Excerpt from Louisiana Purchase: As It Was, and as It Is Little did either France or the United States dream, on that eventful last day of April, 1803, of all that lay in the sale by the one, and the purchase by the other, of the vast and unknown territory called Louisiana. But at the distance of a century one is able to gauge somewhat the event that at one bold business stroke doubled the area of the young republic; and made possi ble the founding of a dozen great and masterful states. Next to the winning of our national independence, the purchase of Louisiana had perhaps the largest influence in the development of our country. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.