American dream

             For all citizens in America to be equal and share the same opportunity was not the only dream of Thomas Jefferson. Like me, he had several dreams that he wished to accomplish. One of these dreams that Thomas Jefferson had began in his youth, when his father, Peter Jefferson, was involved in a company promoting westward settlement to Kentucky and Tennessee. As Thomas Jefferson matured and achieved success in several fields, he never lost sight of his father's plan. He tried several times to encourage and promote the exploration of the American continent. Jefferson's interest in the West stemmed from his lifelong scientific curiosity, and was sustained by his hopes for the future of the United States. In 1783, he asked the war hero George Rogers Clark to consider leading a privately sponsored expedition to explore the area, but Clark declined. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected President of the United States, and upon taking office decided to act upon his old dream of a trans-continental expedition. In 1802, President Jefferson began to organize an official, government-sponsored expedition, which would travel up the Missouri River and overland to the Pacific Ocean. He chose Meriwether Lewis, his personal secretary, to lead it. Some of the aspects that one can admire about Thomas Jefferson is that he never let himself have the option of failure. He made a dream at a young age and stuck with it and fulfilled it in his later years. He was constantly determined, and when a task was unable to become accomplished, he took the matter into his own hands. He did this by becoming elected as the President and then ordered an expedition to be led by Lewis and explore the vast boundaries of American that yet were not discovered. Thomas Jefferson, envisioned a nation wherein a man of ordinary circumstances could rise to great political power on the basis of talent, without regard to parentage or landholdings.