8666. UNION (The Federal), Expansion and.—
Our present federal limits are not
too large for good government, nor will the
increase of votes in Congress produce any ill
effect. On the contrary, it will drown the
little divisions at present existing there. Our
confederacy must be viewed as the nest, from
which all America, North and South, is to be
peopled. We should take care, too, not to
think it for the interest of that great Continent
to press too soon on the Spaniards.
Those countries cannot be in better hands. My
fear is, that they are too feeble to hold them
till our population can be sufficiently advanced
to gain it from them, piece by piece.
The navigation of the Mississippi we must
have. This is all we are as yet ready to receive.—
To Archibald Stuart. Washington ed. i, 578.
Ford ed., iv, 188.
(P.
Jan. 1786)
