The Official Letter of State From Pres. Jefferson to Napoleon, Recalling Robert Livingston, US Ambassador to France, After He Successfully Concluded the Louisiana Purchase

A letter of extraordinary importance, and one of just two letters of Jefferson to Napoleon to reach the market in over three decades.

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The Louisiana Purchase was one of the crucial events in American history, and in terms of the geography and geopolitics the most definitive. The story of its negotiation is both fascinating and surprising.

By 1801, the Napoleonic wars involving a large part of Europe had been going on for close to a...

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The Official Letter of State From Pres. Jefferson to Napoleon, Recalling Robert Livingston, US Ambassador to France, After He Successfully Concluded the Louisiana Purchase

A letter of extraordinary importance, and one of just two letters of Jefferson to Napoleon to reach the market in over three decades.

The Louisiana Purchase was one of the crucial events in American history, and in terms of the geography and geopolitics the most definitive. The story of its negotiation is both fascinating and surprising.

By 1801, the Napoleonic wars involving a large part of Europe had been going on for close to a decade, with the United States striving to keep out of the huge conflict. France was then led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and he was already amidst the string of military and diplomatic successes that would make him the most powerful man of his age, an age that in fact took his name. In February and March of that year, by the Treaty of Luneville and the Convention of Aranjuez, France regained control from Spain of the vast Louisiana territory, with its key port of New Orleans and corresponding control of the Mississippi River. With an expansionist France in possession, President Jefferson worried that the U.S. would almost inevitably get sucked into the European war, and he had visions of the British fleet making for America to challenge France on our side of the Atlantic. This situation could, in Jefferson’s words, “marry the United States to the British fleet” and throttle American dreams of a transcontinental republic.

When word of the transfer of Louisiana was confirmed later in 1801, President Jefferson appointed Robert R. Livingston minister to France, and he dispatched him to Paris early in 1802 with instructions to try to purchase New Orleans. Meanwhile, a serious uprising in France’s most important colony in the Caribbean – Haiti – was taking place, as Toussaint Louverture captured Santo Domingo from the French and took control of the entire island of Hispaniola. His difficulties there caused Napoleon to consider that an adventure in the Americas was no longer desirable. His main concern then must have been not French proliferation through North America, but how to keep the British from filling the vaccuum themselves.

When he got to Paris, Livingston told French officials that he was authorized to offer $10 million for the city of New Orleans. Momentously, and with no instructions, he also suggested that the United States might be interested in acquiring lands west of the Mississippi. In 1803 James Monroe arrived to assist with the negotiations. On April 11, 1803, combining his disinclination to make a foray into America, his desire to keep the British out, and Livingston’s remark that the U.S. might be willing to take more than just New Orleans, Napoleon offered to sell the United States not only the port of New Orleans, but the entire Louisiana Territory. On April 30, Livingston and Monroe concluded negotiations to purchase all of Louisiana for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States for a cost of about 3 cents an acre. The American negotiators signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty on May 2, 1803, even though doing so far exceeded their authority. It may have been the greatest diplomatic triumph in U.S. history. Interestingly, perhaps unsure whether the mission would be successful, or perhaps to create a potential pressure point on the French, on April 18, 1803, even as the Purchase was being made, Jefferson drafted a letter to Napoleon recalling Livingston. That letter was, of course, never implemented, and Livingston stayed on.

In 1804, however, Livingston’s job was done. President Jefferson again wrote Napoleon recalling him.  This is that very letter. Letter Signed as President, Washington, June 29, 1804, to Napoleon as First Consul of the French Republic and President of the Italian Republic, officially informing him of the departure of Livingston as American ambassador. “Citizen First Consul and President, Robert R. Livingston, who for several years has resided with you as the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, having desired to return to America, we have yielded to his request. He will accordingly take his leave of you, embracing that occasion to assure you of our friendship and sincere desire to preserve and strengthen the harmony and good understanding so happily subsisting between the two Nations, and which will be further manifested by his Successor. We are persuaded, that he will do this in the manner most expressive of these sentiments, and of the respect and sincerity with which they are offered. We pray God to keep you, Citizen First Consul and President under his holy protection.” The letter is countersigned by James Madison as Secretary of State. In all likelihood, Jefferson and Madison dispatched three or four copies of this official letter, to be sure that at least one would arrive. In the days of sailing ships plying the Atlantic, and many ships lost at sea, this was a routine precaution. We have found one other copy of this exists and is in an institution, but we are unaware of any others that may have been written or survive. Certainly we have have never seen another reach the market. In fact, just one other letter from Jefferson to Napoleon has reached the auction marketplace in over three decades.

Of his great exploit that doubled the size of the country, Livingston remarked, “We have lived long but this is the noblest work of our whole lives…The United States take rank this day among the first powers of the world.”

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