Why was the Louisiana Purchase made

On March 10, 1804, France officially transferred its claim to the Louisiana Territory to the United States. President Thomas Jefferson had acquired—purchased—the Louisiana Territory almost a year earlier, for the price of about $15 million (about $342 million in 2020, adjusted for inflation). The ceremony took place in St. Louis, Missouri, earning the U.S. city its nickname “Gateway to the West.”

The Mississippi River, on which St. Louis sits, formed the eastern boundary of the Louisiana Territory—a vast region stretching from the Mississippi Delta to what is now the Canadian border of North Dakota and past the northern border of what is now Montana. That border dispute was settled with the signing of the U.S.-Great Britain Oregon Treaty. The 1846 treaty set the U.S.-Canadian border at the 49th parallel as the border in the Pacific Northwest.

Spain relinquished the territory to France’s new ruler, Napoléon Bonaparte, in 1802 under threat. Napoléon wanted to extend the French empire into North America. France originally claimed the Louisiana territory in 1682, despite the presence of Indigenous cultural-linguistic groups, including the Chitimacha, Atakapa, Caddo, Tunica, Choctaw, and Natchez, among others. But France gave up its North American claims after losing the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), giving up the Louisiana territory to Spain in 1762.

Napoléon saw Saint Domingue (now Haiti) as France’s most valuable territory in the New World. With the loss of the island after a successful rebellion by enslaved people of African descent, there was little use for the Louisiana territory, which had relatively few settlers and no real administration.

Jefferson was conflicted about France’s offer to purchase the Louisiana territory. The president is not granted the power to acquire foreign territory in the Constitution. He did not believe the president could go beyond the powers given in the Constitution, but, at least in this instance, he did so.

However, the U.S. was not making a real estate purchase. Instead, it was buying the exclusive right to purchase or forcibly take lands from various Indigenous governments who actually owned them. Eventually, the lands comprising the Louisiana Purchase became a part of the U.S. government, but the process was long, complex, and multifaceted.

In reality, the price of the territories taken cost much more in monetary value. There were 222 land relinquishments from Indian communities to the U.S. government between 1804 and 1970. The final purchase price for these lands was no less than $2.6 billion ($8.5 billion in 2020), much higher than the $15 million the U.S. paid to France. Not all of these interactions and treaties between the U.S. government and Native American governments were fair—many came from broken treaties, coercion, and threats of violence.

Just months later (in May 1804) Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their “Corps of Discovery” departed from St. Louis to explore this new American landscape.

After the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte became the leader of the battered country. Among other things, he envisioned the reestablishment of a new colonial presence in the New World, something that had been lost at the end of the French and Indian War (1754- 1763), one of four major colonial wars. When it became apparent that France was not in a position to afford such a grand undertaking, he opted to sell it to the most logical interested party: the United States. It must also be remembered that what comprised the Louisiana Territory was frequently under different nations' control over just the previous decade or two.

France, for instance, had first possessed Louisiana by exploratory claim, then lost it to the English. Spain later obtained control of it, but then ceded it to the French for considerations on the European mainland. When the United States contacted France about the purchase of New Orleans–essential if the trans-Appalachian states were to thrive–Napoleon’s representatives instead offered all of the Territory. Although controversial, Jefferson quickly agreed and more than doubled the size of the United States in the process. The purchase also solidified America’s place as a growing power and challenge to the British, something Napoleon was doubtless aware of and encouraged.

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The Louisiana Purchase encompassed 530,000,000 acres of territory in North America that the United States purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million.

As the United States spread across the Appalachians, the Mississippi River became an increasingly important conduit for the produce of America’s West (which at that time referred to the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi). Since 1762, Spain had owned the territory of Louisiana, which included 828,000 square miles. The territory made up all or part of fifteen modern U.S. states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The Pinckney treaty of 1795 had resolved friction between Spain and the United States over the right to navigate the Mississippi and the right for Americans to transfer their goods to ocean-going vessels at New Orleans. With the Pinckney treaty in place and the weak Spanish empire in control of Louisiana, American statesmen felt comfortable that the United States’ westward expansion would not be restricted in the future.

This situation was threatened by Napoleon Bonaparte’s plans to revive the French empire in the New World. He planned to recapture the valuable sugar colony of St. Domingue from a slave rebellion, and then use Louisiana as the granary for his empire. France acquired Louisiana from Spain in 1800 and took possession in 1802, sending a large French army to St. Domingue and preparing to send another to New Orleans. Westerners became very apprehensive about having the more-powerful French in control of New Orleans: President Thomas Jefferson noted, “There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans.”

In addition to making military preparations for a conflict in the Mississippi Valley, Jefferson sent James Monroe to join Robert Livingston in France to try to purchase New Orleans and West Florida for as much as $10 million. Failing that, they were to attempt to create a military alliance with England. Meanwhile, the French Army in St. Domingue was being decimated by yellow fever, and war between France and England still threatened. Napoleon decided to give up his plans for Louisiana, and offered a surprised Monroe and Livingston the entire territory of Louisiana for $15 million. Although this far exceeded their instructions from President Jefferson, they agreed.

When news of the sale reached the United States, the West was elated. President Jefferson, however, was in a quandary. He had always advocated strict adherence to the letter of the Constitution, yet there was no provision empowering him to purchase territory. Given the public support for the purchase and the obvious value of Louisiana to the future growth of the United States, however, Jefferson decided to ignore the legalistic interpretation of the Constitution and forgo the passage of a Constitutional amendment to validate the purchase. This decision contributed to the principle of implied powers of the federal government.