American President: Biography of Thomas Jefferson
Doubling the Nation's Size: The Louisiana Purchase
When Jefferson learned that Spain had secretly ceded Louisiana to France in 1800, he instructed his ministers to negotiate the purchase of the port of New Orleans and possibly West Florida. Jefferson strategically made this move in order to insure that American farmers in the Ohio River Valley had access to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River—the river was a key to the farmers' economic well-being, as they needed a vent for their surplus grain and meat. Even before the French took over Louisiana, the Spaniards had closed the Mississippi River in 1802. While Jefferson was known to be partial to the French, having the Emperor Napoleon's driving interests for world domination next door was not an attractive prospect; thus, Jefferson acted swiftly.
To his surprise, Napoleon, needing funds to finance a new European war with England, offered to sell Jefferson most of the land from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. His price of $15 million amounted to approximately four cents per acre for 828,000 square miles, doubling the size of the nation. Although Jefferson understood that the U.S. Constitution said nothing about the purchase of foreign territory, he set aside his strict constructionist ideals to make the deal—Congress approved the purchase five months after the fact. Jefferson then outfitted a twenty-five man expedition to explore the new lands. Led by his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and Army Captain William Clark, these adventurers took two and one-half years to cover 8,000 miles. They traveled up the Missouri River, across the Continental Divide, and down the Columbia River to the Pacific before retracing their steps to St. Louis. The expedition is considered one of the great exploratory quests in human history.
