Which 1803 purchase nearly doubled U.S. territory, a major expansion remembered during America250?

The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled U.S. territory, a major expansion remembered during America250.

The United States acquired Louisiana from France in 1803 for $15 million. The treaty covered about 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River, extending from the Mississippi basin toward the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico northward.

President Thomas Jefferson authorized the negotiations, while Robert Livingston and James Monroe represented the United States in Paris. France’s decision to sell was influenced by the failure of its Caribbean ambitions and the renewed war with Britain.

The purchase raised constitutional questions because the Constitution did not explicitly describe presidential authority to acquire foreign territory. It also intensified debates over Indigenous sovereignty and slavery’s expansion. The territory was later divided into numerous states and territories, making the purchase one of the largest single expansions in U.S. history.