Today, April 30, 2009, marks the 206th anniversary of the signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, which is called by some as “the letter that bought a continent.”

The signing of this treaty by Robert Livingston, James Monroe and Barbe Marbois in Paris, acquired for the United States 828,000 square miles of French territory, for which America paid 60 million francs, or $11,250,000, plus the cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs, or $3,750,000, totaling $15,000,000 for the Louisiana territory.

Territories encompassed through this purchase were portions of 14 current states and two Canadian provinces, to include Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado east of the Continental Divide, Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, totaling 23 percent of the territory of the current United States today.

At the time, the purchase was a vital moment in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, although he felt uneasy about France and Spain having the power to block American trade access to the port of New Orleans.

Federalists strongly opposing the purchase believed that it would be an unconstitutional move that would inflame divisions over slavery between the north and the south and would cause a clash between western farmers and merchants of New England. These debates eventually resulted in a duel between Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, during which Hamilton lost his life.

Despite the opposition president Jefferson received from many lawmakers and citizens, the Louisiana Purchase is now considered the greatest real estate deal in history.