Question: Botiller v. Dominguz was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that dealt with a region of the southwestern United States that was the third largest acquisition of territory in US history, with what being the largest? 

Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and an author and lawyer known for his litigation on behalf of the National Rifle Association.  He has written extensively about the original meanings of the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment (the latter as applied to Second Amendment rights).  He has argued and won three cases before the US Supreme Court: "Printz v. United States", "United States v. Thompson-Center Arms Company", and "Castillo v. United States".  He has also written briefs in many other cases, including the Supreme Court cases "Small v. United States" (pertaining to the Gun Control Act of 1968) and "McDonald v. Chicago".  In "District of Columbia v. Heller", he wrote a brief on behalf of the majority of both houses of Congress.  More broadly, his decades of research on the Second Amendment contributed to the intellectual foundation of the "Heller" decision.  He has written many books and articles on the topic of gun control, some of which have been cited in Supreme Court opinions ("Heller", "McDonald", "Printz v. United States").  He has testified before congress on multiple occasions.  Halbrook’s most important scholarly contribution, however, was the book "That Every Man Be Armed", originally published in 1986.  The book was the most thorough analysis of the legal history and original intent of the Second Amendment. <SEP> The Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands is the highest court in the territory of the United States Virgin Islands.  The Supreme Court assumed jurisdiction over all appeals from the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, a trial level court, on January 29, 2007.  There are three Supreme Court justices who are each appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Legislature for a ten-year term.  Appointments are for life.  The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two Associate Justices.  There is no intermediate court of appeals, and the Supreme Court does not have discretion in hearing appeals.  Appeals of Supreme Court decisions were heard by writ of certiorari by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit until December 29, 2012, but since then they have been heard by the United States Supreme Court. <SEP> Botiller v. Dominguez, 130 U.S. 238 (1889), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court dealing with the validity of Spanish or Mexican land grants in the Mexican Cession, the region of the present day southwestern United States that was ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. <SEP>  It had not been part of the areas east of the Rio Grande which had been claimed by the Republic of Texas, though the Texas annexation resolution two years earlier had not specified the southern and western boundary of Texas.  The Mexican Cession (529,000 sq. miles) was the third largest acquisition of territory in US history. The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical name in the United States for the region of the modern day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.  The largest was the Louisiana Purchase, with some 827,000 sq. miles, followed by the acquisition of Alaska (about 586,000 sq. miles).