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May 14, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextRECOGNIZING AND HONORING MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM CLARK, AND THE
CORPS OF DISCOVERY, FOR THEIR EXPEDITION TO EXPLORE THE LOUISIANA
PURCHASE
Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise today because America needs to remember that our Nation was not built by men who asked permission from history. It was built by men who looked into the unknown and saw more than danger. They saw destiny.
Mr. President, 222 years ago today, on May 14, 1804, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the Corps of Discovery departed from the St. Louis area and began one of the most consequential journeys in the history of our Republic.
boldest wager yet. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase. He bought a continent on paper, sight unseen, believing that the future belonged to a people willing to bet on themselves, endure hardship, and build something greater than themselves.
America 250 cannot become a yearlong exercise in nostalgia. It must be a national summons to remember what we inherited, to recover the courage that built it, and to rededicate ourselves to it.
Jefferson understood something too many in this city have forgotten. Nations are not forged by committees of caution. They are forged by men with enough faith to act before every risk has been removed. Jefferson gave that honor to a small band of men who turned their restless, adventurous, and fearless American spirit into something that could be passed down for centuries. These were not soft men. They were not managed men. They were men born close enough to the Revolution to understand that freedom is not a theory. It is something fought for, defended, and carried forward across generations.
spectacle, no crowds, no fanfare, and no guarantees. From the first settlements in Jamestown to the edge of the frontier in Missouri, every generation of Americans has carried a simple promise forward: that this Nation, this Republic, would belong to her people.
Virginia in Jamestown. They were raised in the shadow of the American Revolutionary War. They were descended from those who bled for this budding Nation. Their kith and their kin had already fought to carve a nation out of the wilderness—an empire. They inherited not just land but virtue, discipline, leadership, and a willingness to stake everything on uncertain ground. Every mile they gained was earned— through hunger, through bitter cold.
Lewis and Clark faced rivers that threatened to sweep them away. They encountered Tribes whose intentions they could not know. They came face to face with grizzly bears, unlike anything Americans had seen before, and still they pressed forward—not because the path was easy but because their mission demanded it. That is what courage looks like—not one dramatic act but a habit formed mile by mile, hardship by hardship, by a people proving themselves worthy of the inheritance that they have received.
City and, later, near present-day Kansas City, they passed on the Fourth of July and paused. Hundreds of miles from civilization, surrounded by uncertainty, they celebrated the birth of this great Republic. They fired their rifles into the sky. They shared an extra ration of whiskey. And they toasted a nation that existed in that moment more in their hearts than in the world around them.
Think about that. In the middle of an unknown wilderness, they celebrated freedom. That is America—not comfort first, not fear first. America is men in the wilderness raising a toast to liberty because they knew the Republic was real even when civilization was far away.
And the expedition continued. The challenges only grew. Winter came hard and unforgiving. The mountains rose before them. The land itself seemed to push back against every step westward. Avalanches, freezing winds, starvation, exhaustion—staring fate directly in the eye in the high passes of the Rocky Mountains, the Corps of Discovery learned something that has defined the American story ever since: that progress is not given; it is earned—that destiny is not inherited whole; it must be claimed through sacrifice, endurance, and through faith.
1805, after more than a year of hardship, on the other side of the Continental Divide, William Clark wrote three simple words: “Ocean in view.” In those three words was the answer to every frozen mile, every doubt, every hardship endured along the way. The unknown had given way to proof. The continent was not a barrier. It was, in fact, a bridge.
stretching sea to shining sea. And from that journey flowed the America that we know today: the river cities of the Midwest and, of course, my hometown of St. Louis, that later was christened the “Gateway to the West,” and the beautiful and majestic Gateway Arch that now commemorates that heritage; the industries, the railroads, the settlements, and the towns that would rise across the continent. And the mighty Mississippi became the first economic superhighway.
legislation, but beneath all of that lies a much deeper question: Who are we? Are we still the kind of people who build, who explore, who dare, who believe enough in ourselves to shape the future?
comfortable explaining why greatness isn't possible rather than summoning the courage to pursue it?
would learn to live small. America was founded on a bold declaration and revolutionary ideas, but not just ideas; it is a nation; it is a people; it is an inheritance purchased by the sacrifice of generations who refused to accept the limits placed before them and entrusted to them to carry forward.
our industries to the innovators who reshaped the modern world, this country has always been defined by people who honor the past by building something worthy of it.
They did not worship ashes, but instead, preserved fire. That is the legacy of Lewis and Clark; not merely that they explored a continent, but that they revealed the character of the people capable of building a civilization upon it, a people who moved forward, a people who endure, a people who built.
called upon once again, the spirit of `76, the spirit of discovery, obtaining a continent, the spirit of St. Louis, the American spirit.
Take the inheritance, carry the flag, and build the future. We face different challenges today, sure, but the test is the same. Do we have the courage to still act, the discipline to endure, the confidence to shape our own destiny, or will we allow the flame carried across this continent through hardship and danger to flicker and to fade?
I do not believe the American people have forgotten who they are. I believe that spirit still burns. And like Lewis and Clark before us, it is now our responsibility to carry it forward faithfully, courageously, and without apology, not for ourselves alone but for the generations yet to come so that when they look back on us, they will see a generation that merely didn't just curate the future ruins of a great nation; they will see a generation that remembered who we were, a generation that took up the trail, a generation that carried the flag, a generation that kept the flame alive, and a generation who handed this Republic on stronger, freer, and more faithful to its inheritance than we received.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 729, which was submitted earlier today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagerty). The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 729) recognizing and honoring
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and the Corps of
Discovery, for their expedition to explore the Louisiana
Purchase.
Mr. SCHMITT. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 729) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
(The resolutions, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record under “Submitted Resolutions.”)