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The French ratification of the Louisiana treaty and conventions was dated May 22nd and signed by Bonaparte, Talleyrand, Barbé de Marbois, and Hugues Bernard Maret, who, as the secretary of state, was responsible for promulgating laws and decrees. It was delivered to the representatives of the United States, Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, who here sign to acknowledge receipt of the paperwork to be sent to President Thomas Jefferson "without delay."
Remarkably, five days later, Barbé Marbois contacted the U.S. ministers to ask for the return of the treaty so that additional official copies could be made. Included is the LS in French, signed "Barbé Marbois," one page, 7.5 x 9, French Public Treasury letterhead, May 28, 1803, in which he asks Livingston and Monroe to either send him copies of the First Consul's ratifications or else lend their own official copy to his office so that additional record copies could be made from it. He requests further that Peter Augustus Jay, the son of John Jay, who was assigned to carry the treaty back to President Jefferson, delay his voyage by a few days, to give time for Talleyrand to prepare official instructions for Louis A. Pichon, the French minister in Washington, D.C.
Jay's trip was indeed postponed, resulting in additional delays in the crucial ratification process: since war had broken out between Great Britain and France, his ship was repeatedly stopped by British frigates, and Jefferson did not see the treaty and conventions until early July. He and his cabinet mulled the constitutionality of the purchase for months, eventually deciding that it could proceed without an amendment. Because the treaty stipulated that the American ratification must be concluded by October 30th, Jefferson hurriedly convened a special session of Congress on October 17th. The United States Senate consented to ratification of the treaty with a vote of 24 to 7 on October 20th. On the following day, October 21, 1803, the Senate authorized Jefferson to take possession of the territory and establish a temporary military government.
In overall very good to fine condition, with repaired loss to the right edge of the earlier document, truncating the final letter of Monroe's signature. Housed together in a handsome custom-made quarter-leather slipcase with gilt-stamped spine.
The Louisiana Purchase stands as one of the most transformative diplomatic acts in American history, instantly doubling the size of the young republic and securing U.S. control of the Mississippi River and the vital port of New Orleans. Negotiated at a moment of shifting global power—amid Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, renewed war with Great Britain, and the collapse of French plans in the Caribbean—the agreement reshaped the geopolitical balance of North America and set the United States on a path toward continental expansion and emergence as a major world power.
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