“Every eye in the U.S. is now fixed on this affair of Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the revolutionary war has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation.”
- President Thomas Jefferson
"I can give you no directions. You have made a noble bargain for yourselves and I suppose you will make the most of it."
- French Foreign Minister Talleyrand
to U. S. Foreign Ministers Livingston and Monroe after the Louisiana Purchase Treaty had been signed
“We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives. . . From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank. . ."
- Robert Livingston,
U. S. Minister to France
". . . the object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river, may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce . . ."
- President Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson sent an additional diplomat to help Robert Livingston: James Monroe. Jefferson wrote a letter to Monroe which said:
"All eyes, all hopes, are now fixed on you. . . . For on the event of this mission depend the future destinies of this republic."
"Let the land rejoice, for you have bought Louisiana for a song."
- General Horatio Gates
to President Thomas Jefferson, July 18, 1803