In the late 1700's, world events set the stage for one of the most intriguing swindles in the annals of history. The fledgling United States, fresh from the War of Colonial Aggression against Great Britain, was running out of room for expansion in its original 13 colonies on the eastern seaboard of America, and even in the nearer Northwest Territories, which had been ceded by the British Crown. Still, the colonial cowards were not strong enough to face their former masters in a second war over Canada, nor could they challenge the empire of Spain for the land called Texas to the southwest. This left the United States with a large problem: how to obtain much needed land without fighting for it?
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| - In the late 1700's, world events set the stage for one of the most intriguing swindles in the annals of history. The fledgling United States, fresh from the War of Colonial Aggression against Great Britain, was running out of room for expansion in its original 13 colonies on the eastern seaboard of America, and even in the nearer Northwest Territories, which had been ceded by the British Crown. Still, the colonial cowards were not strong enough to face their former masters in a second war over Canada, nor could they challenge the empire of Spain for the land called Texas to the southwest. This left the United States with a large problem: how to obtain much needed land without fighting for it?
- The Louisiana Purchase was Thomas Jefferson's purchase of all of France's land west of the Mississippi River from Napoleon Bonaparte. Jefferson wrestled with the idea because he was a strict constructionalist and the Constitution of the United States did not say that the US could purchase land, but eventually changed his mind and became a loose constructionist. The price was a few bottles of old wine and a bit of the famous American headdesk (in addition to a few of Jefferson's world-renowned water polo players).
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| - The Louisiana Purchase was Thomas Jefferson's purchase of all of France's land west of the Mississippi River from Napoleon Bonaparte. Jefferson wrestled with the idea because he was a strict constructionalist and the Constitution of the United States did not say that the US could purchase land, but eventually changed his mind and became a loose constructionist. The price was a few bottles of old wine and a bit of the famous American headdesk (in addition to a few of Jefferson's world-renowned water polo players). The Louisiana Purchase illustrates that political ideology can sometimes be wrong.
- In the late 1700's, world events set the stage for one of the most intriguing swindles in the annals of history. The fledgling United States, fresh from the War of Colonial Aggression against Great Britain, was running out of room for expansion in its original 13 colonies on the eastern seaboard of America, and even in the nearer Northwest Territories, which had been ceded by the British Crown. Still, the colonial cowards were not strong enough to face their former masters in a second war over Canada, nor could they challenge the empire of Spain for the land called Texas to the southwest. This left the United States with a large problem: how to obtain much needed land without fighting for it? Enter France. By the early 1800's, the new leader of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, was embroiled in a war against Prussia, Russia, and England, and desperately needed money to fund his conquest of Europe. At the same time, he knew France owned some land called "Louisiana" and "Québec" down somewhere in the southern and middle portions of the continent of North America. He wasn't using the land and assessed it as worthless. So he decided to sell it to the gullible Americans for millions of dollars.
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