He received a lot of criticism over the Louisiana Purchase for several reasons. Jefferson believed that the president only had the power that the constitution gave him. Since the Constitution doesn't give the president the power to buy land, people considered his purchase to be unconstitutional and hypocritical. While this is the primary reason for criticism, there were a couple other minor reasons. Many federalists believed that buying land from France would jeopardize a much wanted alliance with Britain. Also there were already people living in this territory so it was a large debate about whether or not to grant them citizenship.
