What is Louisiana Purchase?
[[File:U.S. Territorial Acquisitions.png|thumb|right|Territories gained by the U.S. The nation before the Louisiana Purchase is shown in brown. The Louisiana Territory is shown in white with black dots. Dots are shown where another country said they owned part of the land that France sold.]] The '''Louisiana Purchase''' was a land purchase made by [[President of the United States|President]] [[Thomas Jefferson]], (signed on April 30th, 1803). He bought the Louisiana territory from [[France]], which was being led by [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] at the time, for 15,000,000 [[United States dollar|USD]] (about $340,000,000 in 2024 dollars). First, the men sent to France were allowed to spend up to 10 million USD in order to buy [[New Orleans]] and, if possible, the west bank of the [[Mississippi River]]. But then the French government said that for 5 million more dollars they would sell all of the Louisiana territory. Thomas Jefferson approved the deal and used his [[United States Constitution|constitutional]] power to sign treaties to buy the land. The constitution does not say the president has the power to buy land from other countries, but he had the power to make treaties, so that is what he used. [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] sold the land because he needed money for the [[Great French War]]. The British had re-entered the war and France was losing the [[Haitian Revolution]] and could not defend Louisiana. [[Thomas Jefferson]] took the French offer as an opportunity to make America larger, even if it meant going against his [[Democratic-Republican Party|Republican]] principles of small government (some would say he exceeded his constitutional power by accepting the deal on his own). [[File:LouisianaPurchase.png|thumb|left|A map of the Louisiana Purchase compared to state boundaries in 2008. The Louisiana Purchase is shown in green overtop of what states would be formed from it.]] The purchase added 828,394 [[square mile]]s and doubled the size of the [[United States|U.S.]]. This included all of the modern states