would you have supported the louisiana purchase essay

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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Collection Louisiana: European Explorations and the Louisiana Purchase

The louisiana purchase, napoleonic france acquires louisiana.

On October 1, 1800, within 24 hours of signing a peace settlement with the United States, First Consul of the Republic of France Napoleon Bonaparte, acquired Louisiana from Spain by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. To the distress of the United States, Napoleon held title to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans.

With the signing of the Treaty of San Ildefonso, Napoleon sought to reestablish an extended French maritime and colonial empire in the West Indies and the Mississippi Valley. He planned to develop a commercial bloc in the Caribbean Basin that consisted of the strategically important West Indian islands of Guadalupe, Martinique, and Saint Domingue, which in turn would be linked with Louisiana. France would export manufactured goods to the islands, whose plantations would produce sugar, molasses, rum, coffee, and cotton for France. Flour, timber, and salted meat from Louisiana would sustain French troops stationed in the West Indies. Furthermore, French goods were expected to find a ready market at New Orleans, a stepping-stone for settlers into the Mississippi Valley.

To round out his imperial presence in the region Napoleon intended to pressure Spain into ceding the Floridas to France. Apparently anticipating the success of his plan, he ordered struck 200 copies of a medallionbearing his profile for distribution to Native American chiefs in a gesture of grassroots diplomacy. Napoleon's plan did not succeed.

The chief impediment to Napoleon's designs for a North American empire lay in Saint Domingue, France's most valued trading resource in the Caribbean and the gateway to the Gulf approaches to Louisiana. In 1791 the island's slaves, inspired by the French revolution, revolted under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture. After several years of fierce conflict, L'Ouverture and his army of former slaves had driven colonial forces from the island.

Because Napoleon did not have enough troops to reconquer Saint Domingue and occupy Louisiana simultaneously, he decided first to subdue the rebel slaves and reestablish French authority on Saint Domingue. In the fall and winter of 1801 he despatched to Saint Domingue an army of 20,000 men under his brother-in-law, General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc. Toussaint surrendered to Leclerc in three months. Napoleon also assembled an expedition at a Dutch port in the winter of 1802-03 for reinforcing Leclerc's army and, with Saint Domingue as it base of operations, took possession of Louisiana.

"There is on the globe one single spot"

Rumors of the secret retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France prompted anxiety in Washington city. By May 1801 the American minister to Great Britain, Rufus King, had apprised President Thomas Jefferson with some certainty of the transaction, an event that Jefferson said was an inauspicious circumstance to us.   10 Painfully aware of the potential difficulties in having Napoleonic France as a neighbor, Jefferson informed William C. C. Claiborne, governor of the Mississippi Territory, that he regarded Spanish "possession of the adjacent country as most favorable to our interests, & should see, with extreme pain any other nation substituted for them. Should France get possession of that country, it will be more to be lamented than remedied by us ¦"   11 In November 1801 Secretary of State James Madison received a copy of the Treaty of San Ildefonso from Ambassador King, confirming the diplomatic transaction previously denied by France.

Over the course of several years President Thomas Jeffersonprepared to handle an impending French presence in the Mississippi Valley and his administration's first great diplomatic crisis. Jefferson was probably America's foremost geographical thinker and a student of the American West. The plight of the western farmers evoked his empathy and his support. He was also a long-time friend of France; his stint as ambassador to Paris (1784-89) had familiarized him with French diplomacy and politics. A political veteran of the American Revolution, Jefferson was also an Anglophobe.

By early 1802 events in Europe led Jefferson to reappraise and reformulate American relations with France, especially in light of her intended occupation of the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans. War between France and Great Britain was expected. Jefferson realized that if France claimed Louisiana, Great Britain would try to capture and occupy the region. In a April 18, 1802, letter to Minister Robert R. Livingston, Jefferson revealed that the prospect of potential war with France and the unpleasant consequence of an alliance with Great Britain completely reverses all the political relations of the U.S.

Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison had hoped to fashion a foreign policy congenial to French interests. They disapproved of the slave uprising in Saint Domingue, intimating through diplomatic channels that the United States might assist France in subduing L'Ouverture. They appointed the pro-French Robert R. Livingstonas American minister to Paris. In May 1802 Madison instructed Livingston to negotiate for the purchase of New Orleans. Livingston was also directed to ascertain whether the cession included East Florida and West Florida, and, if so, to negotiate a price for acquiring them, or at least the right of navigation and deposit on one of the rivers feeding into the Gulf.

10. Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., Washington City, May 14, 1801, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. ( Return to text )

11. Thomas Jefferson to William C. C. Claiborne, Washington City, July 13, 1801, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. ( Return to text )

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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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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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Home — Essay Samples — History — Louisiana Purchase — The Purchase of Louisiana: A Pivotal Moment in American History

The Purchase of Louisiana: a Pivotal Moment in American History

• Categories: Economy Louisiana Purchase

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Published: Jun 6, 2024

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Louisiana Purchase Essays

The Louisiana Purchase was one of the most significant land purchases in history. In 1803, the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of land from France for just over $15 million dollars. This purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States and opened up vast new lands to settlers and explorers. The Louisiana Purchase began when President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to negotiate a deal with Napoleon Bonaparte of France. At first, Napoleon wanted to sell only part of what would become known as the Louisiana Territory. However, after some negotiation and an offer from President Jefferson to pay double what he initially offered for Napoleon agreed to sell all 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for 15 million dollars worth of gold or it’s equivalent value in goods (the amount paid at today’s prices equates to about $233 million). The significance of this purchase cannot be understated ” it nearly doubled the size of young nation and opened up an entire continent full exploration and settlement opportunity that had previously been closed off by foreign nations like Spain who controlled much larger parts Mexico and South America at that time. With this newfound access came a huge influx immigrants looking for a better life on American soil which helped spur economic development in cities like St Louis, Chicago, and New Orleans among many others along those western rivers flowing into The Gulf Of Mexico And The Atlantic Ocean beyond.. Today, nearly two centuries later we are still feeling effects from this major event in world history. From pioneering entrepreneurs developing businesses based on resources found within these newly opened territories such as fur trapping or mining silver/gold ore; To cultural impact including music genres like jazz or rock n roll created along those same rivers so long ago One thing is certain: without The Louisiana Purchase our present day map might look very different indeed.

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Watch CBS News

Hackers may have stolen your Social Security number in a massive breach. Here's what to know.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: August 16, 2024 / 3:02 PM EDT / CBS News

A new lawsuit is claiming hackers have gained access to the personal information of "billions of individuals," including their Social Security numbers, current and past addresses and the names of siblings and parents — personal data that could allow fraudsters to infiltrate financial accounts or take out loans in their names. 

The allegation arose in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Christopher Hofmann, a California resident who claims his identity theft protection service alerted him that his personal information had been leaked to the dark web by the "nationalpublicdata.com" breach. The lawsuit was earlier reported by Bloomberg Law.

The breach allegedly occurred around April 2024, with a hacker group called USDoD exfiltrating the unencrypted personal information of billions of individuals from a company called National Public Data (NPD), a background check company, according to the lawsuit. Earlier this month, a hacker leaked a version of the stolen NPD data for free on a hacking forum, tech site Bleeping Computer reported . 

That hacker claimed the stolen files include 2.7 billion records, with each listing a person's full name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and phone number, Bleeping Computer said. While it's unclear how many people that includes, it's likely "that everyone with a Social Security number was impacted," said Cliff Steinhauer, director of information security and engagement at The National Cybersecurity Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes online safety.

"It's a reminder of the importance of protecting yourself, because clearly companies and the government aren't doing it for us," Steinhauer told CBS MoneyWatch.

In a statement posted to its website, NPD said the breach involved a "third-party bad actor that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023, with potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024."

The company added that it is working with law enforcement and government investigators. NPD said it "will try to notify you if there are further significant developments applicable to you."

Here's what to know about the alleged hack. 

What is National Public Data? 

National Public Data is a data company based in Coral Springs, Florida, that provides background checks for employers, investigators and other businesses that want to check people's backgrounds. Its searches include criminal records, vital records, SSN traces and more information, its website says.

There are many similar companies that scrape public data to create files on consumers, which they then sell to other businesses, Steinhauer said.

"They are data brokers that collect and sell data about people, sometimes for background check purposes," he said. "It's because there's no national privacy law in the U.S. — there is no law against them collecting this data against our consent."

What happened with the USDoD hack?

According to the new lawsuit, USDoD on April 8 posted a database called "National Public Data" on the dark web, claiming to have records for about 2.9 billion individuals. It was asking for a purchase price of $3.5 million, the lawsuit claims. 

However, Bleeping Computer reported that the file was later leaked for free on a hacker forum, as noted above. 

How many people have been impacted?

The number of people impacted by the breach is unclear. Although the lawsuit claims "billions of individuals" had their data stolen, the total population of the U.S. stands at about 330 million. The lawsuit also alleges that the data includes personal information of deceased individuals.

Bleeping Computer reports that the hacked data involves 2.7 billion records, with individuals having multiple records in the database. In other words, one individual could have separate records for each address where they've lived, which means the number of impacted people may be far lower than the lawsuit claims, the site noted.

The data may reach back at least three decades, according to law firm Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe, which said on Monday it is investigating the breach.

Did NPD alert individuals about the hack? 

It's unclear, although the lawsuit claims that NPD "has still not provided any notice or warning" to Hoffman or other people affected by the breach. 

"In fact, upon information and belief, the vast majority of Class Members were unaware that their sensitive [personal information] had been compromised, and that they were, and continue to be, at significant risk of identity theft and various other forms of personal, social, and financial harm," the lawsuit claims. 

Information security company McAfee reported that it hasn't found any filings with state attorneys general. Some states require companies that have experienced data breaches to file reports with their AG offices. 

However, NPD posted an alert about the breach on its website, stating that it believes the information breached includes names, email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers and mailing addresses.

Can you find out if your data was part of the hack?

There are tools available that will monitor what information about you is available on the dark web, noted Michael Blair, managing director of cybersecurity firm NukuDo. Commonly breached data includes your personal addresses, passwords and email, he added.

One such service is how Hofmann, who filed the lawsuit, found out that his information has been leaked as part of NPD breach.

"Make sure to use reputable companies to look that up," Blair said. 

What should I do to protect my information?

Security experts recommend that consumers put freezes on their credit files at the three big credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Freezing your credit is free, and will stop bad actors from taking out loans or opening credit cards in your name. 

"The biggest thing is to freeze your credit report, so it can't be used to open new accounts in your name and commit other fraud in your name," Steinhauer said. 

Steinhauer recommends consumers take several additional steps to protect their data and finances:

• Make sure your passwords are at least 16 characters in length, and are complex. 
• Use a password manager to save those long, complex passwords.
• Enable multifactor authentication, which Steinhauer calls "critical," because simply using a single password to access your accounts isn't enough protection against hackers. 
• Be on alert for phishing and other scams. One red flag is that the scammers will try to create a sense of urgency to manipulate their victims.
• Keep your security software updated on your computer and other devices. For instance, make sure you download the latest security updates from Microsoft or Apple onto your apps and devices. 

You can also get a tracking service that will alert you if your data appears on the dark web. 

"You should assume you have been compromised and act accordingly," Steinhauer said. 

• Data Breach
• Social Security

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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