Morning journal and courier., 1890-08-16
FIFTEEN STATES.

And 1t Cost only Sixteen Million Dol-
 lars to Buy the Land for Them
 Judge l.. E. Munson,s Paper in the
 New Highlander.
 The recent admission to the Union of six states in the far west emphasizes the fact of the immense area of our country; and when it is remembered that the great region out of which these and so many other states have been carved was bought from France at one stroke for $16, ,0OO, ,00O, the magnitude of the transaction and the comparatively trifing cost of this terri tory are equally striking. Less than two cents for each 100 acres of the land con- veyed," is the statement of Judge L. E. Munson of New Haven in leading his torical article on "The Louisiana Pur- chase," in the New Englander for August. Truly may we say that Louisiana cost us next to nothing. The exceedingly interesting fact is made prom inent in the article to which we have re- ferred, that France had only 8 nominal possession of Louisiana at the time Napoleon sold it under a treaty to this country. Spain had just previously ceded pdCh GllS uCII1bOIy GO Y IdllCc Dy ScCIcU treaty of October 1, 1900, but the Spanish
 flag still foated in New Orleans and gener- ally throughout the settlements of Louisi- ana, and commercial rights were denied the United States in New Orleans by Span ish authorities for two years after this secret treaty President Jefferson had, however, learned of the treaty, and it was for the purpose of securing commercial privileges, not for the purpose of negotiat- ing for the purchase of Louisiana, that James Munroe was appointed special min ister to France. Everything favored the United States at this time, it will be re- membered France needed money, not only, but England had twenty war ships in the Gulf of Mexico waiting for the sig
 nal to move up the Mississippi and seize Louisiana Napoleon was not in position to defend his American possession, and seeing that he was bound to lose them if he did not sell them, really played a bril- liant part in turning them over to the United States for an amount large in those days and which enabled him to prepare more suitably for the final struggle with England, It is of interest to note that Spain actually gave over the province of Louisiana to France only twenty days be- for France formally relinquished the prov ince to the United States.
 lU IS u llGtl0 CO cAdCUly pf6SCTlD6 the limits of the territory included in this purchase, because there was not a single boundary line given or referred to in the treaty. Louisiana, as it came to the United States, was larger than the thirteen origi- nal states. It embraced territorial area, as Judge Munson points out, 150 times larger than Massachusetts and twenty-six times as large as New York. In the eighty seven years since this grand acquisition
 there have been admitted to the Union from Louisiana twelve great states east ot the Rocky mountains, each nearly twice as large as the Empire state,. and the three states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho west of the Rockies Estimating our population at 65,OO0, ,0OO, there would be less than fifty to the square mile if all were located in the Louisiana purchase, while by the census of 1880 Massachusetts, has 228 to the square mile and New York 106. It is not to be wondered at that lief ferson's purchase impressed itself very favorably upon his own generation after a very short period of criticism at the extra constitutional nature of the treaty. In our day the purchase of Louisiana appears to be the most important territorial acquisi- ton of the kind ever made. Several more states are still to be created out of this territory, and the rapid development of the states already in existence have made of Louisiana as it was in Napoleon's day, populous and prosperous region, whose like Jefferson himself doubtless never dreamed of