Thomas Jefferson – Sharing History

On May 14, 1804, The Corps of Discovery set off up the Missouri River from St. Louis. The objective of this expeditionary group was to explore the U.S.’s newly acquired land, observe the Native American villages on that land, and potentially find new customers for the country’s fur trade. This expedition, led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark, is one of the most famous in U.S. history.

In truth, Lewis and Clark’s famous expedition began about one year before they actually set sail up the Missouri River. On May 2, 1803, the United States signed a treaty with France to purchase the Louisiana Territory This was a vast tract of land that included present-day Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and, most importantly to Thomas Jefferson, the port of New Orleans. The U.S. agreed to purchase this land from the French government for approximately $15 million. That would equate to about $352 million today.

Wanting to explore the country’s new expansion, President Thomas Jefferson secured funding from Congress for an expedition. He asked his secretary, Meriwether Lewis to head up the group. Lewis asked his friend William Clark to share the command with him. On May 14, 1804, Lewis and Clark along with about 40 other men making up the Corps of Discovery began sailing up the Missouri River. By August, they’ve made it to Iowa, where they hold a council with the Oto and Missouri tribes. They called this area Council Bluffs. By late October, the Corps reached present-day Bismarck, North Dakota, where they find the villages of Mandan and Hidatsa. It is there they cross paths with a Canadian fur trader named Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife, a young Shoshone girl named Sacagawea. Lewis and Clark know that they will need the Shoshone to help them with their passage through the Rocky Mountains, so they hire a pregnant Sacagawea and her husband to help with the translation. In addition to her political help with the tribes, Sacagawea teaches the group much about surviving in the western wilderness. It is almost a year before they complete the passage over the Rockies.

Map of the travels of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

In November 1805, the expedition finally reaches their goal: the Pacific Ocean. They end up in present-day Washington after sailing along the Columbia River, never finding the mythical Northwestern Passage that many believed would take the travelers over water directly to the Pacific. Once the Corps reached their destination, they turned and began the long trek back to St. Louis. It is September 1806 by the time the group returns to where they started. Two and a half long years later, people thought the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition were dead. However, they did return and brought with them artifacts, animals, and journals that would inspire American interest for centuries.

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On September 25, 1789, the original draft of the Bill of Rights was proposed and accepted by Congress. The first draft, written by James Madison, contained 12 amendments, though only 10 were ratified by the states in the end. Do you know what the two unratified amendments were?

Bill of Rights, 1791 post treatment 00306_2003_001

The original first amendment stipulated that a congressional district cannot have more than 50,000 residents. While this amendment was passed by the First Congress, it was not ratified by the states nor was it passed in the centuries since. If the amendment was passed today, the House of Representatives would have to have over 6,000 members (1).

The original second amendment outlined when Congress could change their pay. The amendment would require any pay change to happen after the election, essentially allowing citizens to approve or disapprove of any pay changes during the election. While this amendment was not originally ratified by the states, it finally became the 27^th Amendment in 1992.

The ability to make changes to the Constitution was important to founding father Thomas Jefferson. In a letter he wrote to James Madison on September 6, 1789 (who was at the time, in the process of penning the Bill of Rights), Jefferson said, “The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water . . . it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct . . . every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right (4). While Jefferson’s suggestion was not incorporated, the founding fathers did allow Congress to add amendments to the Constitution beginning with the original 10.

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Tag: Thomas Jefferson

The Corps of Discovery

The Bill of Rights: Two Amendments That Didn’t Make the Cut