jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Expands U.S. Territory Even in 1776 it was evident that Thomas Jefferson heard the beat of a different drummer. Indeed, if there was any one person immune to the general lust for land beyond the Appalachian Mountains, it was Jefferson, the Virginian plantation farmer, who, in his wording of the Declaration of Independence, changed the fundamental assertion of rights, mentioned in the Virginia Constitution, from “life, liberty and property” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” One of the greatest paradoxes in Jefferson’s paradoxical character was his attitude about land acquisition. He acquired more western land on behalf of the United States than any speculator could have dreamed of possessing, laid the foundation for the nation’s further territorial expansion to the Pacific by sending Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to find a route to the western coast in 1803, believed passionately in the virtues of owning land, and adored his own property at Monticello. Nevertheless, he was tepid in acquiring land for himself. After his retirement from the presidency, he wrote that, “Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight.” Jefferson questioned the basis of the royal claim of feudal power over the land beyond the mountains. His conclusion was what his fellow statesmen also believed—that George III had no right to restrict the desire to acquire property.