Mississippi, "with a circumjacent territory," through which we could command the interior and thus keep the whole region out of the grasp of England. Toward England, on the other hand, he had our agent instructed as to consequences of that nation's acquiring Louisiana and Florida, "and required him to intimate to the English government that 'a due balance on our borders is not less desirable to us than a balance of power in Europe has always appeared to them.' ' Neutrality was offered to England conditioned on her relinquishment of her encroachments on our northwest border and her attempting no conquests adjoining us on the west and south. "Thus," says Professor Frederick J. Turner in an article, "The Diplomatic Contest for the Mississippi Valley," in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1904, "we see Jefferson's Louisiana system fully unfolded as early as 1790 .... there is at the same time a firm grasp of the importance of the Mississippi and' the Gulf to the future of the United States, and a far-sighted vision of our need of a doctrine of balance of power in the New World,—a germ of the Monroe Doctrine."
As the "Kentucky Resolutions" and many expressions in his earlier writings indicate, Jefferson did not for a time fully appreciate the principle of federation and union. With his heart set on policies of peace and local autonomy—and the revolution to be made by the application of the power of steam to transportation not yet above the horizon—he had no use, except for defense against foreign aggression, for a strong central government. His vision of the future of the American continent at first always included several peoples, yet termed "one family" because having in common, as opposed to the European systems, American institutions of liberty, equality, and enlightenment. But by 1815 he could write to La Fayette, "The cement of this union is in the heart-blood of every American."
