The primary goal of President Thomas Jefferson's 1803 decision to purchase the Louisiana Territory was to gain control of the port of New Orleans.
Explanation:
The Louisiana Purchase was a commercial transaction whereby France sold 529,911,680 acres of French possessions in North America to the United States in 1803 at a price of about 3 cents per acre; a total price of 15 million dollars. With interest, Louisiana's territory cost $ 23,213,568.
The vast extent of the treaty covered the territories of the current states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota south of the Mississippi River, much of North Dakota, almost all of South Dakota, the northeast of New Mexico, northern Texas, a section of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado east of the continental divide, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. In addition, the purchase comprised parts of the current provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, in present-day Canada. This territory represents 23% of the current territory of the United States.
The purchase was important for the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, who faced some internal resistance to it. Although there were doubts about the constitutionality of the acquisition of the territory, he decided to buy Louisiana because he did not like the idea that France and Spain had the power to block the access of American merchants to the port of New Orleans. This negotiation opened the access to the Pacific Ocean to the United States and dramatically increased its territory.
