TREATY WITH FRANCE
(1803)
(By a treaty concluded in 1795, Spain had agreed to allow to the United States the use of New Orleans or an equivalent port on the Mississippi; but in 1802 she violated this agreement by closing the Mississippi, and ceding all Louisiana to France. The United States, realizing the danger of having such a power as France holding the natural outlet for a large proportion of the produce of the country, appropriated $2,000,000 to purchase New Orleans. Livingston and Monroe concluded with Napoleon the purchase of the whole Louisiana territory for $15,000,000; their action was ratified; and the United States took possession on Dec. 20, 1805.)
TREATY WITH FRANCE FOR THE CESSION OF LOUISIANA, CONCLUDED AT PARIS, APRIL 30, 1803; RATIFICATION ADVISED BY SENATE, OCTOBER 20, 1803; RATIFIED BY PRESIDENT OCTOBER 21, 1803; RATIFICATIONS EXCHANGED AT WASHINGTON OCTOBER 21, 1803; PROCLAIMED OCTOBER 21, 1803.
THE President of the United States of America, and the First Consul of the French Republic, in the name of the French people, desiring to remove all source of misunderstanding relative to objects of discussion mentioned in the second and fifth articles of the convention of the 8th Vendémiaire, an 9 (30th September, 1800) relative to the rights claimed by the United States, in virtue of the treaty concluded at Madrid, the 27th of October, 1795, between His Catholic Majesty and the said United States, and willing to strengthen the union and friendship which at the time of the said convention was happily re—established between the two nations, have respectively named their Plenipotentiaries, to wit: the President of the United States, (of America,) by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the said States, Robert R. Livingston, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, and James Monroe, Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the said States, near the Government of the French Republic; and the First Consul, in the name of the French people, Citizen Francis Barbe Marbois, Minister of the Public Treasury; who, after having respectively exchanged their full powers, have agreed to the following articles: