America's History: The Louisiana Purchase

Many things have happened in our Nation’s history to make it as great as it is today, one of those being The Louisiana Purchase. Without this purchase, our nation wouldn’t be half the size it is now. This purchase created the United States of America. Back in 1802, when everything was being settled, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the United States Representative in France, known as Robert R. Livingston. The letter simply stated, “The cession of Louisiana…. Works most sorely with the United States, the impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, Placed [her] in a point of eternal friction with us. Napoleons aggressive pursuit of his imperial ends and the dictators’ outright ambition made it

He then ordered Congress to sort exactly two million dollars aside in case of unexpected raises in the price during the agreement. Even though the original plan was just to purchase West Florida and New Orleans, the moment that Monroe had arrived in France, First Consul Bonaparte had planned to sell all of the Louisiana area to the United States in attempt to get more than enough funds for his war to reconquer the land in Haiti. On April 12, 1803, the United States had purchased the entire Louisiana Territory (about 828,000 square miles) for fifteen million dollars. 3.5 million of which went to help settle the remaining of America’s claims and debt from the Quasi War with France. This purchase not only granted the United States more land to expand too, but also the citizenship rights to the inhabitants of the land, the right to more French trading rights, as well as the right to acknowledge the Indian rights, which the natives rightfully deserved. This purchase benefitted the United States in many ways: it almost doubled the United States in size, gave control and more protection with control of the Mississippi River, and allowed the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06. All of the newly owned empty, free space naturally attracted farmers, adventurers, and entrepeuers

It turned our country from a “small nation compiled of a tiny area of land” to a “continental treasure that now spreads from ocean to ocean and beyond.” Without this major part of our history taking place, who knows what the United States of America would be like today, or if it even would still be around. The many problems and tragedies our great nation had to constantly face were finally solved with this expansion and without that aid and guidance of this “new world” to explore and expand onto, I feel that all of the rather major disagreements and very poor defense mechanisms would’ve eventually lead to either madness and chaos falling into place preceding the disbandment of the country, or a much more powerful country coming by to sweep us up with a major war and conquering this area as their own. But then again this great country started from nothing but disagreement with an over demanding, mad with power, money driven king who wouldn’t leave the colonists be at peace and an amazing, unique and untraditional idea that everyone can live in freedom and have the right to have the pursuit of happiness in their individual lives rather than be dictated by a monarch. If we could build this nation out of that, then surely no matter what direction the colonies went, we still would have turned into something remarkable. It’s rather quite amazing how much the succession of this ample area