Louisiana Purchase Essay

486 Words2 Pages

The Louisiana Purchase was one of the biggest bargains in history. This happened on April 30th, 1803. This was a land deal between France and the United States. The United States was very shocked to be offered the whole Louisiana region. They paid 15 million dollars for this land. It doubled the size of the United States and it strengthened the country. Some people feared that the impact of this purchase would affect the balance between slave and free states. Without this Purchase the United States wouldn’t have this much land. The United States got 828,000 square miles of the land west of the Mississippi river. It provided the US with new farmland and it doubled the size of their nation. It expanded the nation throughout the west. It also strengthened the country in many ways. Like for wars/battles and more room for materials. It also supplied America with many natural resources. For example, gold, iron, silver, etc. This added fifteen states to the United States. France sold this land to the United States because France’s ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, wasn’t interested in the North America empire anymore. He realized they needed money to …show more content…

So this was a problem for him. Jefferson said that the general government didn’t have enough power under the constitution to be able to buy foreign territories. The way he solved this problem was that the senate voted and a treaty was signed. After it was signed people still thought that the purchase was unconstitutional. Another problem was that the South states wanted to continue with slavery but the North strongly didn’t agree. So this broke the balance of the 11 free states and the 11 slave states. The Northerners feared that there were more slave states. They also feared that there wasn't enough representation of what they