It’s Memorial Day and Americans are out barbequing, having a few beers, and spending time with their loved ones; they are celebrating to honor the fallen warriors who have died to protect our nation, our freedoms, and our way of life.
The Louisiana Purchase is usually presented as an incredible, inspiring moment in American history in which President Thomas Jefferson, wise, benevolent eyes twinkling under his powdery white wig, made an incredibly shrewd real estate deal with notorious, disgraced French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and, with one stroke of his giant quill pen, doubled the size of the United States of America for the bargain price of $15 million, or just three cents an acre. What we don’t usually learn about is the negative domino effect this treaty had in terms of inspiring the concept of manifest destiny or the belief that white colonists had a God-given duty to expand across North America and redeem and remake the land in their own image.
The Founders limited “treason” in the Constitution due to grave concerns it would be weaponized to criminalize dissent: exactly how the term is now routinely used.
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