In 1779, Jefferson who was then governor of Virginia drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The statute stated that human mind was created free and that government control over religious beliefs or worship was tyrannical. This statute which was adopted in 1786 was the foundation of our Democracy, and the very beginning of the separation of church and state. By 1833, most colonies had adopted the idea. Two years later in 1789, George Washington appointed Jefferson secretary of the state. In the mid-1790s, sectionalism, or loyalty to a particular part of the country, further contributed to the emergence of two parties-the Federalist Party, and the Democratic-Republican Party. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison led the Democratic-Republican Party. Thomas Jefferson declared the Republican victory in the election of 1800. In 1801 Jefferson began his presidency. In 1803 Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to complete the Louisiana Purchase; the largest land deal in history which doubled the size of the nation. Once the purchased was completed, Thomas Jefferson assigned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (and their crew of 45 explorers) the task of mapping the new and unknown territory. The Louisiana Purchase was significant to the United States because it added all or part of 13 future states to the nation. The purchase drove the French out of North America, and made the country seem more important to other countries. It also opened the interior of the continent to American settlement. The Louisiana Purchase made Jefferson a "loose constructionist". President Jefferson urged Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807. This act stopped shipments of food and other American products to all foreign ports. During Jefferson's presidency, he denounced the alien and sedition acts as unconstitutional. They availed that the alien and sedition acts contradicted the 1st amendment of personal freedoms.