Document A: Thomas Jefferson's letter to Robert
Livingston (early 1802).
There is on the globe one single spot the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market ... France placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain right have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place~ would be hardly be felt by us . . . Not so can it ever be in the hands. Is of France
... Circumstances render it impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends when they meet in so irratible a position...
We must . . . make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for the tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of
America in sequestration for the common purposes of the united British and American
Nations . . . I should suppose that all these considerations might, in some paper form, be brought into view of the government of France. Though stated by us it ought not to give us offense, because we do not bring them forward as a menace but as consequences not controllable by us, but inevitable~able from the course of things . . . If France considers Louisiana~, however, as indispensable for her views, she might perhaps be willing to look about for arrangements which might reconcile it to our interests. If anything could do this, it would be the ceding to us the island of New Orleans and the Florida . . . Every eye in the United
States is now fixed on the affairs on Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the Revolutionary War has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation
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2. What important facts can I learn from this document?
3. What is the main idea of this document?
There is on the globe one single spot the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market ... France placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain right have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place~ would be hardly be felt by us . . . Not so can it ever be in the hands. Is of France
... Circumstances render it impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends when they meet in so irratible a position...
We must . . . make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for the tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of
America in sequestration for the common purposes of the united British and American
Nations . . . I should suppose that all these considerations might, in some paper form, be brought into view of the government of France. Though stated by us it ought not to give us offense, because we do not bring them forward as a menace but as consequences not controllable by us, but inevitable~able from the course of things . . . If France considers Louisiana~, however, as indispensable for her views, she might perhaps be willing to look about for arrangements which might reconcile it to our interests. If anything could do this, it would be the ceding to us the island of New Orleans and the Florida . . . Every eye in the United
States is now fixed on the affairs on Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the Revolutionary War has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Explain if this document is a Primary or Secondary Source?
2. What important facts can I learn from this document?
3. What is the main idea of this document?