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.
(click
here for more on Jefferson in Paris)
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.