The Pope's decision to close down the Jesuit order in 1773 could result in a complete breakdown of education in the Commonwealth, as the Jesuits control education in Poland and Lithuania almost entirely.

The Jesuit schools are fairly efficient and provide the Polish youth with a good education, but they are also very conservative.

The Sejm and King Stanisław August Poniatowski respond by creating the Commission of National Education (Polish: Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, abbreviated KEN) on October 14, 1773 as the central educational authority in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Because of its vast authority and autonomy, it is considered the first ministry of education in history and an important achievement of the Polish Enlightenment.

A Catholic priest, Hugo Kołłątaj, is its main organizer and chief figure.

The body is formed initially of four senators and four members of the Sejm, half of them representing the eastern voivodeships of the Commonwealth (from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).

The first head of the KEN is Prince Bishop Michał Jerzy Poniatowski.

The other members are mostly magnate politicians, but prominent writers and scientists of the epoch are the factual creators of the body: Franciszek Bieliński, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Feliks Oraczewski, Andrzej Gawroński, Dawid Pilchowski, Hieronim Stroynowski and Grzegorz Piramowicz.

They are joined by Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, the secretary of the King of Poland (and father of the founder of the DuPont company).

The KEN initially faces strong opposition inside of the Sejm, but the support of both the king and the Familia party gives it almost complete independence.

The KEN is granted all the former property of the Jesuit order, including the schools, palaces and church-owned villages, investing the Commission with not only the necessary infrastructure, but also its own profitable farms.

France withdraws its seven thousand surviving troops from Saint-Domingue , where more than two-thirds of its troops have died, in November 1803, and gives up its ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.

President Thomas Jefferson, who thinks of himself as a man of the frontier, is keenly interested in expanding and exploring the West.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a French nobleman, had begun to help negotiate with France  at the request of Jefferson.

Du Pont is living in the United States at this time and has close ties to Jefferson as well as the prominent politicians in France.

He engages in back-channel diplomacy with Napoleon on Jefferson's behalf during a visit to France and originates the idea of the much larger Louisiana Purchase as a way to defuse potential conflict between the United States and Napoleon over North America.

Jefferson dislikes the idea of purchasing Louisiana from France, as that could imply that France has a right to be in Louisiana.

Jefferson has concerns that a U.S. president does not have the constitutional authority to make such a deal.

He also thinks that to do so would erode states' rights by increasing federal executive power.

Throughout this time, Jefferson has had up-to-date intelligence on Napoleon's military activities and intentions in North America.

Part of his evolving strategy involves giving du Pont some information that has been withheld from Livingston.

Desperate to avoid possible war with France, Jefferson sends James Monroe to Paris in January 1803 to negotiate a settlement, with instructions to go to London to negotiate an alliance if the talks in Paris fail.

Spain had procrastinated until late 1802 in executing the treaty to transfer Louisiana to France, which has allowed American hostility to build.

Also, Spain's refusal to cede Florida to France meant that Louisiana would be indefensible.

Monroe had been formally expelled from France on his last diplomatic mission, and the choice to send him again conveys a sense of seriousness.

Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubles the size of the nation at the cost of fifteen million dollars, or about four cents per acre (two hundred and forty million in 2016 dollars, less than forty-two cents per acre).

Federalists oppose the expansion, but Jeffersonians hail the opportunity to create millions of new farms to expand the domain of land-owning yeomen; the ownership will strengthen the ideal republican society, based on agriculture (not commerce), governed lightly, and promoting self-reliance and virtue, as well as form the political base for Jeffersonian Democracy.

Effected on April 30, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people on July 4; the Senate ratifies the Purchase Treaty on October 20.