Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/100



that rising nation, make it a formidable rival of Great Britain and enable it to check the rapacious policy of British power in American.

Confidential negotiations were opened with the American minister to France and the scheme was at once communicated to President Jefferson. He was rejoiced at the prospect of being able to secure, by peaceable means, such a vast and important addition to the territory of the new Republic. On the 30th of April, 1803, this treaty was concluded by which Louisiana was ceded to the United States for $15,000,000.

When this treaty negotiated by Jefferson's administration came before the Senate for ratification, constitutional objections were made; but in view of the national, commercial and financial benefits to be derived, opposition soon disappeared. All came to see the wisdom and broad statesmanship of the great author of the immortal Declaration of Independence. This act extended our dominion form the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean and gave to the growing young nation the vast empire out of which the Indian and Oklahoma territories and the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Montana, Washington, Oregon and Iowa have been organized. Louisiana embraced an area greater than all of our possessions at that time lying east of the Mississippi River.

A secret clause had been inserted in the treaty of 1801, between France and Spain, which provided that if France should ever permit Louisiana to pass out of her possession, Spain should have the exclusive right to re-purchase it. But so great had become the power and influence of Napoleon through his invincible armies in Spain, that he now readily coerced that kingdom to waive all right under this secret provision and permit the sale to the United States.

The extent of the territory, then known as Louisiana, had never been realized by any of its possessors. Louis