Few presidential decisions have had as much impact on history as one Thomas Jefferson made in 1803. In one simple transaction, he doubled the size of the United States. Without that decision, America would likely be a much smaller and much less wealthy nation today.In the deal, Jefferson bought the territory of land known as Louisiana from the French. Louisiana was originally a French colony that the Spanish had occupied for a few decades. The French had regained the territory in a war and had no interest in keeping it. So, they offered it to the United States.Louisiana contained parts of fifteen current US states. It was defined by the territories surrounding the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. This means it included a stretch of land from what is today the state of Louisiana to Minnesota, and from Missouri to Montana. Before the purchase, the United States’ western border was the Mississippi, and the most western state was Tennessee. But some believed America should stretch as far west as the Pacific, as it does today. Buying Louisiana would go a long way toward that goal.The decision Jefferson made obviously benefited the nation. Still, Jefferson really thought about not making the purchase a long time. Finally, he convinced himself that purchasing Louisiana was just too good a deal to pass up. But how did he come to that decision? The Constitution QuestionAt the time of the Louisiana Purchase, America was still a young nation. It had only existed for two decades or so. And just a decade and a half earlier, America had decided to start over as a nation, so to speak. Facing problems, it abandoned one form of government and created something new. This new government was formalized in the Constitution.In the Constitution, three branches of government split power. The President has to share power with Congress and the Supreme Court. Some were still uncertain that this new government could survive, and many did not fully agree on what the Constitution meant.Jefferson thought the Constitution provided the limit of what the government could do. For him, if the Constitution did not say that the president could do something, then it meant the president could not do something.The Constitution did not clearly say Jefferson had the power to buy land for America. Because of this, Jefferson thought that he had no right to make the purchase of Louisiana. But Jefferson eventually decided the deal was too good to pass up. Even though it went against his own beliefs, the Louisiana Purchase was made. Outlining the PurchaseJefferson knew the land was valuable and that it would allow Americans to move further west. He envisioned a nation of small farmers, and the new territory offered enough land to make this a reality. But Jefferson did not know what the land had on it.To find out, he asked Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to make maps of the territory and find a safe route of travel through it. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was also to claim the land for America before other European nations—especially the United Kingdom—could occupy the land. Lewis and Clark were successful in doing so, and in the end, the vast Louisiana was definitely part of the United States. TodayThe Louisiana Purchase was carved into parts of fifteen different states. Without it, the United States would be less than half of what it is today. After all, it would make no sense to acquire the West Coast without also owning the middle of the continent. Jefferson’s decision to buy Louisiana seems to have been an obviously great one. It is incredible to imagine him thinking otherwise while making the decision.Cerami, Charles. Jefferson’s Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men behind the Louisiana Purchase. New York: Sourcebooks, 2004. Book.SubmitChallenge QuestionWhat's thisThe main focus of this passage is toAsuggest that Jefferson was wrong to make the Louisiana Purchase and to describe what he should have done differentlyBdescribe the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and to discuss why Jefferson ordered itCexplain Jefferson’s decision to make the Louisiana Purchase and the effects of the purchaseDargue that France should never have sold Louisiana to the United States and to explain why France did sell it