1784 - Jefferson In Paris

          Before leaving for France, Thomas Jefferson returned to Congress (which had just accepted the Virginia cession in the Ohio valley) to develop a public land policy for the new nation.  The new policy included a formal recognition that the lands beyond the Appalachian's were to be secured by peaceful purchase from the Indians.

Jefferson In Paris

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         As chairman of the committee responsible for coming up with a way to govern territories before they became states, Jefferson submitted a report to Congress that "Resolved that the territory ceded or to be ceded by Individual States to the United States whensoever the same shall have been purchased of the Indian Inhabitants and offered for sale by the U.S. shall be formed into distinct states."  This peaceful vision of expansion was eventually embodied in the Land Ordinance of 1785, providing for the survey and sale of "the territory ceded by the Individual States to the United States, which has been purchased of the Indian inhabitants." This was rewritten several years later and adopted by Congress.

 

 

                                                       A portrait of Jefferson during the years in Paris.