Louisiana Purchase Vs Louisiana Cession

America is popularly known for its fifty states that span across the North American content. All the states are governed by autonomous state governments that are all under the central authority of federal government. The history of how America came to unite the fifty states is fascinating considering that the means of acquisition of these states were not similar. The content of this paper will compare and contrast the acquisition of two major territories by the United States commonly known as the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Cession.

Discussion

The Louisiana Purchase is a term that is commonly used to reference the acquisition of the expansive Louisiana land by the U.S. from the French authorities back in the year 1803. The U.S.

history. The name gives reference to the South Western region of the United States that Mexico relinquished to the U.S. The Mexican Cession comes third as the largest land acquisition in U.S. history after the Louisiana and Alaska acquisitions. Before Mexico ceded the territory to the United States, the vast land had been under the ownership of the Mexican government but there had been attempts by revolt groups to acquire it. The Mexican Cession came after the United States and Mexico were engaged in a two-year war between the year 1846-1848 which then resulted in the United States gaining control of the territory (Fieldman 71). In the U.S. the war did not receive full backing from everyone; most of the proponents of the war were democrats with most Whigs opposing the move to engage Mexico in a war. Therefore, the Mexican cession was the outcome of this war that resulted in Mexico ceding most of its territory (approximately 42%) to the United States from South Western Wyoming all the way to California. Also, the U.S. paid 15 million dollars on top to complete the acquisition, half the amount it had been willing to pay before the war took place (Hill 84). The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty signed in 1848 marked the acquisition of the