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Province of Louisiana with the same extent that it now has in the hand of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it.” Compared to today’s government documents, the treaty, running less than 1,500 words, was extraordinarily brief and clear. On the other hand, it lacked certain details—such as the precise boundaries of the land it conveyed. This was because Jefferson knew that Spain (and England) disagreed with France as to the extent of the province of Louisiana. But Jefferson also knew that Napoleon’s offer wouldn’t last long, so he accepted it without quibbling over that detail.

Though the Louisiana Purchase is Jefferson’s most famous geographic contribution to the United States, back in his days as Virginia’s representative to the Continental Congress, he made other important contributions that, by contrast, provided highly specific details of his vision for the future of the United States. Today, however, only the ghosts of that vision inhabit the lines on the American map. Their geodetic life ended when Congress began tinkering with Jefferson’s vision.

While in the Continental Congress, Jefferson chaired a committee that had been created to prepare a plan for the temporary government of the western territory of the United States. At the time, the nation’s western territory consisted of the land acquired in 1763 by England and the American colonists in the French and Indian War (the Northwest Territory) and all the other land west of the Appalachian Mountains. Prior to the Revolution, this second area of land had belonged to a number of the colonies. After the onset of the Revolution, these colonies—now states—eventually, if not happily, ceded their western regions to the federal government to create additional, more equally sized states.

United States, 1784

Jefferson’s 1784 proposal for new states

Jefferson’s committee reported back to Congress in March 1784. It proposed boundaries for the future states to be created in the western lands, the process by which they would become states, how these areas would be governed prior to becoming states, and even names for most of the proposed states. While the report was issued by a committee, considerable evidence suggests that the states it proposed reflected the vision of Jefferson.3

The boundaries of these states and even their names tell us a good deal about this particular Founding Father. The names he assigned included Sylvania, Michigania, Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia—all neoclassical constructions hearkening back to the ancient democracies of Greece and Rome. The two remaining names, Saratoga and Washington, memorialized the American Revolution. In addition, while the monarchs of England often named American colonies after individuals, Jefferson named only one of his proposed states after an individual—an ethos that continued long after Jefferson. In the years ahead, Congress would reject Tennessee’s originally proposed name (Franklin) and Colorado’s first proposed name (Jefferson). Most senators and representatives viewed only one American as worthy of having a state named after him, that person being George Washington. Other than Washington, however, none of Jefferson’s proposed names was ever used, although Illinoia and Michigania, once declassicized, did become state names.

Similarly, Jefferson’s proposed boundaries were also scrapped between then and now. But the principle underlying his boundaries is all over the map. Jefferson’s underlying tenet was that all states should be created equal, or—characteristically applying pragmatism to his ideals—as equal as possible. Jefferson’s report stated:

The territory ceded or to be ceded by individual states to the United States … shall be formed into distinct states bounded in the following manner, as nearly as such cessions will admit, that is to say: northwardly & southwardly by parallels of latitude so that each state shall comprehend from south to north two degrees of latitude.

Still, as can be seen from the map of his proposed states, Jefferson did