Western Promises.

As Americans turned their thoughts toward restoring a peacetime order after the end of the Revolution, many expressed optimism about their economic future. The most significant resource backing their hopes was land, which Americans had in abundance. Thomas Jefferson captured this feeling when he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) that the "immensity of land" in the West would enrich those who farmed it as well as "preserve a republic in vigour." Some of the most significant political and military events of the era were directed toward securing control over land, and they left the United States in 1815 as one of the largest countries in the world. In 1783 the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolution and gave the United States control over all the land north of Florida, south of the Great Lakes, and east of the Mississippi...