The size of the U.S. doubled on APRIL 30, 1803, with the Louisiana Purchase.

Nearly a million square miles at less than three cents an acre - it was the greatest real estate deal in history!



Beginning in 1699, the Louisiana Territory had belonged to France, being named after Louis the 14th, "the Sun King."

After France lost the French and Indian War in 1763, control of the Territory was ceded to Spain.



Weakened by war debt, the French monarchy was finally overthrown by the French Revolution of 1789.

In 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul of France.



Napoleon pressured Spain to sign the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, giving the Louisiana Territory back to France.



In 1802, Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France to purchase land in New Orleans to dock ships.

Needing cash to fight other European countries, Napoleon offered to sell the entire 828,000 square miles of Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million dollars.



Not everyone in America was happy, as the State of Massachusetts threatened to secede from the Union thinking that adding so large a territory would dilute the influence of existing States.



President Thomas Jefferson brokered a compromise with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, commenting in his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805:

"I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger the union, but who can limit the extent to which the Federative principle may operate effectively?"

The rush to turn the Louisiana Purchase into new States, either slave or free, precipitated the Civil War.



Another factor convincing Napoleon to sell was the slave rebellion in Haiti.

Haiti is the western half of the Island discovered by Christopher Columbus named Hispanola, with the capital city of Santo Domingo, named for Columbus' father, Dominic.



France took half of the Island in the year 1660, calling it Saint-Domingue, and later Haiti.

It was one of the wealthiest colonies in the world, producing sugar, indigo, cotton and coffee, unfortunately using slave labor.



When the French Revolution abolished slavery in France, they allowed it to continue in Haiti.

Slaves revolted from 1791-1804, with tens of thousands of French, Mulattos, Blacks, and even Polish, dying with horrible brutality on all sides.



After losing Haiti, France wanted another tropical colony so Napoleon attempted to control Egypt, 1798-1801.

By 1803, Napoleon feared Haiti's slave rebellion would spread to the Louisiana Territory, convincing him to sell.



During his career, Napoleon fought in over 100 battles conquering large areas of Europe.

After a disastrous loss of nearly 400,000 men in Russia, he was force to abdicate and was exiled to the Mediterranean Island of Elba.



He escaped and returned to rule France again for 100 days, but after losing at Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon was permanently banished to the tiny island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic.

There he read the Bible and reflected on life.

A few years before dying at the age of 52, Napoleon commented to General H.G. Bertrand, as recorded in "On St. Helena," 1816:



"The Gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy, a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. One finds in meditating upon it that which one experiences in contemplating the heavens.

The Gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, which invades everything that opposes its extension. Behold it upon this table, this book surpassing all others (here the Emperor solemnly placed his hand upon it):

I never omit to read it, and every day with new pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, and admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of a celestial army...The soul can never go astray with this book for its guide..."


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Napoleon continued:

"Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me.

Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison; He is truly a Being by Himself.

His ideas and His sentiments, the truth which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.

Truth should embrace the universe. Such is Christianity, the only religion which destroys sectional prejudices, the only one which proclaims the unity and the absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the only one which is purely spiritual; in fine, the only one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true country, the bosom of the Creator, God."



Napoleon concluded:

"Christ proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of time. All His doctrines signify one only and the same thing - eternity. What a proof of the divinity of Christ!

With an empire so absolute, he has but one single end - the spiritual melioration of individuals, the purity of the conscience, the union to that which is true, the holiness of the soul...

Not only is our mind absorbed, it is controlled; and the soul can never go astray with this book for its guide. Once master of our spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. God even is our friend, our father, and truly our God. The mother has no greater care for the infant whom she nurses..."

Napoleon ended, telling General H.G. Bertrand:

"If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well: then I did wrong to make you a general."

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