The Louisiana Purchase, 1803

On May 2nd, 1803, two American diplomats signed a treaty in Paris in accordance with which the United States acquired 900,000 square miles of territory. Out of this enormous tract, known as the Louisiana Purchase, were carved Louisiana itself, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the greater part of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The price of this block of real estate, plus the assumption of certain claims of American citizens against France, came to fifteen million dollars. The interest payments incidental to the final settlement raised the total eventually to $27,267,622, or about four cents an acre. The diplomats engaged in these negotiations, Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe for the United States, Talleyrand and Barbé-Marbois for France, had been haggling over the transfer of New Orleans and the delta of the Mississippi from France to the United States for over a year. Not one of them guessed, when the negotiations began, that Napoleon Bonaparte, at that time First Consul of France but actually dictator, would suddenly decide to liquidate the French empire. When the General offered a favour suitors did well to waste no time in acceptance. In signing the treaty, therefore, the Americans acted without the knowledge or authorization of President Jefferson or of James Madison, his Secretary of State.

The four diplomats involved were all distinguished men. Livingston was a prominent member of a great New York family, a member of the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence, and a former Chancellor of the State of New York. He had refused a post in Jefferson’s cabinet before he was asked to go to France as Minister. In the days before the telegraph and the steamboat, an American minister to Europe was forced to act on his own initiative in times of crisis. Livingston did not complain, Sometimes he may have resented being left in the dark as to the Administration’s wishes, but he suffered from no doubts of his own ability to grapple with any diplomatic problem that might arise.

To help him in his negotiations, Jefferson sent over as his special representative James Monroe, whose name is now associated with one of the chief dogmas of American foreign policy. This rather colourless man had already had a notable career as Minister to France and as Governor of Virginia, thanks, according to his biographer, to “untiring application and indomitable perseverance.” In another fourteen years this same application and perseverance would open the doors for him into the White House. His arrival in Paris, just in time to figure in the negotiations initiated by Livingston, was not welcomed. Livingston felt perfectly capable of conducting negotiations by himself. In recounting the events afterwards he always insisted that the terms of the purchase were practically agreed upon before Monroe presented his credentials. Monroe, on the other hand, contended that Napoleon’s abrupt decision coincided with the news that the American Minister Plenipotentiary, bringing fresh demands with him, had landed at Havre.

Of the two French negotiators Talleyrand, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was unquestionably the more formidable. As a political exile he had sought refuge in America, where he lived for two years, but unlike most of his compatriots he had returned to Europe with a dislike for the American people. There was no market in the new world for his elegant irony, no inclination to condone his faults, no demand for his peculiar talents. This dislike of America was sharpened by his failure to extract a bribe from American commissioners recently sent over to adjust outstanding claims with the French government. It was made clear to them that it would be useless to open proceedings until they had made a substantial present to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Instead of digging into their pockets, the indignant commissioners immediately returned home and published the facts to the world. Talleyrand never forgave them. Personal resentment, therefore, as well as colonial ambition for France, always coloured his relations with American ministers. Talleyrand was a more ardent advocate of American colonization than Napoleon himself, and it was he who inspired much of the enthusiasm for overseas projects.

Barbé-Marbois, Napoleon’s director of the Treasury, was less venal than Talleyrand and better disposed towards America. An honest politician, he served successive regimes in France to the best of his ability. His knowledge and friendly understanding of the United States had been strengthened by several years’ residence as consul in Philadelphia and by an American marriage. At the same time he was a shrewd bargainer. When Napoleon suddenly decided to bring the discussions to an end by offering for sale the whole of Louisiana, Barbé-Marbois, perhaps more alive to the value of the colony, did not hesitate to raise Napoleon’s demand from fifty to a hundred million francs. In the end they compromised on a total payment of eighty millions.

These then were the men who, brought together to discuss the sale of New Orleans, signed a treaty that doubled the territory of the United States, and that Jefferson fondly believed would separate Americans forever from the affairs of Europe. Throughout the discussions the Frenchmen were in a more strategic position for bargaining than the Americans, as they could always fall back on the impossibility of persuading the First Consul to agree to any concessions. Lack of time—it was always possible that General Bonaparte would change his mind—prevented Livingston and Monroe from consulting Washington. They knew that Jefferson had the warmest feelings for France, but even Jefferson had admitted that France and the United States could never five happily side by side. In order to maintain good relations, France would have to lay the ghost of a French colony in the Mississippi valley. No wonder Jefferson was alarmed when he saw the world’s foremost military power, directed by one of the greatest soldiers of all time, about to occupy a position of such importance to the United States. “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans,” wrote Jefferson, “we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” When Livingston opened that letter he must have wondered whether war could possibly be avoided.

Those like Jefferson who knew the temper of the west had foreseen that westerners would not long remain in the Union unless the government could secure for them free navigation on the Mississippi. The surplus crops of the west were already finding their way to a market. From the farm where they were grown the cargoes of wheat and corn, meal and flour, pork, bacon, and whisky, were floated south down the Ohio and the Mississippi. In the long trip, drifting by day and tied to some convenient shore by night, the farmer boatmen had time to gossip over the trade in which they ventured.

As long as Spain was in control of the Mississippi they felt tolerably safe. Spain at the beginning of the 19th century was an easy-going nation, unwilling or unable to interfere with the activities of American frontiersmen. But when rumours reached American ears that Spain had been forced to sell Louisiana the dolce far niente picture changed overnight. Spain could be bluffed or bullied, but an eager France, determined to re-establish her American empire, presented a very different problem. As westerners discussed their fate, New Orleans officials quietly posted a proclamation ending the right of up-river exporters to deposit their produce at New Orleans and thence export them. Actually, France had nothing to do with the order, which was a belated Spanish attempt to put a stop to smuggling. But the frontiersmen knew nothing of these circumstances. In their eyes this was an example of the treatment they could expect from the new masters of the Mississippi.

Meanwhile Jefferson’s enemies had been busily fomenting the already existing unrest on the frontier. They wanted an immediate settlement of the Louisiana question, and they accused Jefferson of hopeless vacillation, not realizing that he had his own devious ways of getting what he wanted. At the same time that he was expounding his political philosophy to Livingston, he was in constant touch with a French economist friend, Pierre Samuel Du Pont. Du Pont had been one of the most ardent supporters of the American colonists. After the war was over he continued to consider himself a link between France and the young republic of the west, and he placed at the disposal of his friends in both countries his wide knowledge of men and affairs. Towards the end of his life he settled in America, and it was his son who founded the powder mill at Wilmington which developed into the company that has played such an important part in the industrial growth of the United States.

Jefferson’s friend, a far-sighted engineer, economist, philosopher and man of the world, pointed out that General Bonaparte was always in need of money, and that though he would never agree that Americans had any God-given right to devour the whole continent, he might well be persuaded to sell New Orleans and the Florida territory. True to his training and to his doctrine, Du Pont devised an economical solution to a political problem. As it turned out, Napoleon was even more in need of money than Du Pont guessed. By the year 1803 he was beginning to feel that Talleyrand’s policy of restoring the peace of Europe and directing the energies of France toward the creation of an empire in the new world could never be realized. That policy hinged on the French possessions in the West Indies, and of those possessions the most important was St. Domingo, more familiarly known today as Haiti.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution nearly two-thirds of the commercial interests of France were centred in this island. Paris swarmed with Creole families who drew their incomes from the sugar, coffee and cotton grown in the West Indies. No doubt General Bonaparte head a good deal about the West Indies from his wife, Josephine de Beauhamais, who came from an old but impoverished Martinique family. The turmoil of the Revolution, followed by the liberation of 500,000 negro slaves, left behind it in St. Domingo a trail of desolation and misery. Unfortunately for France, a remarkable negro, Toussaint de l’Ouverture, had set his heart on establishing in St. Domingo an independent state. If he had not defied Napoleon the wave of French empire would have rolled on to Louisiana and swept far up the Mississippi. His defiance ended in surrender and death, but the French troops who were unlucky enough to be sent out to quell the revolt paid a high price for what was to prove only a temporary success. No sooner had reinforcements arrived than they were consumed by the ferocity of the black army and the ravages of yellow fever. When the hard truth came home to him that there could be no enduring restoration of French rule in St. Domingo, Napoleon’s American projects received a staggering blow from which they never recovered.

So long as there was any chance of rebuilding his colonial empire, Napoleon was careful to avoid any move that might lead to hostilities with England, but with the failure of the St. Domingo venture his thoughts turned back to Europe. England now stood out as the one opponent in Napoleon’s war to end war. As he girded himself for the struggle he must have known that his American possessions would fall an easy prey to the British navy. St. Domingo was the gate to the western empire. Once he had convinced himself that he could not hold the gate, the nebulous empire beyond had to be abandoned too. Even if the hated British did not seize it, he would ultimately lose it to America. Granted the character of the American pioneer, there was no bulwark France could oppose to the rising tide of American expansion. Why then not sell to those insistent Americans not just New Orleans but the vast territory of unknown extent west of the Mississippi? He would demand a good price for it, and the money would go towards reconditioning his navy for the invasion of England. In the end Louisiana was sacrificed to the building of flat-bottomed boats that were to rot in Boulogne harbour, just as the boats of another dictator were to rot in that same harbour 137 years later.

Plans for the invasion may well have been coursing through Napoleon’s mind when he summoned Talleyrand immediately after high Mass on Easter Day, 1803, and announced that he was going to sell Louisiana to the Americans. He had already tried to convince his brothers Joseph and Lucien of the necessity for the sale, but with little success. Lucien, the more combative of the two, pointed out that the French constitution forbade alienation of national territory without a vote of the legislature. Not only that, insisted Lucien, but Napoleon had not performed his part of the agreement with Spain, and therefore Louisiana was not his to, sell. So infuriated was Napoleon by the legalistic arguments of a younger brother that he dashed his snuff-box to the floor and drove Lucien out of the room. He had every right to lose his temper since he knew perfectly well that Lucien was right.

According to the Treaty of San Ildefonso which Lucien Bonaparte, on the orders of his brother, had helped to negotiate only three years before, Spain had agreed to give back the Province of Louisiana that she had received from France at the end of the Seven Years War. In return for Louisiana Spain was to receive a large slice of territory in Italy, to be known as the Kingdom of Etruria. France must also guarantee to secure the consent of the other powers to the changes in Italy. Napoleon had been so excited by the acquisition of Louisiana and the prospect of a colonial empire in America that he quite forgot his share of the bargain. Instead he set to work to link Louisiana to the French islands of the West Indies by supplying those islands with articles hitherto purchased from the United States. Where an earlier generation of French colonial officials had sought to connect Louisiana and Canada by a chain of fortifications, he would bind Louisiana to the West Indies and to Europe by trade.

The terrible experiences in St. Domingo altered the whole picture. The enthusiasm over colonies, so carefully nurtured by Talleyrand, turned first to indifference then to disgust.

In an unguarded moment Napoleon was heard to exclaim, at an official dinner, “damn coffee, damn sugar, damn colonies.” The dream of West Indian armadas, and of a thriving French civilization across the seas, melted overnight, and along with it melted the promise to make a young Spanish duke King of Etruria. Lucien’s arguments and Talleyrand’s regrets, though Talleyrand was too much of a sceptic to regret anything for long, were brushed aside. The only thing that remained was the nuisance value of Louisiana. It must be sold at once, and the American negotiators must be made to pay a good price. As for Spain, she was in no position to make her complaints heard.

On Easter Monday, therefore, the very day after Talleyrand and Barbé-Marbois had had their interview with Napoleon, Mr. Livingston was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Once again the American Minister trotted out the old familiar arguments. The United States cared nothing for Louisiana, but wanted only West Florida and New Orleans— “barren sands and sunken marshes,” he said; “a small town built of wood; ... about seven thousand souls”; a territory important to the United States because it contained the mouth  of some of their rivers, but a mere drain on the resources of France. Talleyrand had heard it all before. He listened politely and, when Livingston finally paused for breath, he broke in with his momentous question: “What will you give for the whole?” For a moment Livingston, who was slightly deaf, did not understand. When he finally grasped what he was being offered, he was careful not to appear too eager. The matter demanded reflection. He must consult Mr. Monroe, but in the meantime he would be glad to meet Barbé-Marbois and explore the possibilities.

Negotiations got under way at once, and within a week the main outlines were settled. Monroe himself was so ill he remained on the sofa throughout the discussions. Both parties understood that they must reach a decision quickly. Napoleon’s brothers were known to be bitterly opposed to the sale, and it was a question how far their family loyalty could be stretched. If the negotiations dragged on, the secret was bound to leak out and Napoleon might find himself compelled to disown the whole scheme. Under these conditions Livingston did well to stop haggling and to agree to Barbé-Marbois! terms. The documents were signed on May 2nd, but the treaties were antedated April 30th, the day the agreement was reached.

Elated though they were at having bought an empire, the American diplomats must have had serious misgivings as to how their treaty would be received at home. They had been authorized to obtain New Orleans and as much of the Florida territory as they could secure east of the Mississippi, but what they had actually done was to buy New Orleans and a vast undefined stretch of territory west of the Mississippi. When they asked for a clearer definition of the boundaries they met with no satisfaction. “I can give you no direction,” said Talleyrand, “you have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it.” The United States had bought what originally belonged to France, no more and no less. During the 40 years of Spanish administration the boundaries had not changed. So sketchy were the maps that Livingston understood that western Florida was included in the purchase. Talleyrand did not disabuse him. He was quite sure in his own mind that Florida still belonged to Spain, but it would do no harm if the Americans and Spaniards developed a little quarrel of their own over frontiers. In all these discussions he was no doubt acting under orders of Napoleon, who always drafted his treaties in such deliberately ambiguous language that he could interpret them as he chose.

Monroe was therefore quite wrong in assuming that “the cession of Louisiana was an act of great and enlightened policy rather than an affair of commerce.” There was nothing enlightened about Napoleon’s decision. He acted from a variety of motives, but altruism was not one of them. As it turned out, the acquisition of the new territory, though it was destined to make the United States a great power, was to have a curiously different result from what Napoleon expected. For the next hundred years, instead of becoming a great naval power, the United States concentrated on the development of its vast inland empire and left England in undisputed possession of the seas.

But Napoleon had still another object in mind. He wanted to strengthen the United States temporarily so that she might act as a counterweight against England, and yet he hoped to prevent the rise of any world power in the western hemisphere. The experience of history proved that a republican form of government, which Napoleon detested, could only thrive in a small state. Thus by doubling the size of the United States he calculated that he was sowing the seeds of her eventual dissolution. Sooner or later the unwieldy republic would split apart, and the various pieces might well be snapped up again by the European powers. Jefferson himself accepted the possibility of fission, but he was not disturbed by it. Whether the United States remained one confederacy, or split into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, would not affect the happiness of either part.

The only thing that mattered to Jefferson was that Europe should be excluded from the new world. In his inaugural address he had spoken of America as a chosen country with room enough for its descendants to the thousandth generation. Now suddenly he was proposing to double the area of the Union on the plea of security. It was a strange fate indeed that required the author of the Declaration of Independence to buy a foreign colony without its consent, and to annex it to the United States by an act which he himself admitted made blank paper of the constitution. Even more strange was the theory, new to international law, that security meant freedom from the contiguity not of an enemy but of a former ally. No doubt it would have suited Jefferson better to secure the passage of an amendment to the constitution authorizing the acquisition of territory, but there was no time for these niceties. Livingston and Monroe advised him to close the transaction as soon as possible in case Napoleon should change his mind.

The treaty, consisting of three agreements dealing with the cession of territory, the payment and the claims of American citizens, was accordingly submitted to both Houses at a special session of Congress. It was ratified by the Senate, October 20th, by a vote of twenty-four to seven. In the debate in the House of Representatives on the appropriation of the necessary funds, a few members objected to the admission of a foreign people to the Union. Others argued that the price was exorbitant, and that the boundaries had been purposely concealed by France, but the opposition was half-hearted, and the fifteen millions were appropriated by a vote of ninety to twenty-five. Those who objected were the New Englanders, who realized that with the addition of this new territory the balance of power would inevitably turn against them.

Gouverneur Morris, one of the disgruntled Federalists, did not think it mattered whether the treaty were constitutional or not, for “at the rate things are going, the Constitution can not last long, and an unbalanced monarchy will be established on its ruins.” Whatever the form of government adopted, he considered it important to resist every attempt made by foreigners to interfere in. American domestic concerns.

There still remained one problem—that of the attitude of the French and Spanish inhabitants, who were being handed over from one nation to another without any consideration of their own wishes. For some reason, inexplicable to Jefferson, the Louisianians believed that French or Spanish sovereignty, despite its political absolutism, was more congenial to their easy-going way of life than the authority of the republican but officious Americans. Jefferson forestalled any danger of an anti-American demonstration by despatching troops to the scene, and the French prefect co-operated by organizing a fete in New Orleans on the day of transfer. The celebration began at three o’clock in the afternoon and lasted until nine the following morning. Toasts were drunk in wines appropriate to the three nations, madeira for Jefferson and the United States, malaga for Charles IV the King of Spain, and pink and white champagne for Bonaparte and the French Republic. Dancing continued through the night.

In this way all possible unpleasantness was averted, and Jefferson may well have settled any qualms of conscience by reflecting that the government of Louisiana rested, if not on the consent of the governed, at least on their indifference. He had already decided that the affairs of the territory should be administered by a Governor and a Council appointed by himself. At the same time he promised, in accordance with the formula approved by all imperialist powers, that a form of government would eventually be prepared for the inhabitants “as mild and free as they are able to bear.”

Jefferson was never worried by the inconsistency of not allowing Louisiana self-govemment until a swarm of American pioneers had prepared French and Spanish residents for the necessary change. In weighing the national interest against constitutional propriety he found no difficulty in making his choice. It is easy to accuse him, as we accuse all those who hold high office, of sacrificing principles to expediency, but today, one hundred and fifty years after the event, anyone who follows the meandering negotiations that finally led to the Louisiana Purchase will be more than ever convinced that Jefferson was a great statesman as well as a master politician. No one could have been more surprised than he when he opened the despatch from Livingston and Monroe informing him that they had bought an empire instead of a city, but he accepted the grave issues involved in this staggering deal without hesitation.

He himself wanted to be remembered as the author of the Declaration of Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and as the father of the University of Virginia, but posterity would do well to remember him also as the man who doubled the area of the United States. By so doing he created that vast reserve of free land that has done so much to shape the course of American history. By nature and habit the American is restless. Undoubtedly he was destined to inherit the earth from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but it was the quick action of Livingston and Monroe in accepting Napoleon’s offer, combined with the magnificent inconsistency of Jefferson, that hurried the American into his inheritance.