The United States completed the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, expanding the nation remembered by America250.
The agreement was signed in Paris on April 30, 1803, and the United States formally took possession later that year. President Thomas Jefferson authorized the deal, which acquired about 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River for $15 million, or roughly three cents per acre.
France’s Napoleon Bonaparte offered the territory partly because renewed war in Europe made a North American empire difficult to defend. The purchase more than doubled the size of the United States and gave the young republic control of the port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River’s navigation.
The transaction raised constitutional questions because the Constitution did not explicitly describe a power to buy foreign territory. Jefferson nevertheless accepted the treaty, and Congress approved it. The land later became all or parts of 15 modern U.S. states and two territories.