CHAPTER IV.

The Louisiana Purchase.

In 1763 Spain, by virtue of the "Family Compact" of 1762, so known because the rulers of France and Spain agreed to defend their domains against the whole world, took possession of Louisiana which had been in the hands of France since the time of her earliest explorers. During 1795 we entered into a very indefinite and unsatisfactory treaty with Spain to use the mouth of the Mississippi, the present New Orleans, as a deposit for our products coming from all along the Mississippi and which were to be exported. Spain possessed both banks of the river at its mouth and the western shores to its source, while United States only possessed the eastern banks and had no seaport. The river was a highway to the market, and New Orleans was a port for the output of the settlers. The denial of the free use of the highway was a real injury to the frontier people. There was but one desire of the American people and that was the right to navigate untrammeled the river from its source to its mouth, for there must be an outlet for the inland products.

This treaty of 1795 was only a temporary arrangement and at its best most uncertain. Rumors of war, of a desire to take the mouth of the Mississippi by force, of the discontent as to a condition which hindered the growth and prosperity of all those who were dependent upon the navigation of the Mississippi to get their goods to the sea, caused the United States authorities at Washington much anxiety. Great care and diplomacy must be used to bring about the desired result, to meet the demands of the justly restless farmers and producers. These people were demanding for their allegiance to the United States protection from the United States. The Government had for some time realized the importance of having a seaport at

the mouth to export the products in order that the result of the producers in the Mississippi valley might be profitable.

France was dismayed at the privilege granted by Spain in 1795. Napoleon saw a possibility of regaining the lost New France. He had a desire to limit our western progress and confine our possessions to the Eastern shores of the Mississippi. Spain, however, did not have the power to bind us to the proposed boundaries and transferred all of Louisiana to France on October 1, 1800, by a secret treaty which gave back to France all of the Territory which she ceded to Spain in 1763. Vague rumors circulated as to this unknown real estate transfer making the Mississippi settlers restless and determined to fight. Our experience with France on the high seas had been of such a nature as to make this move far from reassuring.

During the John Adams administration three envoys. were sent to France to adjust the difficulty. An interview with the French authorities would not be granted unless we paid a stipulated sum. This was refused when our envoy, Pinckney, made the famous remark, "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute."

In 1802 Spain closed the mouth of the "father of waters" to our products and this virtually stopped the navigation of the river by the citizens of the United States. President Jefferson and the administration tried to plan ways and means by which the difficulty could be overcome and Jefferson asked Congress to appropriate $2,000,000 to be given to France for New Orleans and West Florida which would carry with it our right to navigate the entire length of the Mississippi. Robert R. Livingston, one of the five to draft the Declaration of Independence, was at this time our Minister to France. James Monroe in the early spring of 1803 was sent to Paris as a special envoy to assist in the purchase of New Orleans.

Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic of France, had at this time involved all Europe in war. He was in desperate straits for money; he was in much urgent need of replenishing his depleted purse not only to carry on the wars already begun but to prepare for the threatened war with England, France's old enemy, who had been watching Napoleon's unparalled success with envious eyes. In any event he could hardly expect to hold Louisiana, a possession at so great a distance from the Mother Country. Barbe Marbois was not only the Minister of the Treasury of the Republic of France, but was the confidential and trusted councilor of Napoleon, and was selected by him as a plenipotentiary for this sale. These four statesmen, two of whom had taken part in our struggle for Independence and two of whom were decidedly conspicuous in the movements of the French Revolution, perfected an agreement by which all of Louisiana was to be added to the United States.

We only asked for New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi. The surprise came when Napoleon said: "I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede. It is the whole country without reserve."

The price was $15,000,000 and the Treaty was signed April 30, 1803. This was ratified by Congress November 3, 1803, and the purchase made December 17, 1803, when Livingston remarked, “We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives."

In round numbers we obtained 1,037,735 square miles, or about 664,150,000 acres, at two and one-fifth cents an acre. For a sum less than the amount which was appropriated to properly celebrate the hundredth anniversary of this event at St. Louis,* a territory was added to the United States which now comprises thirteen

*The Exposition at St. Louis to celebrate this purchase cost $50,000,000.00-more than three times the purchase price.

of our States and which moreover occupies one-third of the area of the United States and contains one

fifth of the people of America. The purchase gave us the control of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and it gave us a commercial highway. It more properly might be called the acquisition of both the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, as it includes the entire length of the Missouri to its head waters in the Rocky Mountains. To emphasize the value of this tremendous acquisition of land it is worth while stating that `at the present time the wool products alone of the States made out of the Louisiana Purchase would pay the purchase price. The corn in Iowa would pay the price six times over. The wheat fields in this territory are greater than half of all those in our land and their products would buy Louisiana a hundred times..

Technically France did not occupy Louisiana at the time of the purchase. The transfer from Spain by the Treaty of October 1, 1800, called the St. Ildefonso treaty, had never been made. France did not occupy the province she was selling. The formality of surrender and delivery from Spain to France had to be accomplished before France could dispose of the land to the United States.

November 30, 1803, with proper ceremonies the yellow and red flag of Spain was lowered at New Orleans and the keys of the Island turned over to the French Representative, who in the name of France raised the tri-colors of that country. December 20, 1803, the tri-colors descended as had the Spanish colors twenty days before and the Stars and Stripes ascended and the reign of France on American soil came to an end. Within the space of three weeks Spain, France and the United States each had owned Louisiana, a stretch of land embracing the territory covered by Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Minnesota; parts of Colorado,

Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Minnesota and Wyoming and Oklahoma, containing to-day a taxable wealth of $6,616,642,829, an area larger than the combined area of Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, and equal to two-thirds of the territory covered by the original thirteen States. It has been said this act was by far the greatest work of our people during the years intervening between the adoption of the Constitution and the outbreak of the Civil War.