Documentary History of the Cession of Louisiana to the United States, Till It Became an American Province (1903)

INTRODUCTION At a time when the political conditions of Europe and America were evanescent, when the heart of the American Continent wax in the germ cell, then fortuitous circumstances came up unexpectedly to decide an issue that involved the destinies of the United States, and the men capable of giving directions to these political issues were brought into the arena to solve them. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declara- tion of the Independence of the United States, and Napoleon Bonaparte, the supreme ruler of France, were the two great actors for their countries respectively. Robert Livingston, who had been one of the committee to formulate the Declaration of American Independence, and James Monroe, destined to a world wide fame as the author of the Monroe doctrine, were the actors under Jefferson on the part of the United States, and Barbe Marbois, a great and farseeing statesman, on the part of France…