one hand Congress, on the other hand the seven states -New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia-which laid claim to this western country. The other six states asserted either that Congress already had rightful authority or that Congress should be given it for the public good. The long debates over this subject in Congress and the state legislatures were important, because much more was involved than the mere question of ownership; the whole great problem of territorial expansion, of the management and organization of new communities beyond the limits of the old commonwealths, was finding solution. Fearing the strength and influence of the states which claimed the vast territory beyond the mountains, Maryland at an early day proposed that Congress should have the right to "fix the western boundary of such states as claim to the Missisippi or south sea; and lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained into separate and independent states from time to time as the numbers and circumstances of the people thereof may require." This was a proposition of immense importance, for Maryland refused to agree to the Articles of Confederation so long as other states asserted their claims to the wide region beyond the 1 Journals of Congress, October 15, 1777; Adams, Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions (Johns Hopkins University Studies, III., No. I.), 22. VOL. X.-9 mountains. Early in 1780 New York' expressed a readiness to give up her claims, which at the best were vague; and Congress the next September2 urged all the states to take like action. The next month Congress passed a momentous resolution declaring that the lands ceded or relinquished to the United States by any state should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States and be settled and formed into distinct republican states which should become "members of the federal union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other states." 3 3 Connecticut, desiring to promote the liberty and independence of the "rising Empire," next promised a cession. Then Virginia, whose claim was based not only on her old charter but on the military achievements of George Rogers Clark, expressed a willingness to yield titles to all the territory north of the Ohio. Although Although Virginia's cession was coupled with conditions that were not acceptable to Congress, Maryland, expressing her confidence in the justice of her sister states, finally entered into the Confederation. Her delegates in Congress signed the Articles March 1, 1781. Though not all the 1 Journals of Congress, March 1, 1781. Ibid., September 6, 1780. Ibid., October 10, 1780. Ibid., October 12, 1780. See Regents of University of N. Y., Report on Boundaries of N. Y. (1874), I., 157. 5 Journals of Congress, September 13, 1783. 6 Ibid., February 12, 1781. states had as yet declared their readiness to give up their claims in full, such a surrender was sure to come, and the Confederation was to have title to an imperial domain beyond the mountains. Moreover, the principle had won acceptance that the settlers in the west should not be held permanently in colonial subjection to the mother-states of the seaboard, but should from time to time be formed into self-governing commonwealths. We need not trace in detail the history of the cessions that were formally made after the Articles were signed. Acrimonious discussion did not end with the signing of the Articles, but step by step the difficulties were cleared away. In 17821 Congress accepted the New York cession of all territory west of a meridian running through the most western bend or inclination of Lake Ontario. Virginia ceded freely all claim to the territory north and west of the Ohio, stipulating substantially in the language of Congress that the territory so ceded should be laid out and formed into "distinct republican states, and admitted members of the foederal union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the other states."? April, 1785, the delegates in Congress from Massachusetts executed a deed of cession of all claims west of New York; and in 1786 Massachusetts came 1 Journals of Congress, October 29, 1782. Journals of Congress, April 18, 1785. to an agreement with New York ceding jurisdiction but retaining ownership in western New York. Connecticut, sore and wrathful over a decision of a court of arbitration in 1782 denying her claim to northern Pennsylvania, adhered to her western claims till 1786, and then gave up all save a strip known as the Western Reserve,' running from the western boundary of Pennsylvania westward one hundred and twenty miles along the south shore of Lake Erie, a valuable piece of fertile land containing three million two hundred and fifty thousand acres. In 1800 the jurisdiction over the Western Reserve was surrendered to the United States." With the exception of the Western Reserve, Congress had, therefore, by 1786, full title to all the land north of the Ohio. South of the Ohio the seaboard states, basing their claims on their old charters, still asserted ownership westward as far as the Mississippi. But Congress now owned many millions of acres, and this ownership constituted a common interest and a tangible indication of the unity of the nation. It remained for Congress to work out a plan of settlement and to carry out the principles which it had already announced. Even before the Revolution there was much interest in the settlement of the west; there was a 1 Fournals of Congress, September 14, 1786. 'Report at length by John Marshall, for a committee of Congress, in Am. State Papers, Public Lands, I., 94-98. belief that the country would be rapidly peopled and that much revenue could be derived from the sale of lands. Impressed with the value of the western country, Congress offered bounties in land to those who would enlist in the war, and this, too, before the states consented to give up their claims to the territory beyond the mountains. When the Confederation was completed and the states began to make their deeds of cession, the country north of the Ohio was practically unoccupied by settlers from the older states; but as the war neared its end there was renewed interest in plans for colonization and renewed hope that by one mode or another the western lands could be disposed of for paying the debts of the Confederation and replenishing its empty coffers." The first plan of any importance for the organization and settlement of the northwest was drawn up by Timothy Pickering and other army officers at Newburg as early as April, 1783. The idea was to form a community on the frontier capable of defending itself against the Indians, and to give Congress the opportunity of fulfilling its promises of bounties to the officers and soldiers of the army. The plan seems to have contemplated nothing less than the formation of a state beyond the Ohio, the adoption of a constitution before settlement, the total exclusion of slavery from the limits of the 1 Cutler, Cutler, I., 122. 'Barrett, Evol. of Ord. of 1787, 4, 5, with references. |