Theodore Roosevelt called the westward expansion of the early 19th century “the great leap Westward,” which was accurate in more ways than one. When Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the US practically doubled in size overnight and almost immediately, men and their families travelled with the hopes of beginning anew. The opportunities in the West were immense, with all the new land to farm, and the idea of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was the thought that Americans were superior
legality of slavery in the west, stating that not allowing for slavery would “perpetrate” an “act of suicide on themselves"(Finkelman, 2012, p. 3). Jefferson implied that the prohibition he supported earlier would in fact doom any hope of America's westward expansion because of settlers' inability to financially support themselves. Extrapolating the 4% Theorem that he had defined many years earlier, Jefferson saw merit in growing the western economy through slavery, once again valuing financial benefits