronounced pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, perhaps even ending the party as we know it. Third, the southern states could start discussing secession, after all, if the northeastern states could rally behind the idea, which they did in OTL, why not the slave states? A fourth item to consider is that the fifty thousand non-Indian residents of Louisiana Territory, many of which were slaveholders, could begin an armed revolt against federal power instead of organizing peaceful protests.

Does this WI look possible and what might happen to the United States as a result?

Interesting POD.
I am not familiar enough with the time and place to say anything of consequence, but the bolded parts are the ones I have some doubts about.
While I see abolition in the Territory as plausible and interesting, stating that it will be used to fund emancipation elsewhere seems too much.
It would show a degree of anti-slavery comittment on the part of the Federal government that looks quite extreme, considering that a good part of said government was dominated by a bunch of slaveholders, including Jefferson himself. Any particular reason for that.

On the other hand, how sensitive an issue was slavery in 1803? Better said, how politically structured slavery interests as such were to see the stop of westward expansion as betrayal and act accordingly? While the government was dominated by a bunch of slaveholders, I was under e impression they weren't (yet) a bunch of committed slaveholders.

 

[katchen]

Not possible at all, I'm afraid. Jefferson, whatever his virtues, was a staunch supporter of slavery. Even to the point of trying to get much of Texas into the Louisiana Purchase. (It was John Quincy Adams, James Monroe's Secretary of State who WAS anti-slavery who negotiated THAT away for a generation by defining the border of Louisiana at the Sabine rather than the Colorado (through Austin TX) River in 1820 in an attempt to minimize the amount of slave territory acquired from Spain in the Adams-Onis Treaty).
What IS possible is for Jefferson to bring in something like an early day Missouri Compromise, dividing Louisiana at the Missouri River and possibly the Platte River with slavery permitted to the south and prohibited to the north the way the Ohio River was turned into a slavery frontier.

 

[Falecius]

Not possible at all, I'm afraid. Jefferson, whatever his virtues, was a staunch supporter of slavery. Even to the point of trying to get much of Texas into the Louisiana Purchase. (It was John Quincy Adams, James Monroe's Secretary of State who WAS anti-slavery who negotiated THAT away for a generation by defining the border of Louisiana at the Sabine rather than the Colorado (through Austin TX) River in 1820 in an attempt to minimize the amount of slave territory acquired from Spain in the Adams-Onis Treaty).
What IS possible is for Jefferson to bring in something like an early day Missouri Compromise, dividing Louisiana at the Missouri River and possibly the Platte River with slavery permitted to the south and prohibited to the north the way the Ohio River was turned into a slavery frontier.

Never heard of that. In the (admittedly not very deep) understanding I have, Jefferson cannot be described as "staunch supporter" of slavery.
I mean, he apparently wasn't enthusiastic about slavery, although he obviously accepted it, and profited from it.

 

[katchen]

Jefferson was staunch enough to create the "states rights" ideas that the slave states all profited from ideologically. As well as his idea of the independent farmer. And he never freed any of his slaves beyond the Hemmings family upon his death. That's staunch enough for me.

 

[Sicarius]

Not possible at all, I'm afraid. Jefferson, whatever his virtues, was a staunch supporter of slavery. Even to the point of trying to get much of Texas into the Louisiana Purchase.

I don't contest at all that Jefferson supported slavery, but I'm interested in your reasoning here. How does trying to nab a bit of Texas show he was pro-slavery? There were almost no slaves, and no whites, in Texas at the time the Louisiana Purchase went down. Even the Austins hadn't been there yet. Texas hadn't gained its character as a slave area yet, it was just a name on a map covering a vague territory filled with a few Mexicans and a lot of Indians.

 

[Mikestone8]

Even if a state were admitted as "free" could it be prevented from legalising slavery later? Iirc Illinois came close to doing this in 1824. Wouldn't a SCOTUS with a Southern majority (which it usually had in those days) be likely to uphold the state's right to do so?

 

[Plumber]

This is much more likely if Adams wins. Speaking of slavery: by the way, Jefferson only won the presidency in 1800 because the 3/5 compromise inflated the votes of Southern whites.

 

[Hnau]

Jefferson tried to ban slavery from the territories in 1784 and promoted abolitionism frequently. The historical records shows definitively that he wasn't a supporter of the institution. He was, however, very racist, which was normal at the time at the very least. He believed that too many emancipated slaves would eventually lead to a race war with the whites, which is why he was reluctant to abolish slavery without taking measures to also relocate freedmen back to Africa. It's also why he wanted to relocate the Indians to west of the Mississippi River to keep the Atlantic colonies as white as possible.

 

[Dirk_Pitt]

Jefferson was staunch enough to create the "states rights" ideas that the slave states all profited from ideologically. As well as his idea of the independent farmer. And he never freed any of his slaves beyond the Hemmings family upon his death. That's staunch enough for me.

That is utter nonsense. He didn't "create" the states' rights arguements, they were ideals that evolved from the early days of the revolution. Jefferson was just its main proponent. He certainly didn't support these ideals in order to spread and justify slavery.

It was only later on that the southern elite twisted and contorted Jefferson's ideals to justify the propagation of that vile practice called slavery.

Jefferson's, along with many other southern founders', views of slavery were rather ambiguous. Though they owned slaves they believed that it was a necessary evil that would ultimately go the way of the dodo. They didn't have 20-20 hindsight to realize that it would require the lives of 600,000 Americans to kill the practice.

To answer the OP, this is very unlikely. As I said above, Jefferson believed that slavery would ultimately die. Why take action against something you believe will enevitably die out with or without any action on your part and risk annoying half the country?

 

[Hnau]

To answer the OP, this is very unlikely. As I said above, Jefferson believed that slavery would ultimately die. Why take action against something you believe will enevitably die out with or without any action on your part and risk annoying half the country?

Why would Jefferson have drafted the 1784 bill to prohibit slavery in all western territories if this is what he truly believed? Did he change or his incentives change that much in the twenty years that followed?

While I see abolition in the Territory as plausible and interesting, stating that it will be used to fund emancipation elsewhere seems too much.
It would show a degree of anti-slavery comittment on the part of the Federal government that looks quite extreme, considering that a good part of said government was dominated by a bunch of slaveholders, including Jefferson himself. Any particular reason for that?

It was offered as a potential non-violent long-term solution to slavery that Jefferson could have forced upon the country at this point, at least according to American Creation. The idea of gradual emancipation and relocation was more popular at the turn of the century than later. But you're right, this part of the POD might be a step too far to be plausibly considered. Jefferson would create too many enemies.

Unless someone tries to defend this part of the OP in the future, re-opening the discussion over whether its plausible, let's consider it rescinded for the rest of the thread. Slavery is simply prohibited in the Louisiana Territory, new states formed from the territory must also prohibit slavery, and the federal government promises to compensate current slave-owners in the territory.

On the other hand, how sensitive an issue was slavery in 1803? Better said, how politically structured slavery interests as such were to see the stop of westward expansion as betrayal and act accordingly? While the government was dominated by a bunch of slaveholders, I was under e impression they weren't (yet) a bunch of committed slaveholders.

I guess that's one of the questions I wanted help answering. Clearly in 1784 the southern states blocked legislation that would have prohibited the future spread of slavery into the territories, and I can't see them changing their minds so drastically in the next twenty years. Whether there would be enough of a feeling of betrayal that they would secede, I don't know. Certainly there would be much less support for Jefferson in the southern states, leaving the election of 1804 to be resolved differently than IOTL.

 

[Sicarius]

Jefferson tried to ban slavery from the territories in 1784 and promoted abolitionism frequently. The historical records shows definitively that he wasn't a supporter of the institution.

He did own a bunch of slaves and had sex with his slaves and ran a nail factory where slave children worked, so there is that.

 

[katchen]

We dpn't like to see or admit that the thinking of a revered figure like Thomas Jefferson would evolve in a direction that we see as retrograde but I suspect that this is in fact what happened with Jefferson. I think Jefferson was a lot more opposed to slavery in the early 1780s when he thought that it would die out than he was by 1798 when he was on the verge of becoming President and Eli Whitney's cotton "engine" had just made cotton growing with slave labor a viable proposition.
I'll have to leave the answer to this question to those listmembers who have made a real study of Jefferson's works. Did Jefferson at any time see bonded white servant labor, freed after a period of seven years as a viable alternative to slavery?
Because bonded immigrant labor would have been the obvious alternative to slavery in the late 18th and early 19th Century. Except that the Napoleonic Wars and trade embargoes closed the doors of transatlantic trade (and therefore immigration) between Europe and the United States at a time when the slave trade (until 1808) was still legal, giving slavery the edge at a time when the demand for labor for clearing land in the Southwest for cotton growing had just gone wild to the point that Native Americans were being enslaved.
And this was the life and times of Thomas Jefferson, slaveowner, whose slaves were increasing in value to the point where they made up a significant part of his fortune and net worth. How could he not be influenced by them.

 

[Hnau]

He did own a bunch of slaves and had sex with his slaves and ran a nail factory where slave children worked, so there is that.

Jefferson was most definitely a racist and very contradictory, but he did believe slavery was dangerous to society. He wrote about it too often. Perhaps he thought that he could trust his own wisdom to keep slaves "the right way" but the common slaveholder could not. That's how I read him at least. I'll admit that it seems he stopped being as much of an abolitionist the older he got.

 

[Blackfox5]

Not possible at all, I'm afraid. Jefferson, whatever his virtues, was a staunch supporter of slavery.

This is an exagerration. Jefferson was very vocal about opposing slavery, but his actions did not live up to his words. This does not mean he was a "staunch supporter" of the institution.

Jefferson wanted to specifically condemn slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

He proposed gradual emancipation of slaves consistently since the 1770s.

He introduced a law banning the importation of new slaves into Virginia in 1778.

In 1784, he introduced an ordinance to ban slavery in the Northwest Territories.

Jefferson proposed and signed a law in 1807 that prohibited the exportation or importation of slaves.

After 1785, Jefferson became much less vocal in his opposition to slavery. He definitely does not deserve a reputation as an early abolitionist and his personal conduct towards keeping slaves shows he was very much a hypocrite. But that is very different than saying he was a "staunch supporter of slavery".

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

It's 'easy' to ban slavery in the Old Northwest. There were few people there, and most of them were small farmers who wouldn't want/need/be able to afford slaves. Whereas, the Louisiana territory was already significantly populated, and the economy was largely based on slave labour.

In the Old Northwest, it's a matter of guiding new settlement. In Louisiana, it's abolishing something that exists.