Louisiana Purchase Treaty
Jefferson Expands The Nation Largest Single Land Purchase in U.S. History
贵辞谤听President Thomas Jefferson聽it was a diplomatic and political triumph. In one fell swoop the聽purchase of Louisiana聽ended any聽threat of war with France聽and opened up the land west of the Mississippi to settlement.
Initially Jefferson, through his Minister to France, Robert Livingston, offered Napoleon聽$2 million for a small tract of land聽on the lower Mississippi. There Americans could build their own seaport. Impatient at the lack of news, Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to offer $10 million for New Orleans and West Florida. Almost at the same time, and unbeknownst to Jefferson, France had offered聽all of Louisiana聽to Livingston for聽$15 million.By any measure the purchase of Louisiana was the most important action of Jefferson's two terms as president. Jefferson knew that acquiring the聽very heart of the American continent聽would prove to be the key to the future of the United States.
Though the transaction was quickly sealed, there were those who objected to the purchase on the grounds that the Constitution did not provide for purchasing territory. However, Jefferson temporarily set aside his idealism to tell his supporters in Congress that "what is practicable must often control what is pure theory." The majority agreed.
Jefferson later admitted that he had stretched his power "till it cracked" in order to buy Louisiana, the聽largest single land purchase in American history. As a result, generations of Americans for nearly 200 years have been the beneficiaries of Jefferson's noble vision of America and his efforts at expanding the continent.