what is a good thesis statement for louisiana purchase

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Course: US history   >   Unit 4

• The election of 1800
• Jefferson's presidency and the turn of the nineteenth century

The Louisiana Purchase and its exploration

• Jefferson's election and presidency
• The War of 1812
• The Monroe Doctrine
• The presidency of John Quincy Adams
• Politics and regional interests
• The Market Revolution - textile mills and the cotton gin
• The Market Revolution - communication and transportation
• The Market Revolution - impact and significance
• Irish and German immigration
• The 1820s and the Market Revolution

• The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States, reshaping the environmental and economic makeup of the country.
• Jefferson confronted questions of presidential authority in deciding whether or not to acquire the territory, since the US Constitution does not explicitly give the president the power to purchase territory.
• Jefferson enlisted Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the new uncharted territory and secured Congressional funding for their expedition.

The Louisiana Purchase

Lewis and clark's expedition, environmental impacts, what do you think.

• Gaye Wilson. "Louisiana Purchase," The Jefferson Monticello . Last modified 2003, accessed June 21, 2017. https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/louisiana-purchase .
• National Geographic Staff. "Lewis and Clark Expedition Discoveries and Tribes Encountered." Accessed June 21, 2017. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/resources_discoveries_plant.html

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How the Louisiana Purchase Changed the World

When Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, he altered the shape of a nation and the course of history

Joseph A. Harriss

UNDERSTANDABLY, Pierre Clément de Laussat was saddened by this unexpected turn of events. Having arrived in New Orleans from Paris with his wife and three daughters just nine months earlier, in March 1803, the cultivated, worldly French functionary had expected to reign for six or eight years as colonial prefect over the vast territory of Louisiana, which was to be France’s North American empire. The prospect had been all the more pleasing because the territory’s capital, New Orleans, he had noted with approval, was a city with “a great deal of social life, elegance and goodbreeding.” He also had liked the fact that the city had “all sorts of masters—dancing, music, art, and fencing,” and that even though there were “no book shops or libraries,” books could be ordered from France.

But almost before Laussat had learned to appreciate a good gumbo and the relaxed Creole pace of life, Napoléon Bonaparte had abruptly decided to sell the territory to the United States. This left Laussat with little to do but officiate when, on a sunny December 20, 1803, the French tricolor was slowly lowered in New Orleans’ main square, the Placed’Armes, and the American flag was raised. After William C.C. Claiborne and Gen. James Wilkinson, the new commissioners of the territory, officially took possession of it in the name of the United States, assuring all residents that their property, rights and religion would be respected, celebratory salvos boomed from the forts around the city. Americans cried “Huzzah!” and waved their hats, while French and Spanish residents sulked in glum silence. Laussat, standing on the balcony of the town hall, burst into tears.

The Louisiana Purchase, made 200 years ago this month, nearly doubled the size of the United States. By any measure, it was one of the most colossal land transactions in history, involving an area larger than today’s France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and the British Isles combined. All or parts of 15 Western states would eventually be carved from its nearly 830,000 square miles, which stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. And the price, $15 million, or about four cents an acre, was a breathtaking bargain. “Let the Land rejoice,” Gen. Horatio Gates, a prominent New York state legislator, told President Thomas Jefferson when details of the deal reached Washington, D.C. “For you have bought Louisiana for a song.”

Rich in gold, silver and other ores, as well as huge forests and endless lands for grazing and farming, the new acquisition would make America immensely wealthy. Or, as Jefferson put it in his usual understated way, “The fertility of thecountry, its climate and extent, promise in due season importantaids to our treasury, an ample provision for our posterity, and a wide-spread field for the blessings of freedom.”

American historians today are more outspoken in their enthusiasm for the acquisition. “With the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, this is one of the threethings that created the modern United States,” says Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies in New Orleans and coauthor with the late Stephen E. Ambrose of The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation . Charles A. Cerami, author of Jefferson’s Great Gamble, agrees. “If we had not made this purchase, it would have pinched off the possibility of our becoming a continental power,” he says. “That, in turn, would have meant our ideas on freedom and democracy would have carried less weight with the rest of the world. This was the key to our international influence.”

The bicentennial is being celebrated with yearlong activities in many of the states fashioned from the territory. But the focal point of the celebrations is Louisiana itself. The most ambitious event opens this month at the New Orleans Museum of Art. “Jefferson’s America & Napoléon’s France” (April 12-August 31), an unprecedented exhibition of paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, memorabilia and rare documents, presents a dazzling look at the arts and leading figures of the two countries at this pivotal time in history. “What we wanted to do was enrich people’s understanding of the significance of this moment,” says Gail Feigenbaum, lead curator of the show. “It’s about more than just a humdinger of a real estate deal. What kind of world were Jefferson and Napoléon living and working in? We also show that our political and cultural relationship with France was extraordinarily rich at the time, a spirited interchange that altered the shape of the modern world.”

The “Louisiana territory” was born on April 9, 1682, when the French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur (Lord) de La Salle, erected a cross and column near the mouth of the Mississippi and solemnly read a declaration to a group of bemused Indians. He took possession of the whole Mississippi River basin, he avowed, in the name of “the most high, mighty, invincible and victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by Grace of God king of France and Navarre, 14th of that name.” And it was in honor of Louis XIV that he named the land Louisiana.

In 1718, French explorer Jean-Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, founded a settlement near the site of La Salle’s proclamation, and named it la Nouvelle Orléans for Philippe, Duke of Orléans and Regent of France. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase, its population of whites, slaves of African origin and “free persons of color” was about 8,000. A picturesque assemblage of French and Spanish colonial architecture and Creole cottages, New Orleans boasted a thriving economy based largely on agricultural exports.

For more than a century after La Salle took possession of it, the Louisiana Territory, with its scattered French, Spanish, Acadian and German settlements, along with those of Native Americans and American-born frontiersmen, was traded among European royalty at their whim. The French were fascinated by America—which they often symbolized in paintings and drawings as a befeathered Noble Savage standing beside an alligator—but they could not decide whether it was a new Eden or, as the naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon declared, a primitive place fit only for degenerate life-forms. But the official view was summed up by Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac, whom Louis XIV named governor of the territory in 1710: “The people are aheap of the dregs of Canada,” he sniffed in a 42-page report to the king written soon after he arrived. The soldiers there were untrained and undisciplined, he lamented, and the whole colony was “not worth a straw at the present time.” Concluding that the area was valueless, Louis XV gave the territory to his Bourbon cousin Charles III of Spain in 1763. But in 1800, the region again changed hands, when Napoléon negotiated the clandestine Treaty of San Ildefonso with Spain’s Charles IV. The treaty called for the return of the vast territory to France in exchange for the small kingdom of Etruria in northern Italy, which Charles wanted for his daughter Louisetta.

When Jefferson heard rumors of Napoléon’s secret deal, he immediately saw the threat to America’s Western settlements and its vital outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. If the deal was allowed to stand, he declared, “it would be impossible that France and the United States can continue long as friends.” Relations had been relaxed with Spain while it held New Orleans, but Jefferson suspected that Napoléon wanted to close the Mississippi to American use. This must have been a wrenching moment for Jefferson, who had long been a Francophile. Twelve years before, he had returned from a five-year stint as American minister to Paris, shipping home 86 cases of furnishings and books he had picked up there.

The crunch came for Jefferson in October 1802. Spain’s King Charles IV finally got around to signing the royal decree officially transferring the territory to France, and on October 16, the Spanish administrator in New Orleans, Juan Ventura Morales, who had agreed to administer the colony until his French replacement, Laussat, could arrive, arbitrarily ended the American right to deposit cargo in the city duty-free. He argued that the three-year term of the 1795 treaty that had granted America this right and free passage through Spanish territory on the Mississippi had expired. Morales’ proclamation meant that American merchandise could no longer be stored in New Orleans warehouses. As a result, trappers’ pelts, agricultural produce and finished goods risked exposure and theft on open wharfs while awaiting shipment to the East Coast and beyond. The entire economy of America’s Western territories was in jeopardy. “The difficulties and risks . . . are incalculable,” warned the U.S. vice-consul in New Orleans, Williams E. Hulings, in a dispatch to Secretary of State James Madison.

As Jefferson had written in April 1802 to the U.S. minister in Paris, Robert R. Livingston, it was crucial that the port of New Orleans remain open and free for American commerce, particularly the goods coming down the Mississippi River. “There is on the globe one single spot,” Jefferson wrote, “the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.” Jefferson’s concern was more than commercial. “He had a vision of America as an empire of liberty,” says Douglas Brinkley. “And he saw the Mississippi River not as the western edge of the country, but as the great spine that would hold the continent together.”

As it was, frontiersmen, infuriated by the abrogation of the right of deposit of their goods, threatened to seize New Orleans by force. The idea was taken up by lawmakers such as Senator James Ross of Pennsylvania, who drafted a resolution calling on Jefferson to form a 50,000-man army to take the city. The press joined the fray. The United States had the right, thundered the New York Evening Post, “to regulate the future destiny of North America,” while the Charleston Courier advocated “taking possession of the port . . . by force of arms.” As Secretary of State James Madison explained, “The Mississippi is to them everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic States, formed into one stream.”

With Congress and a vociferous press calling for action, Jefferson faced the nation’s most serious crisis since the American Revolution. “Peace is our passion,” he declared, and expressed the concern that hotheaded members of the opposition Federalist Party might “force us into war.” He had already instructed Livingston in early 1802 to approach Napoléon’s foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, to try to prevent the cession of the territory to France, if this had not already occurred, or, if the deal was done, to try to purchase New Orleans. In his initial meeting with Napoléon after taking up his Paris post in 1801, Livingston had been warned about Old World ways. “You have come to a very corrupt world,” Napoléon told him frankly, adding roguishly that Talleyrand was the right man to explain what he meant by corruption.

A wily political survivor who held high offices under the French Revolution, and later under Napoléon’s empire and the restored Bourbon monarchy, Talleyrand had spent the years 1792 to 1794 in exile in America after being denounced by the revolutionary National Convention, and had conceived a virulent contempt for Americans. “Refinement,” he declared, “does not exist” in the United States. As Napoléon’s foreign minister, Talleyrand customarily demanded outrageous bribes for diplomatic results. Despite a clubfoot and what contemporaries called his “dead eyes,” he could be charming and witty when he wanted—which helped camouflage his basic negotiating tactic of delay. “The lack of instructions and the necessity of consulting one’s government are always legitimate excuses in order to obtain delays in political affairs,” he once wrote. When Livingston tried to discuss the territory, Talleyrand simply denied that there was any treaty between France and Spain. “There never was a government in which less could be done by negotiation than here,” a frustrated Livingston wrote to Madison on September 1, 1802. “There is no people, no legislature, no counselors. One man is everything.”

But Livingston, although an inexperienced diplomat, tried to keep himself informed about the country to which he was ambassador. In March 1802, he warned Madison that France intended to “have a leading interest in the politics of our western country” and was preparing to send 5,000 to 7,000 troops from its Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to occupy New Orleans. But Napoléon’s troops in Saint Domingue were being decimated by a revolution and an outbreak of yellow fever. In June, Napoléon ordered Gen. Claude Victor to set out for New Orleans from the French controlled Netherlands. But by the time Victor assembled enough men and ships in January 1803, ice blocked the Dutchport, making it impossible for him to set sail.

That same month Jefferson asked James Monroe, a former member of Congress and former governor of Virginia, to join Livingston in Paris as minister extraordinary with discretionary powers to spend $9,375,000 to secure New Orleans and parts of the Floridas (to consolidate the U.S. position in the southeastern part of the continent). In financial straits at the time, Monroe sold his china and furniture to raise travel funds, asked a neighbor to manage his properties, and sailed for France on March 8, 1803, with Jefferson’s parting admonition ringing in his ears: “The future destinies of this republic” depended on his success.

By the time Monroe arrived in Paris on April 12, the situation had, unknown to him, radically altered: Napoléon had suddenly decided to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States. He had always seen Saint Domingue, with a population of more than 500,000, producing enough sugar, coffee, indigo, cotton and cocoa to fill some 700 ships a year, as France’s most important holding in the Western Hemisphere. The Louisiana Territory, in Napoléon’s view, was useful mainly as a granary for Saint Domingue. With the colony in danger of being lost, the territory was less useful. Then, too, Napoléon was gearing up for another campaign against Britain and needed funds for that.

Napoléon’s brothers Joseph and Lucien had gone to see him at the Tuileries Palace on April 7, determined to convince him not to sell the territory. For one thing, they considered it foolish to voluntarily give up an important French holding on the American continent. For another, Britain had unofficially offered Joseph a bribe of £100,000 to persuade Napoléon not to let the Americans have Louisiana. But Napoléon’s mind was already made up. The First Consul happened to be sitting in his bath when his brothers arrived. “Gentlemen,” he announced, “think what you please about it. I have decided to sell Louisiana to the Americans.” To make his point to his astonished brothers, Napoléon abruptly stood up, then dropped back into the tub, drenching Joseph. A manservant slumped to the floor in a faint.

French historians point out that Napoléon had several reasons for this decision. “He probably concluded that, following American independence, France couldn’t hope to maintain a colony on the American continent,” says Jean Tulard, one of France’s foremost Napoléon scholars. “French policy makers had felt for some time that France’s possessions in the Antilles would inevitably be ‘contaminated’ by America’s idea of freedom and would eventually take their own independence. By the sale, Napoléon hoped to create a huge country in the Western Hemisphere to serve as a counterweight to Britain and maybe make trouble for it.”

On April 11, when Livingston called on Talleyrand for what he thought was yet another futile attempt to deal, the foreign minister, after the de rigueur small talk, suddenly asked whether the United States would perchance wish to buy the whole of the Louisiana Territory. In fact, Talleyrand was intruding on a deal that Napoléon had assigned to the French finance minister, François de Barbé-Marbois. The latter knew America well, having spent some years in Philadelphia in the late 1700s as French ambassador to the United States, where he got to know Washington, Jefferson, Livingston and Monroe. Barbé-Marbois received his orders on April 11, 1803, when Napoléon summoned him. “I renounce Louisiana,” Napoléon told him. “It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without reservation. I renounce it with the greatest regret. . . . I require a great deal of money for this war [with Britain].”

Thierry Lentz, a Napoléon historian and director of the Fondation Napoléon in Paris, contends that, for Napoléon, “It was basically just a big real estate deal. He was in a hurry to get some money for the depleted French treasury, although the relatively modest price shows that he was had in that deal. But he did manage to sell something that he didn’t really have any control over—there were few French settlers and no French administration over the territory—except on paper.” As for Jefferson, notes historian Cerami, “he actually wasn’t out to make this big a purchase. The whole thing came as a total surprise to him and his negotiating team in Paris, because it was, after all, Napoléon’s idea, not his.”

Showing up unexpectedly at the dinner party Livingston gave on April 12 for Monroe’s arrival, Barbé-Marbois discreetly asked Livingston to meet him later that night at the treasury office. There he confirmed Napoléon’s desire to sell the territory for $22,500,000. Livingston replied that he“would be ready to purchase provided the sum was reduced to reasonable limits.” Then he rushed home and worked until 3 a.m. writing a memorandum to Secretary of State Madison, concluding: “We shall do all we can to cheapen the purchase; but my present sentiment is that we shall buy.”

On April 15, Monroe and Livingston proposed $8 million.

At this, Barbé-Marbois pretended Napoléon had lost interest. But by April 27, he was saying that $15 million was as low as Napoléon would go. Though the Americans then countered with $12.7 million, the deal was struck for $15 million on April 29. The treaty was signed by Barbé-Marbois, Livingston and Monroe on May 2 and backdated to April 30. Although the purchase was undeniably a bargain, the price was still more than the young U.S. treasury could afford. But the resourceful Barbé-Marbois had an answer for that too. He had contacts at Britain’s Baring & Co. Bank, which agreed, along with several other banks, to make the actual purchase and pay Napoléon cash. The bank then turned over ownership of the Louisiana Territory to the United States in return for bonds, which were repaid over 15 years at 6 percent interest, making the final purchase price around $27 million. Neither Livingston nor Monroe had been authorized to buy all of the territory, or to spend $15 million—transatlantic mail took weeks, sometimes months, each way, so they had no time to request and receive approval of the deal from Washington. But an elated Livingston was aware that nearly doubling the size of America would make it a major player on the world scene one day, and he permitted himself some verbal euphoria: “We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives,” he said. “From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank.”

It wasn’t until July 3 that news of the purchase reached U.S. shores, just in time for Americans to celebrate it on Independence Day. A Washington newspaper, the National Intelligencer , reflecting how most citizens felt, referred to the “widespread joy of millions at an event which history will record among the most splendid in our annals.” Though we have no historical evidence of how Jefferson felt about the purchase, notes Cerami, reports from those in his circle like Monroe refer to the president’s “great pleasure,” despite his fear that the deal had gone beyond his constitutional powers. Not all Americans agreed, however. The Boston Columbian Centinel editorialized, “We are to give money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much.” And Congressman Joseph Quincy of Massachusetts so opposed the deal that he favored secession by the Northeastern states, “amicably if they can; violently if they must.”

The favorable majority, however, easily prevailed and New England remained in the Union. As for the ever-succinct Thomas Jefferson, he wasted little time on rhetoric. “The enlightened government of France saw, with just discernment,” he told Congress, with typical tact, on October 17, 1803, “the importance to both nations of such liberal arrangements as might best and permanently promote the peace, friendship, and interests of both.” But, excited by the commercial opportunities in the West, Jefferson, even before official notice of the treaty reached him, had already dispatched Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition to explore the territory and the lands beyond. All the way to the Pacific.

JEFFERSON’S AMERICA, NAPOLEON’S FRANCE

“We have tried to capture the suspense and fascination of a story whose outcome is known, yet was not foreordained,” says Gail Feigenbaum, curator of the Jefferson-Napoléon show on view in New Orleans April 12 to August 31, “and to tell it through a rich variety of objects.” The variety includes three important documents: a copy of the treaty, which bears Jefferson’s signature; a document covering payment of claims by American citizens against France, signed by Napoléon; and the official report of transfer of the Louisiana Territory signed by a bereaved prefect, Pierre de Laussat. The exhibition points up how intertwined the two nations were at the time. A seascape portrays the Marquis de Lafayette’s ship La Victoire setting sail to carry him across the Atlantic in 1777 to fight in the American Revolution. (There is also a portrait of the marquis himself and a 1784 painting by French artist Jean Suau, Allegory of France Liberating America.) A mahogany and gilded bronze swan bed that belonged to the famous French beauty Juliette Récamier is also on display. Fashion-conscious American ladies reportedly imitated Récamier’s attire, but not her custom of receiving visitors in her bedroom. And John Trumbull’s huge painting The Signing of the Declaration of Independence documents the historic American event that so greatly impressed and influenced French revolutionary thinkers. It hangs not far from a color engraving of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was composed in 1789 by Lafayette with the advice of his American friend Thomas Jefferson.

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Louisiana Purchase Essay

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The beginning of the 19 th century was a tumultuous time for the United States. There was ongoing strife within the country and around the country’s borders. The Reigning president at the time was Thomas Jefferson. One of Jefferson’s most significant acts as president was overseeing the Louisiana Purchase. The “Louisiana Purchase is still the largest land deal in the US history as it involved a $15 million price tag in 1803” (Sloane, 2004).

The transacted land amounted to over eight hundred thousand square miles. Jefferson brokered this deal through two of his ambassadors James Monroe and Robert Livingston. The idea to acquire Louisiana was conceived after the New Orleans port fell under Napoleon Bonaparte’s French territory. The port was of great importance to the US trade and its closure necessitated sending ambassadors to France. It was in this mission that Napoleon agreed to sell not only the New Orleans port but also the entire Louisiana territory.

Before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson prided himself in being a strict constitutionalist. However, this enormous transaction put a blemish on Jefferson’s record of strict adherence to the constitution. Some people feel that the Louisiana Purchase was conducted within the confines of the United States constitution. This paper will explore the arguments forwarded by both sides of the debate and offer a personal interpretation of the matter.

The argument against Jefferson’s actions is always supported from various angles. Before the transaction was completed, Jefferson expressed fears that it would be deemed unconstitutional. Therefore, he forwarded a constitutional amendment that would eliminate doubts against the constitutionality of the transaction to senate representatives. However, Jefferson received advice against this process because it would take too long and Napoleon could change his mind within this period.

Eventually, Jefferson opted to draw up a constitutional amendment that would give the federal government power to acquire new land on behalf of the people (Les Benedict, 2007). This amendment was ratified by the senate a few months after the Louisiana Purchase was completed. One of the reasons why Jefferson’s actions did not raise a storm in 1803 is because the citizens were pleased with this purchase.

The argument against the constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase is founded on the fact that the responsibility of acquiring new territory was not defined in the US constitution. The Louisiana Purchase had a huge impact on the US territory because it doubled its size at the time. The people who claim that Jefferson’s actions were unconstitutional argue that the constitution did not give him the right to acquire new territory (Levin & Chen, 2012).

This means that Jefferson’s actions were not defined by any part of the constitution and this makes them unlawful. The issue under contention is the unconstitutional expansion of territory. This is in spite of the fact that Thomas Jefferson did not assume presidency with any territory-expansion agendas. The Louisiana Purchase was just a series of events that ended with territory expansion.

The people who are of the view that Jefferson acted within the constitution when he acquired the Louisiana territory, use the tenth amendment to support their argument. According to the tenth amendment, both states and citizens have the right to carry out any actions that are not disallowed by the constitution.

Jefferson’s actions fall under this category. The people who fault Jefferson’s actions do so using the argument that his actions were not defined by the constitution. However, his actions were not disallowed in the US constitution and they are therefore legitimized by the tenth amendment. The group supporting Jefferson’s actions feels that the constitutionalist’s actions never violated his beloved constitution.

The argument against the Louisiana Purchase constitutionality is pegged on the lack of a constitutional clause that allows governments to increase territory through any means. This argument would be void if the Louisiana Purchase occurred today.

However, the main purpose of the fresh constitution of 1803 was to ensure that the government could not intrude the citizens’ lives. Therefore, expansion of territory could qualify as an intrusion of people’s lives. Jefferson was an avid supporter of this notion. By using these two precedents, it would be easy for anyone to castigate Jefferson.

Nevertheless, constitutionality is not judged by notions but by what is expressed through writing. This means that Jefferson was still shielded by the tenth amendment. The amendment legalizes Jefferson’s actions because the rest of the constitution does not make them illegal. In addition, using the principle of notions, one can argue that the Louisiana Purchase was ‘accidental’. Jefferson’s actions were not pre-planned and therefore he was not taking advantage of the tenth amendment.

Initially, Jefferson had sent two ambassadors to France to negotiate a possible treaty with France. The treaty was supposed to involve the exchange of the Florida territory with the New Orleans port but it eventually became about territory expansion. Jefferson considered this transaction a great opportunity for America and he opted to go ahead with the purchase.

The Louisiana Purchase has led to one of the oldest debates concerning the constitutionality of a president’s actions. Even though both sides of the debate make valid claims, it is clear that no constitutional clauses were violated. This debate is likely to continue mostly because of the significance of Louisiana Purchase in the US history.

Les Benedict, M. (2007). The blessings of liberty: a concise history of the Constitution of the United States . New York, NY: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.

Levin, R. Z., & Chen, P. (2012). Rethinking the constitution–treaty relationship. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 10 (1), 242-260.

Sloane, W. M. (2004). The world aspects of the Louisiana Purchase. The American Historical Review, 9 (3), 507-521.

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The Strategic Significance and Lasting Impact of the Louisiana Purchase

This essay about the Louisiana Purchase, completed in 1803, explores its significance as a major land acquisition that doubled the size of the United States. It discusses the strategic and economic reasons behind the purchase, the negotiations led by Monroe and Livingston, and the impact on American expansion. The essay also highlights the exploration efforts of Lewis and Clark and the long-term effects on the nation’s development, economy, and cultural integration.

How it works

Purchasing Louisiana, dokonane in 1803, stands, how one of the most substantial land acquisitions in American history. But monumental agreement between the united states and France not only doubled the size of young people but and had far-reaching values for his economic, political, and social development. This essay investigates key facts about Purchase of Louisiana, distinguishing his strategic value and lasting operating on the united states.

Territory of Louisiana was foremost wide expansion of land measure of the River of Mississippi, covering 828,000 square miles approximately.

This territory was foremost under French control before that, to be given to Spain in 1762. However, in a collusion, what writes 1800, Spain renewed earth of France under guidance Napoleon Bonaparte. A strategic time-table and productive earth territory did it unusually valuable, attracting the matter of a few European plenary powers and united states.

A catalyst for Purchase of Louisiana was the growing caring above American access to the River of Mississippi and port of new Orlean. These waterways were vital for a freight, especially for farmers in western territories. In 1802, when Spain, under French influence, abolished American access to new Orlean, President Foma Jefferson admitted the necessity of providing of these routes. He authorised James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston, to negotiate with France, foremost aiming acquisitions new Orlean and nearby earth.

To the surprise of the American mediators, Napoleon offered, to sell complete Territory of Louisiana. The French leader ran into placing of soldiery money from wars in Europe and Haiti of Revolution, doing a sale to territory a practical decision gives out funds. on April, 30, 1803, Monroe and Livingston signed an agreement, accordant to purchase territory for $15 million that equates thick with four cents for an acre. This acquisition doubled the size of the states united the day before in the evening, fishing out his recesses distances westward to Rocky Mountains and from Bay of Mexico to the Canadian border.

Purchasing Louisiana had deep effects on the united states. Economically, then opened wide treatises to productive earth for agriculture, encouraging increase of gospodarki, what Jefferson and second guidance presented . Territory was rich in natural resources, by the way the forests, minerals, and wild-life that assisted national riches and development in addition. Politically, acquisition moved balance of powers within the limits of country. Then propped up influence of the western states and territories, encouraging sent westward expansion and concept of Obvious Fate faith, that the American settlers were appointed, to broaden through a continent.

The exploration and mapping of the new territory were essential for understanding its potential. President Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) to explore the newly acquired land. Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the expedition provided valuable information about the geography, natural resources, and native inhabitants of the region. Their journey paved the way for future exploration and settlement, contributing to the westward expansion of the United States.

In conclusion, the Louisiana Purchase was a transformative event in American history. It not only doubled the size of the nation but also set the stage for economic prosperity, political power shifts, and cultural integration. The acquisition of this vast territory demonstrated the United States’ growing ambitions and ability to negotiate on the global stage. As a pivotal moment in the nation’s development, the Louisiana Purchase continues to be a testament to the foresight and strategic acumen of its leaders, shaping the course of American history for generations to come.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — Colonialism — Louisiana Purchase

Essays on Louisiana Purchase

Prompt examples for louisiana purchase essays, the historical significance of the louisiana purchase.

Discuss the historical significance of the Louisiana Purchase in shaping the United States' expansion, territory, and political landscape.

Thomas Jefferson's Role and Motivations

Analyze the role of President Thomas Jefferson in the Louisiana Purchase and his motivations for pursuing the acquisition of the territory.

The Impact on Native Americans

Examine the consequences of the Louisiana Purchase on Native American tribes and their displacement from the acquired territory.

Political and Diplomatic Challenges

Discuss the political and diplomatic challenges that the United States faced in negotiating and finalizing the Louisiana Purchase with France.

Geographic Expansion and Westward Movement

Explore how the Louisiana Purchase contributed to the nation's geographic expansion and the westward movement of settlers and pioneers.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition

Analyze the significance and outcomes of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the context of exploring the newly acquired territory.

Economic Implications and Benefits

Examine the economic implications and benefits of the Louisiana Purchase, including access to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans.

The Debate Over Constitutional Authority

Discuss the debate over the constitutional authority for the federal government to acquire and govern new territories, as exemplified by the Louisiana Purchase.

Impact on the Nation's Growth and Power

Analyze how the Louisiana Purchase contributed to the growth and increased power of the United States as a young nation.

Legacy and Historical Perspectives

Discuss the legacy of the Louisiana Purchase in American history and the varying perspectives on its long-term impact.

Thomas Jefferson's Hypocrisy Regarding The Louisiana Purchase

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The Purchase of Louisiana: a Pivotal Moment in American History

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The Role of Westward Expansion and Louisiana Purchase in The Us History

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The Influence of Edmond Genet, The Louisiana Purchase, and The Xyz Affair on The Commerce in The United States

Representation of the louisiana purchase in jefferson’s great gamble by charles a. cerami, benefit of the louisiana purchase.

May 2, 1803

United States

France, United States

The purchase of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from Napoleonic France was in 1803. The total price was $27,267,622. It extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to British America. This purchase doubled the area of the United States.

In 1802 Spanish authorities, under the French influence, revoked a American-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. Probably, British naval blockade of France, a slave revolution in Haiti and economic difficulties in the country were the reasons why Napoleon offered Louisiana for sale to the United States. At the end of April 1803, the Louisiana Territory was sold to the United States for $15 million.

This purchase was Jefferson’s most notable achievements as president. He altered the shape of a nation and the course of history. The purchase led to the issues with indigenous people land rights. Louisiana was the first state to be carved from the new territory that was admitted into the Union as the 18th state.

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Collection A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774 to 1875

The louisiana purchase.

Legislative Timeline - 1802 to 1807

The Lousiana Purchase: A Legislative Timeline has been moved to the Research Guides platform

• HISTORY & CULTURE

The Louisiana Purchase was a bargain. But it came at a great human cost.

In 1803, the United States nearly doubled in size when it bought the Louisiana Territory in a deal that shaped history.

American diplomats Robert Livingston and James Monroe purchased the Louisiana Territory from the French for $15 million dollars, or four cents an acre, in 1803.

In late April 1803, with the stroke of a pen and the exchange of just $15 million, the United States nearly doubled in size. With the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. acquired nearly 827,000 square miles of French-held land for just four cents an acre.

The purchase was about more than land alone—westward expansion, national wealth and international relations hung in the balance. But its human cost is still felt today.

Colonial powers fight for Louisiana

Louisiana at the time covered most of the Mississippi Valley. Though people had lived there for thousands of years, it became the site of a fierce tussle over colonial power in the 18th century. France had once owned a massive swath of what is now the U.S.—including Louisiana. But after battling with Great Britain for control of North America during the French and Indian War, France gave up most of its holdings, ceding Louisiana to Spain and most of the rest to Great Britain in 1763.

But as the French regained power, Napoleon Bonaparte, who dreamed of a French empire in the Americas, decided he wanted Louisiana back. In 1800, he convinced Spain’s king, Charles IV, to cede the territory back to France in a secret treaty.

Reports of the secret treaty worried Thomas Jefferson, who was then the president of the newly independent United States. Louisiana and the Mississippi River had become increasingly important to the United States as it strained against its westernmost borders. In 1795, the U.S. and Spain had signed a treaty allowing American ships to use the Mississippi without restriction, and for merchants to move goods through the prosperous port of New Orleans without paying duty. When Spain openly finalized the secret deal in 1802, revoking American access to New Orleans’ warehouses, Jefferson’s worries proved prescient. Residents of Ohio and Tennessee and even politicians in Washington threatened bloodshed.

The U.S. and France strike a bargain

Hoping to put a stop to the crisis, Jefferson told diplomats Robert Livingston and James Monroe to negotiate with France. They offered to buy New Orleans from France. To their surprise, France suggested they buy all of Louisiana instead.

As it turned out, the 1791 slave rebellion in Haiti had foiled Bonaparte’s plan to use Louisiana as a trade center for French Haitian sugar and coffee. Both the rebellion and yellow fever were decimating Bonaparte’s troops, so he decided to ditch his American imperial aspirations. ( Here's how Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo crushed his deams of creating a European empire. )

Jefferson had only given Monroe and Livingston instructions to spend up to $10 million to purchase New Orleans and West Florida. But when the French offered them a $15 million deal for all of Louisiana, they consented immediately. Though Jefferson himself was unsure if he had Constitutional authority to purchase territory, he gave the deal his blessing.

With that, all of the modern-day states of Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and most of Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, became part of the United States. ( Read with your kids about the exploration of this new territory .)

The real cost of westward expansion

The $15 million—the equivalent of about $342 million in modern dollars, and long viewed as one of the best bargains of all time—technically didn’t purchase the land itself. Instead, as historian Robert Lee explained in the Journal of American History , the purchase gave the United States the imperial rights to the land, which in turn gave the nation the “exclusive authority” to take control of the land from its indigenous inhabitants—whether through treaties or violence.

In fact, Lee notes, the United States ended up paying far more than $15 million for the Louisiana Territory. In his paper, he tracked the agreements the U.S. made with Native Americans and found that the U.S. paid them the equivalent of about $8.5 billion (adjusted for inflation).

But it came at a great cost to Native Americans. Subject to unfair treaties and genocidal and discriminatory policies, they paid the price for the United States’ westward expansion. By 1840, the U.S. had forced tens of thousands of Native Americans from their lands along the Trail of Tears. More than 5,000 people died along the way.

The deal also exacerbated the plight of enslaved people in the United States. After the Louisiana Purchase, both the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans remained hubs of the slave trade. And the treaty stoked long-standing debates about whether the United States should permit slavery. In an attempt to quell those tensions, lawmakers drew an imaginary line across the newly expanded country, separating it into slave and free states. The Louisiana Purchase had temporarily satisfied the nation’s desire for expansion—and left behind unanswered questions about the rights the U.S. was willing to guarantee across that land.

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The first amendment, historic document, the louisiana purchase, treaty between the united states of america and the french republic (1803).

Robert Livingston, James Monroe and Barbé Marbois | 1803

Negotiated by the administration of Thomas Jefferson and ratified by Congress on October 20, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty roughly doubled the size of the United States. An enormous area stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now the Canadian border, the land would ultimately be carved into fifteenth separate states, including Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri. The addition of new lands opened up conflicts over the disposition of Native people’s claims to land and sovereignty in the territory as well as the issue of slavery.  Whether these new states permitted or prohibited slavery would affect the precarious balance of power between slave state and free state under the original Constitution. The 1820 debates over the admission of Missouri resulted in a “compromise” whereby Missouri would be admitted as a slave state; but all future states carved out of the territory above the 36-30 line would be free. For the next forty years, the nation became increasingly divided over slavery and congressional power to ban slavery in the territories. In Dred Scott v. Sanford , Chief Justice Taney declared that the Missouri Compromise unconstitutionally denied slave owners of their property rights under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 ended the question of slavery in the territories. The Fourteenth Amendment transformed the treaty’s protection of the “rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States” into the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” which “no state shall” abridge.

Selected by

Laura F. Edwards

Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, and Professor of History at Princeton University

E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Richmond

            His Catholic Majesty promises and engages on his part to cede to the French Republic six months after the full and entire execution of the conditions and Stipulations herein relative to his Royal Highness the Duke of Parma, the Colony or Province of Louisiana with the Same extent that it now has in the hand of Spain, & that it had when France possessed it; and Such as it Should be after the Treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States.

            Article II

            The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all these rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the Religion which they profess.

            Done at Paris the tenth day of Floreal in the eleventh year of the French Republic; and the 30th of April 1803.

Robt R Livingston [seal] Jas. Monroe [seal] Barbé Marbois [seal]

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8 Things You May Not Know About the Louisiana Purchase

By: Jesse Greenspan

Updated: August 30, 2023 | Original: April 30, 2013

1. France had just re-taken control of the Louisiana Territory.

French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle first claimed the Louisiana Territory, which he named for King Louis XIV, during a 1682 canoe expedition down the Mississippi River. France ceded the land to Spain 80 years later—and lost most of its other North American holdings to Great Britain—following its defeat in the French and Indian War.

In 1800, however, French leader Napoleon Bonaparte pressured Spain to sign the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, under which he received the Louisiana Territory and six warships in exchange for placing the Spanish king’s son-in-law on the throne of the newly created kingdom of Etruria in northern Italy. When word of the secret agreement leaked out, President Jefferson became extremely worried. French-controlled Louisiana would become “a point of eternal friction with us,” he wrote in April 1802, and would force us to “marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”

2. The United States nearly went to war over Louisiana.

Under a 1795 treaty with Spain, U.S. merchants and farmers could send their goods down the Mississippi River and store them in New Orleans without paying export duties. For many Americans, this so-called right of deposit was important enough that talk of war began proliferating when it was revoked in October 1802. Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, using the pen name Pericles, wrote that the United States should “seize at once on the Floridas and New Orleans and then negotiate.”

Meanwhile, the governor of the Mississippi Territory claimed that 600 militiamen would be enough to grab hold of New Orleans, and Federalist Senator James Ross of Pennsylvania advocated taking possession of the city with 50,000 men. Even Jefferson’s own party, the Democratic-Republicans, supported a resolution that would keep 80,000 men ready to march at a moment’s notice. This bravado arose largely because Napoleon’s powerful army had yet to arrive in Louisiana. Several thousand troops slated for the territory were instead being decimated by a slave rebellion and yellow fever in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), and additional troops were stuck in a Dutch port waiting for the winter ice to clear.

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The Louisiana Purchase Was Driven by a Slave Rebellion

Napoleon was eager to sell—but the purchase would end up expanding slavery in the U.S.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

he Lewis and Clark Expedition began in 1804 when Thomas Jefferson asked Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the lands of the Louisiana Purchase.

3. The United States never asked for all of Louisiana.

On the advice of a French friend, Jefferson offered to purchase land from Napoleon rather than threatening war over it. He instructed his two chief negotiators, special envoy James Monroe and minister Robert Livingston, to pay up to $9.375 million for New Orleans and Florida (the later of which remained under Spanish control). If that failed, they were to try to get back the right of deposit.

Livingston also floated a plan for the United States to take over the two-thirds of Louisiana located north of the Arkansas River, which he argued would serve as a crucial buffer between French Louisiana and British Canada. But although the Americans never asked for it, Napoleon dangled the entire territory in front of them on April 11, 1803. A treaty, dated April 30 and signed May 2, was then worked out that gave Louisiana to the United States in exchange for $11.25 million, plus the forgiveness of $3.75 million in French debt .

4. Even that low price was too steep for the United States.

Napoleon wanted the money immediately in order to prepare for war with Great Britain. But despite landing Louisiana for less than three cents an acre, the price was more than the United States could afford. As a result, it was forced to borrow from two European banks at 6 percent interest. It did not finish repaying the loan until 1823, by which time the total cost for the Louisiana Purchase had risen to over $23 million.

5. The Louisiana negotiations helped put James Monroe in the proverbial poor house.

After spending three years as governor of Virginia, Monroe purportedly hoped to retire from politics and make some money opening a law practice and developing his landholdings. Barely a month went by, however, before Jefferson nominated him as a special envoy to help Livingston with the Louisiana Purchase negotiations. “Were you to refuse to go, no other man could be found who does this,” Jefferson wrote to him in January 1803, adding that “all eyes, all hopes, are now fixed on you.”

In order to raise money for the passage to France, a cash-strapped Monroe sold off his silver flatware, porcelain plates and a white-and-gold china tea set. The future president, who served from 1817 to 1825, remained in debt for the rest of his life, even after receiving a $30,000 congressional appropriation for “public losses and sacrifices.”

6. Napoleon’s brothers tried to talk him out of it.

A few days before Monroe arrived in Paris, Napoleon’s brothers Joseph and Lucien found out about his plans to sell off Louisiana. According to Lucien’s memoirs, the two of them visited Napoleon at Tuileries Palace, where they found him bathing in rose-scented water.

When Joseph intimated that he would lead the opposition to the deal, Napoleon accused him of being “insolent.” He then purposely soaked his brothers by falling backwards in the tub. The argument allegedly continued after Joseph went home to change. Lucien declared that “if I were not your brother I would be your enemy,” and Napoleon responded by smashing a snuffbox on the floor.

7. Many Americans likewise opposed the Louisiana Purchase.

Members of the Federalist Party, already a significant minority in both houses of Congress, worried that the Louisiana Purchase would further reduce their clout. In summing up the feelings of his cohorts, former congressman Fisher Ames wrote, “We are to give money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much.”

Only one Federalist senator supported ratification of the Louisiana Purchase treaty, which passed by a 24-7 vote. Jefferson himself had doubts about the legality of the Louisiana Purchase, saying he had “stretched the Constitution until it cracked.”

8. The treaty did not state specific boundaries.

When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed from St. Louis in May 1804 to explore the northern portion of Louisiana, the exact boundaries of the newly acquired territory had yet to be hashed out. Based on an analysis of old French maps, the United States claimed West Florida, an area along the Gulf Coast in present-day Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Spain disputed this until 1819, when the Adams-Onís Treaty gave the United States all of Florida in exchange for surrendering its claim to Texas. In the north, Great Britain and the United States agreed in 1818 to establish the 49th parallel as the border between them from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.

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Home > Student Publications and Other Works > Theses and Dissertations > Master's Theses > 1262

Master's Theses

The louisiana purchase ; the constitutional difficulties of the louisiana treaty.

Robert John Shanahan , Loyola University Chicago

Date of Award

Degree type, degree name.

Master of Arts (MA)

Recommended Citation

Shanahan, Robert John, "The Louisiana Purchase ; The Constitutional Difficulties of the Louisiana Treaty" (1952). Master's Theses . 1262. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/1262

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