The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana PurchaseTreaty by a vote of 24-7 on this day in 1803. The vastregion encompassed more than 800,000 square miles of territory and comprisedpresent-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River,North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, nearly all of Kansas, theportions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains, andLouisiana west of the Mississippi River as well as the city of New Orleans. At the time ofpurchase, Thomas Jefferson was concerned about the constitutionality of makinga land acquisition without adding a covering amendment to the U.S.Constitution. The law of the land, however, did give the presidenttreaty-making power, and the Louisiana Purchase was ratified into law as atreaty by the U.S. Senate. The Louisiana Purchase stands as the largest area ofterritory ever added to the U.S. at one time.
