Jefferson, the nation’s most famous antislavery anti-abolitionist, longed for the Louisiana Territory, which he purchased in 1803, to become the republic’s hospital, the place where the illnesses of the original states could be cured—most notably, the illness of slavery. Enslaved Africans would be spread out in the vast Louisiana Territory (if not sent to Africa). The “diffusion [of enslaved Africans] over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burden on a great number of coadjutors.”
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