Jeffersonian Democracy: The Lewis And Clark Expedition

Jeffersonian Democracy is the phrase used to describe the general political principles embraced by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed in reducing the size of the federal government in order to grant state governments more power. Jacksonian Democracy believed that the common white male should have more control over the government has the government should do things that would benefit him rather than the elites.

Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr and John Adams were running to be third president of the US. Aaron Burr and Jefferson tied and Adams lost. The final vote was to be decided by the House of Representatives. They elected Jefferson to be president and Burr to be vice president. The election of 1800 resulted in the 12th amendment.

The twelfth amendment states that the ballots for president and vice president must be the same.
The Louisiana Purchase was made in 1803. In 1803 the United States agreed to buy over 800,000 square miles of land from France.The purchase costed the US 15 million dollars. One of the goals of the purchase was to expand the US, but the more important reason, was to make sure the u.s. would have control over the Mississippi River. This was because the United States needed to make sure they were able to transport goods overseas Through New Orleans.
After the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was made, Jefferson initiated an exploration of the newly purchased land and the territory beyond the "great rock mountains" in the West. He chose Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition, who then requested the help of William Clark. Together they formed a diverse military Corps of Discovery that would undertake a two-year journey to the great ocean.
Lewis and Clark were the commander and co-captain of the Corps of Discovery--a group of 33 men who set out from St.

Louis, Missouri on May 14, 1804 to explore the Louisiana Territory. Throughout the trip, the explorers kept multiple copies of maps and notes of observations of the climate, vegetation, and people. Both also kept diaries with complex scientific observations of the animal and plant life encountered by the expedition. Sacajawea accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition during its journey to the Pacific Ocean between 1804 and 1806. She made important contributions to the success of the Corps of Discovery: she helped guide the expedition through unfamiliar territory and she helped translate when the expedition encountered Indian

tribes.
Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle. This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations. These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress.
President Jackson's Indian Removal was one of the most important of all his actions.

Jackson had been a long-standing advocate of westward expansion, and his policy of removing Cherokee, Creek, chaotica, Seminole, and Chickasaw peoples from lands in the southwest.Jackson's policy had Dreadful effects for the native people, especially they Cherokee, who died in masses on the Trail of Tears, the name given to the removal to Indian territory In The West. Indian Removal emphasizes the reality that Jacksonian Democracy and the politics of the “common man” were both based upon oppression and the denial of political rights to blacks and Native

Americans.
In 1814, thanks to the help of 500 Cherokee allies at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend saved President Andrew Jackson's military command and his life were saved. Unbelievably, it was Jackson who authorized the Indian Removal Act of 1830 following the recommendation of President James Monroe in his final address to Congress in 1825. Jackson, as president, sanctioned an attitude that had persisted for many years among many white immigrants. Even Thomas Jefferson supported Indian Removal as early as 1802.The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. Under orders from President Jackson the U.S. Army began enforcement of the Removal Act. The Cherokee were rounded up in the summer of 1838 and loaded onto boats that traveled the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers into Indian Territory. Many were held in prison camps awaiting their fate. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died.

Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote that “ all men were created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, had his own definition of equality. Jefferson did not view slaves or Native Americans as people who could be apart of a democracy. He thought that natives should have to move west of the Mississippi River in order to maintain their culture, because they were getting in the way of progress. Jefferson believed that the “Common Man” who owned land was the best person to participate in their democracy since that person had more to gain or lose in a taxation bill. Jefferson also believed that government was best handled at state and local levels so, as president, Jefferson found ways to cut the size of the federal government in order to reduce taxes. Jefferson's view of democracy was good to land and property owners like himself, but for non-property owners, women, and the poor, Jeffersons words “ all men are created equal”, meant very little to them.