In 1803 the United States negotiated the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from
France for $15 million. With a stroke of a pen America doubled in size, making it one of
the largest nations in the world. The sale included over 600 million acres at a cost of less
than 3 cents an acre in what today is the better part of 13 states between the Mississippi
(5)River and the Rocky Mountains. For President Thomas Jefferson it was a diplomatic and
political triumph. In one fell swoop the purchase of Louisiana ended the threat of war with
France and opened up the land west of the Mississippi to settlement. By any measure the
purchase of Louisiana was the most important action of Jefferson’s two terms as
president. Jefferson knew that acquiring the very heart of the American continent would
(10)prove to be the key to the future of the United States.

Initially Jefferson sent his minister to France, Robert Livingston, offered Napoleon
$2 million for a small tract of land 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
(15)unknown to Jefferson, France had offered all of Louisiana to Livingston for $15 million.
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.
(20)Jefferson later admitted that he had stretched his power "till it cracked" in order to buy
Louisiana, the largest single land purchase in American history.