The 1803 Louisiana Purchase, though of dubious constitutionality, was perhaps the single most consequential act by any U.S. president, roughly doubling the size of the United States.

25:12slightly nostalgic view of the South. I mean, that's all bound up with Jeffersonianism, I think. >> Yeah. And and this reflects the fact that Jefferson, as well as obtaining power, is very good at using it. Um, so it's Jefferson more than any other president who makes possible the emergence of the United States not just as an Atlantic power but as a continental power. And his most striking

25:32and celebrated achievement and there is a case I think for saying it's perhaps the most consequential act made by any US president is the purchase in 1803 of Louisiana from Napoleon. And kind of typically this is actually illegal under the constitution. you know, it doesn't say anything about the right of the federal government to purchase uh foreign territory, but Jefferson goes ahead and does it anyway because

25:59ultimately, I think when self-interest is up against ideals, Jefferson is a good enough politician to lay down his principles in favor of of the end result that he wants. And and you can absolutely see why he would have um seized every opportunity to obtain Louisiana because it's much much a block of territory. is much larger than the current state. So it's about 16 times. It's basically the

26:24whole of middle America. It's the flyover states. >> I look at a map. I mean, it's not just Louisiana. It's Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, much of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. I mean, it's basically the middle third of the United States. >> Well, it's basically doubling the size of the United States when when that when the Louisiana purchase goes through. >> So, it adds over 800,000 square miles to

26:45the US. So, that is an incredible achievement. But even with the uh Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson's gaze is fixed um even further westwards. And so one year after the Louisiana Purchase, he commisss an expedition to explore not just the this new territory that the United States has obteded, but to go even further west as far as the Pacific. And this is the the the Lewis and Clark expedition named after the two men who

27:11led it. And it's an incred, you know, it's at a kind of key moment in um establishing Americans sense of what the continent is that their their state has been founded on. So in part, it's a scientific expedition. It brings back lots of of new plants and flowers, and Jefferson's a great gardener. He he adds lots of these to his flower beds. Also brings back some fossils, which I I