Louisiana Purchase

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The Louisiana Purchase was a pivotal moment in U.S. History. At the time the Mississippi River ran along the western edge of the United States. France controlled the Louisiana Territory and Spain owned and operated New Orleans and its ports. Napoleon Bonaparte, though he desired expanding French influence in North America, was having his own issues with colonial uprisings in France's New World colonial holdings as a likely war with Great Britain loomed on the horizon. The United States, desiring access to the Mississippi River for the transportation of products, and believing that America had the destiny of spanning the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, offered France a deal that Bonaparte found difficult not to accept. The Louisiana Purchase was agreed upon in 1803. The entire process was negotiated by treaty to satisfy the otherwise lack of constitutional authority the federal government had based on the language of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. acquired 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for only $15 million. Spain, who had originally denied American access to the Mississippi River through the Port of New Orleans was angered by the deal, but realizing that they had too little local military power to block the deal, or to regulate America's use of the region, decided to return their Louisiana lands back to France just prior to the transfer of the Louisiana Purchase to the United States in December of 1803, adding to the deal not only all of the lands in the region save for Florida or the Spanish-controlled territories west and southwest of Louisiana, but also New Orleans and her ports, as well.

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