CHAPTEE II 

 THE LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



NEXT to the debt America owes France for her a Rich and 

 aid in the Eevolution is the gratitude due her Ter^rttory 

 Emperor ]N^apoleou for the sale of the Louisiana 

 territory to the Uuited States. While the first aid helped 

 us put a uew nation on the map, it was the second that 

 enabled us to own territory that was indispensable to the 

 United States if she was to be the predominant power on 

 the American continent. Until that purchase our gov- 

 ernment was hemmed in on all sides. England had Can- 

 ada on the north, and was likely very soon to take from 

 France the Louisiana territory just as she had taken 

 from France her Canadian possessions. With England 

 in possession of this great section on our western boun- 

 dary, with Spain still on the south and in the far west, it 

 would have been easy for England to gain the ascendancy 

 on the continent after all, and the United States would 

 have covered but a small portion of the North American 

 continent. 



We must realize this in order to estimate M'hat vast 

 service Napoleon rendered us when for his own selfish 

 purposes he consummated the Louisiana Purchase for a 

 sum amazingly small in comparison with the value of the 

 territory. He needed money, it is true, and twenty-two 

 millions were something. The amount indeed loomed 

 large to the American commissioners, who were not au- 

 thorized to enter into any such financial engagement. 

 But it was not the money that chiefly influenced Napo- 

 leon. He had good reason to believe that England would 

 soon drive out the French and seize the territory, and he 

 desired to have the United States rather than England 



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