The Louisiana Purchase
On March 10, 1804, a formal ceremony was conducted in St. Louis to transfer ownership of the territory that was the subject of the Louisiana Purchase from France to the United States.
The Louisiana Purchase is the name given to the acquisition by the United States from France of 828,000 square miles of the territory of Louisiana. The U.S. paid 50 million francs ($11,250,000) plus cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs ($3,750,000), for a total sum of 15 million dollars (less than 3 cents per acre). The Louisiana territory was more than just the present day state of Louisiana. It encompassed all or part of 15 present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The land purchased contained all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; most of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans; and small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
France controlled this vast area from 1699 until 1762, the year it gave the territory to its ally Spain. Under Napoleon Bonaparte, France took back the territory in 1800 in the hope of building an empire in North America. A slave revolt in Haiti and an impending war with Britain, however, led France to abandon these plans and sell the entire territory to the United States.
The purchase of the territory of Louisiana took place during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, the purchase faced domestic opposition because it was thought to be unconstitutional. Although he agreed that the U.S. Constitution did not contain provisions for acquiring territory, Jefferson decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway in order to remove France's presence in the region and to protect both U.S. trade access to the port of New Orleans and free passage on the Mississippi River. In his 2012 book entitled Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, author Jon Meacham writes at pages 391-2:
The philosophical Jefferson had believed an amendment necessary. The political Jefferson, however, was not going to allow theory to get in the way of reality. "I confess.. I think it important in the present case to set an example against broad construction by appealing to new power to the people" he wrote William Cary Nicholas. "If however our friends shall think differently, certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction, confiding that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects."
So he left himself room to maneuver. It was the same kind of political craft he had practiced in the debate over the Bank of the United States, when he made the case against Hamilton's broad construction only to (wisely) leave open the possibility that Washington could sign the bill.
Jefferson's decision to acquire Louisiana without seeking a constitutional amendment expanded the power of the executive in ways that would likely have driven Jefferson to distraction had another man been president. Much of his political life, though, had been devoted to the study and the wise exercise of power. He did what had to be done to preserve the possibility of republicanism and progress. Things were neat only in theory. And despite his love of ideas and image of himself, Thomas Jefferson was as much a man of action as he was a man of theory.
The Louisiana Purchase is the name given to the acquisition by the United States from France of 828,000 square miles of the territory of Louisiana. The U.S. paid 50 million francs ($11,250,000) plus cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs ($3,750,000), for a total sum of 15 million dollars (less than 3 cents per acre). The Louisiana territory was more than just the present day state of Louisiana. It encompassed all or part of 15 present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The land purchased contained all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; most of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans; and small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
France controlled this vast area from 1699 until 1762, the year it gave the territory to its ally Spain. Under Napoleon Bonaparte, France took back the territory in 1800 in the hope of building an empire in North America. A slave revolt in Haiti and an impending war with Britain, however, led France to abandon these plans and sell the entire territory to the United States.
The purchase of the territory of Louisiana took place during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, the purchase faced domestic opposition because it was thought to be unconstitutional. Although he agreed that the U.S. Constitution did not contain provisions for acquiring territory, Jefferson decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway in order to remove France's presence in the region and to protect both U.S. trade access to the port of New Orleans and free passage on the Mississippi River. In his 2012 book entitled Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, author Jon Meacham writes at pages 391-2:
The philosophical Jefferson had believed an amendment necessary. The political Jefferson, however, was not going to allow theory to get in the way of reality. "I confess.. I think it important in the present case to set an example against broad construction by appealing to new power to the people" he wrote William Cary Nicholas. "If however our friends shall think differently, certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction, confiding that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects."
So he left himself room to maneuver. It was the same kind of political craft he had practiced in the debate over the Bank of the United States, when he made the case against Hamilton's broad construction only to (wisely) leave open the possibility that Washington could sign the bill.
Jefferson's decision to acquire Louisiana without seeking a constitutional amendment expanded the power of the executive in ways that would likely have driven Jefferson to distraction had another man been president. Much of his political life, though, had been devoted to the study and the wise exercise of power. He did what had to be done to preserve the possibility of republicanism and progress. Things were neat only in theory. And despite his love of ideas and image of himself, Thomas Jefferson was as much a man of action as he was a man of theory.