The $15 Million Bet That Doubled the Country

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1803, the United States made a deal with France that would double the size of the young nation. Known as the Louisiana Purchase, the $15 million agreement opened the door to westward expansion, changing our country forever. Hillsdale College's Brad and Dedra Birzer share the story of how one land deal reshaped the course of American history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and up next an important
story about our own history. In eighteen o three, the
United States bought the Louisiana territory from France. Dublin the
size of this country. Here's our own Monte Montgomery and
doctor Brad and Deirdre Burser with the story.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
The year is eighteen oh three. In four people, Thomas Jefferson,
Robert Livingston, James Monroe, and Napoleon are about to get
involved in one of the most interesting land deals in history.
Here's Brad Burser and Dedre Burser of Hillsdale College with more.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
So, the Louisiana purchase was one of those fascinating moments
in really world history, not just in American history. But
you have that moment where Napoleon is trying so hard
to maintain his grasp and his control on things going
on in Europe and in the colonies. But because of
the Haitian Revolution, he loses control of the West Indies

(01:13):
and it takes him a lot of money and a
lot of manpower, a lot of resources to try and
reclaim that. And when he gets bogged down trying to
reclaim Haiti, he decides that one of the best things
to do in the New World is get rid of Louisiana,
which the French of course had controlled for centuries and

(01:34):
wanted to recontrol again. I mean, they believed that they
could recreate New France in some way, and maybe in
a very revolutionary direction. But once the Haitian Revolution happened
and Napoleon started losing his grip on the New World,
he decided that it was really in his best interest
to get as much money as possible actual specie, get money,

(01:54):
get as much money as possible, and sell off the
possibility or the obligations that he had in North America.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
New Orleans is incredibly important in this too, So in
New Orleans, the Spanish had declared that the right to
deposit was no longer going to be allowed, So that
meant that traders could no longer stockpile their goods in
New Orleans waiting for ships to take them out. So

(02:24):
Livingston had been sent by Jefferson to France to try
to buy New Orleans and West in South Florida to
buy Florida, and so that's what they had permission to do.
When Napoleon then presented this offer of buying all of Louisiana,
and they couldn't get a message across the Atlantic fast

(02:47):
enough for Jefferson to weigh in on it. So Monroe
was due in the next day as Secretary of State.
So it was really up to Livingston and Monroe what
to do, and they had to figure that out really
second guessing. What would Jefferson want them to do. And
they said, yes, we will buy Louisiana. And so Napoleon

(03:08):
supposedly said something along the lines of what will you
give it to me for? I mean, what will you
give me for it?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
And he does so with fifteen million dollars. Once he
does that, we gain an extra eight hundred thousand square miles,
one of the largest land deals ever done in world history.
It almost not quite, but almost doubled the legal size
of the United States at that point. And that means
that we're purchasing acreage at about three cents an acre,

(03:38):
which is why it makes it one of the most
important and weirdest land deals in history.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
But despite the amazing deal on land, the purchase wasn't
without controversy.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Jefferson himself was reluctant to make the purchase only because
he didn't know if article two of US Constitution, or
even if the Constitution as a whole allowed us to
purchase land, but there was a huge difference in acquiring
land and paying for land. So they made a strong

(04:13):
distinction between what we would call expansionism versus what would
have been called imperialism at the time. Jefferson was an
anti imperialist, but he was very pro expansion and people
in his party, like his secretary, the Speaker of the
House at the time, John Randolph of Roanoke, was adamantly
opposed to the possibility of the executive using money this

(04:35):
way and using the executive power to purchase land for
a lot of reasons. One, they were worried about what
would happen to the American Indian. They were worried about
the question of slavery. Jefferson, of course was adamantly against
slavery in the West, adamantly, but there was still this worry.
And it also there was a worry that there was
being too much power being given to the executive. So

(04:55):
when we look back now, we celebrate it's become so
much of part of our narrative as an American people
that it's very hard for us to question it. But
at the time, it was truly questioned and it caused
a lot of political problems. Jefferson himself had qualms, but
he decided that it was worth the risk, simply because

(05:18):
the opportunity was so great, and as Didra said, was
so chancy, because Napoleon was problematic and he was moody,
and you didn't know exactly what he was going to
do on one day or the next day. And here
was this opportunity, and so Jefferson decided just to go
ahead and make the most of it. And one of
the reasons that Lewis and Clark were being sent out
as quickly as they were was to show and demonstrate

(05:40):
that this Louisiana purchase was worth it. You know, they
did have some sort of idea of what was in Louisiana,
but most of it was rumors. And Jefferson's own ideas
changed changed on this pretty dramatically if you look at
some of his writings in the seventeen eighties and the
seventeen nineties. Jefferson was convinced that there were certain vapors

(06:03):
that the West breathed, and maybe these came from stories
of Yellowstone, but that there were vapors that allowed the
Indians to be physically superior to the European He thought
that in the West there were still probably mastodons, there
were various kinds of ancient creatures still running around, and
in large part because of these vapors that were supposedly

(06:23):
were being briefed. But and I say all of this,
I mean it sounds so absurd to us.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Now.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
By eighteen oh three, Jefferson had calmed down on a
lot of this, and it wasn't so convinced that there
had been these kind of almost mythical elements of the West.
But those mythical elements certainly helped shape how we viewed
the West.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
But even some of their more serious views on things
that potentially existed in the West would seem a bit
strange today.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
They wanted to see if there was a passage to
Japan and China and to India, and find out if
there was a way to have a trade route in
which America could gain control over that Eastern trade and
outcompete Europe as well. There was this strange vision, and
it's an old Enlightenment vision, but it's the idea that
land has to have symmetry to it, So if Eastern

(07:16):
America had the Appalachian Mountains and it had the Mississippi River.
Then Western America had to have the equivalent of the
Appalachian Mountains and the equivalent of a Mississippi River. Now
that's ridiculous, of course, and we no land doesn't work
that way, but that was part of eighteenth century thought
on the way that creation worked, that there would have

(07:36):
to be that cemetery. But even if we don't take
it to that level, you can imagine what eight hundred
thousand square miles of farmland would mean for the average
European coming over to America. This is a paradise, an
absolute paradise. The same land had been farmed for generation
after generation, sometimes thousands of years in Europe, and now

(07:58):
suddenly there's what they called virgin soil or virgin land
in America. This seemed Edenic or utopian to them, and
they certainly believe that they had this gift from God,
that is this huge amount of land, and that they
should take as much of that as they can, not
in a greedy sense, but in the sense that it

(08:19):
needed to be used in the way that God wanted
it to be used. As we see in Genesis where
God gives stewardship and dominion to man. Jefferson personally, of course,
was not that religious.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
But Jefferson did see expansion into the West as something
that was glorious and important for America.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
In eighteen oh one, Jefferson said, a rising nation spread
over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas,
with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce,
with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly
to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye. When I
contemplate these transcendent objects and see the honor, the happiness,

(09:01):
and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the
issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink before
the contemplation and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking.
And that was critical for Jefferson, this idea that this
land is this gift that's given to us to attempt
a republic, to actually see if we can have an

(09:24):
agree in republic. And Jefferson makes this statement at the time,
and this we think about the symmetry being odd and
the fact that there might be master dons with possibilities
just bizarre when we look back, especially, I mean, given
Jefferson maybe the most intelligent mind ever born on North
or South American soil, how could he think like that? Well,
let me put it this way. One way to think

(09:46):
about America is always to understand the West as its future.
If the America is to have a future, it will
always be in the West. That was the understanding in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. So when you
talked about the West, you're really talking about America and
what America is. That was that much of an identification

(10:07):
with what the West was and what the frontier was.
So that's part of what Jefferson is playing into when
he's able to go ahead and purchase these eight hundred
thousand square miles. Part of the reason he's able to
do that is because of this great myth of America.
It's not a false myth. I think it's a true myth,
but this myth of well, what is the West? The

(10:28):
West is our future and we definitely have to secure it.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
And great job is always Somanti and a special thanks
to doctor Brad and Deirdre Berser the story of the
Louisiana purchase. Here on our American story