The United States saw its territory more than double in the first three decades of the 19th century. Filled with nationalist fervor, an insatiable desire for more land, and a rapidly increasing population, the western frontiers of the United States would not remain east of the Mississippi. The eventual spread of the American nation beyond the Mississippi into Native and French lands, called “manifest destiny” by John O'Sullivan, was rationalized as a fulfillment of their God-given duty. The Louisiana Purchase set the precedent for unlimited westward expansion into America and allowed others to follow in his footsteps. Characterized by racist overtones, a lack of “consent of the governed, and ethnic cleansing,” there is no valid distinction between this American continental expansion and the international expansion sought by Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and it is clearly imperialist in nature. .Thomas Jefferson's acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from the French in 1803 was too good a deal to pass up. Primarily interested in the strategic port city of New Orleans and the unrestricted use of the Mississippi River for trade, when Napoleon offered him the entire territory, Jefferson saw an opportunity for the expansion of his "empire of liberty." However, this treaty, made official on July 4, 1803, which would give the United States 828,000 square miles of new lands and cost $15 million (nearly double federal spending that year), would expand the boundaries of the Constitution. . With only six months to ratify the treaty, Jefferson knew that it would be impossible to pass an amendment to the Constitution in time allowing the purchase. He himself observed: “The ge...... middle of paper ......w_window=1.Jefferson, Thomas. Library of Congress, "Thomas Jefferson to James Madison." Last modified: April 9, 1809. Accessed April 11, 2014. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/149.html.Joy, Mark S. American Expansionism 1783-1860. London: Pearson Longman, 2003. Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A Global History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. Harrisonburg, Virginia: Yale University Press, 2007. Lewis, James E. The Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson's Noble Bargain?. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Thornton, Russell. Holocaust and American Indian Survival: A Population History Since 1492. The University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.Watson, David K. Jefferson and Imperialism: Democratic Expansion. Since Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, Democratic administrations have favored expansion. Milwaukee, WI: Allied Press, 1900.