The Federalists—who had predicted terrible things for the country from the new president they thought they detested—were surprised. They had forgotten that Thomas Jefferson was a gracious country gentleman with fine taste and a belief in people's natural goodness . The nation didn't fall apart under a Democratic-Republican administration. But it did change. In 1803, Jefferson bought a huge piece of land; some people thought it extravagant or worthless. It was all the land that France had claimed in North America, and was called Louisiana after a French king—Louis . The Louisiana Purchase cost $15 million, or about four cents an acre, and it doubled the nation's size. Jefferson said it was a vast new "empire for liberty." He wrote, "In seizing [Louisiana I] ... have done an act beyond the Constitution." And in another letter he explained, "But it is incumbent on those ... who accept great charges, to risk themselves on great occasions."

The new land stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and maybe beyond. No one was sure how far it went. So someone had to find out what had been bought. How big was the territory, what was it like, and where did it end? The West was as unknown to white men in 1803 as most of outer space is today. Jefferson sent an expedition to investigate. To head the expedition he commissioned his shy personal secretary Meriwether Lewis, a dreamer and lover of science, along with a good-natured, talkative soldier and mapmaker, William Clark. They were to explore the vast reaches of the American West. Jefferson wrote: "the object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River and the water offering the best communication with the Pacific Ocean.... Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy ."

In 1804 Lewis and Clark went up the Missouri River in a fifty-five foot flatboat and two canoes. The boat held twenty-one bales of gifts for the Indians—beads, ribbons, mirrors, cooking pots, and tools. They moved slowly—mapping, exploring and hunting as they went. It was dangerous country, with unexpectedly high mountains, difficult deserts, fierce animals, and suspicious Indians. Lewis and Clark had prepared for danger, but they weren't prepared for the beauty: for the colors of wildflowers or the brilliance of sunsets on snowy mountain peaks. At the Great Falls of the Missouri, Lewis paused to write. "I saw the spray arise like a column of smoke.... [The] projecting rocks below receive the water in its passage down, and break it into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms."

They were awed by the towering Rocky Mountains, made cautious by the rattlesnakes, bears, and mountain lions, and stunned by the endless herds of buffalo. President Jefferson had asked them to take careful notes . He wrote, "Other objects worthy of notice will be: ... the animals of the country generally, ... volcanic appearances, climate, the winds prevailing at different seasons."

Lewis and Clark saw a world that would soon be gone . They saw birds and animals no white men had seen before. They dug up the bones of a forty-five-foot dinosaur. They added two hundred species to the world's list of known plants. They learned from the Native Americans how to use some of those plants as medicines and foods. They established friendships with Indians and prepared for trade with them.

America was born of an idea and a dream. The dream was of a paradise: a land of great beauty that would be a place of freedom and justice for all. For the first time in the history of the western world, ordinary people's prosperity and happiness had become the stated goal of society and government .

But America was to be both dream and nightmare. The Founders were unable to abolish slavery, and it was the opposite of liberty and equality. How could there be slavery in the land of the free? Ending that paradox would be the most important battle in all of our history.

Those Founders never suggested that good, fair government would be easy to achieve. They had set a splendid goal: liberty and justice for all. They wrote an extraordinary plan of government; a constitution better than any known before. Now the nation as a whole was being tested. Never before had a large, diverse nation tried to offer all its citizens freedom and equality. It wasn't going to be easy—but Americans would keep working toward that goal of justice for all.