much to apprentices, or persons bound to service for a number of years, as to slaves, but it was inserted in the interest of slave-holders.

The clause in relation to fugitives from service is vaguer and more general than that in relation to fugitives from justice. It does not say how or by whom the capture or surrender shall be made. In 1793 Congress enacted a law for carrying the clause into effect, and in 1850 it enacted the law known as the Fugitive Slave Law, which was much more rigorous and efficient than the previous one. This law was one of the immediate causes that led to the election of President Lincoln, to the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress repealed the law of 1850 and the slave sections of the law of 1793 in 1864.

CHAPTER XLI.

NEW STATES: THE TERRITORIAL SYSTEM.

ARTICLE IV.

REFERENCES.

Hinsdale, The Old Northwest (The author shows how the Thirteen Colonies were constituted by the royal charters, Chaps. VI.–VII.; defines the Northwestern land claims, XI., and gives in extenso, XII., XIII., the history of the cessions); Fiske, The Critical Period of American History (Chap. V. deals particularly with the political bearings of the Western land question, and especially as a factor in the formation of the Constitution); Adams, Maryland's Influence on Western Land Cessions to the United States. (This monograph deals particularly with the subject as related to the Articles of Confederation); Bancroft, Vol. VI., p. 277 et seq.

Section 3, Clause 1.--New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Section 3, Clause 2.-The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

584. Western Land Claims.—At its formation, the American Union and the thirteen States were coextensive : there was no public domain. There were indeed large bodies of unoccupied lands on the Atlantic Slope, while the Lake Basin and the Mississippi Valley were wildernesses, but these waste lands were all claimed by certain of the States as their individual possessions. The case stood thus: the boundaries of New Hampshire, Rhode Island,

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland had been fixed much as they are at present while they were still Colonies; the chartered limits of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, which had originally extended to the South Sea, had been cut short at the Mississippi River by the treaty of 1763; New York claimed that she had acquired a vast Western domain by way of her connections with the Iroquois Tribes. The result was that while six States (save alone Pennsylvania, which extended five degrees of longitude westward from the Delaware River,) were shut up to the seaboard, the other seven States collectively laid claim to the whole West.

585. Western Cessions.-The Western lands soon became the subject of a close controversy, which tended sharply to divide the States into two groups. Six claimant States pleaded their ancient charters, and New York her Iroquois connections, as good and sufficient titles to their claims. The six non-claimant States repudiated these titles and urged that, as the West must be wrested from the common enemy by the common effort, it should belong to the common country or the Union. Next to independence and the formation of a government adequate to the needs of the Union, the land question was the most formidable political issue of Revolutionary times. Moreover, it derived much of its importance from its intimate connection with both of those questions. It was greatly complicated also by conflicting boundaries and overlapping claims. A happy escape from the controversy was finally found in the surrender to the United States by the seven States of the lands to which they laid claim, on the pledge given by Congress in 1780 that all lands so ceded should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, to be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the old States. New York ceded 1781, Virginia 1784, Massachusetts 1785, Connecticut 1786. The Southern cessions were delayed; South

Carolina's until 1789, North Carolina's until 1790, and Georgia's until 1802. The first four cessions all lay Northwest of the Ohio River, and they constituted the original public domain.

586. Division of Old States.—But this was not all. Vermont, which was claimed by both New Hampshire and New York, and partly by Massachusetts, had been clamoring for admission to the Union as a State since 1777. Kentucky already had a considerable population, among which there was a strong and constantly growing sentiment in favor of separation from Virginia and the assumption of the position of a new and independent State; and Maine, then a part of Massachusetts, had all the natural requisites for a separate State. The same may be said of Tennessee.

587. Admission of New States.-There was therefore abundant territory belonging to the Union in 1787 out of which to form new States, and still more in prospect. The people of the old States had no thought of keeping this territory permanently in an inferior political position, but rather proposed to have it formed into new States as rapidly as its settlement would justify. Furthermore, the Vermont and Kentucky questions called for settlement. Out of this state of facts grew the two clauses of the Constitution quoted above, which provide for the admission of new States and for the government of the National territory. But as controversies would arise, and in fact then existed, relative to the division of States, the provision was wisely inserted in regard to obtaining the consent of all the Legislatures concerned as well as of Congress. Still further, the pending controversy as to the Southern cessions caused the insertion of the provision that nothing in the Constitution should be so construed as to prejudice any claim. of the United States or of any particular State. Once more, settlements within the National domain were then beginning, and rules and regulations concerning lands and other matters were plainly needed, the making of which would naturally fall to Congress.

588. Territorial Growth.-The Constitution is silent on the subject of annexations, but causes that are here immaterial have led to seven annexations of territory.1

I. Louisiana, purchased of France in 1803, for $15,000,000, embraced the western half of the Mississippi Valley and extended across the lower Mississippi River.

2. Florida, purchased of Spain in 1819, for $5,000,000. This purchase included the peninsula of that name, and a narrow strip of territory running westward along the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana.

3. The State of Texas, and so much of the Territory of New Mexico as lies east of the Rio Grande. Texas, which was previously a separate nation, was admitted to the Union in 1845 by a joint resolution of Congress.

4. Oregon, the territory lying between parallels 42° and 49° north latitude west of the Rocky Mountains. The title to this acquisition is discovery and occupation, and treaties with Spain, Russia, and England, bearing the dates 1819, 1825, and 1846.

5. The first Mexican annexation embraced the country now owned by the United States south of parallel 42°, and west of the Rio Grande and the sources of the Arkansas, except the second Mexican annexation. This was partly a conquest and partly a purchase from Mexico, in 1848, the consideration being $15,000,000.

6. The second Mexican annexation, lying in Arizona, sometimes called the Gadsden Purchase, was made in 1853 for $10,000,000.

7. The last annexation was Alaska, purchased of Russia in 1867 for $7,200,000.

589. Territory and Territories. In the broadest sense, the whole country or dominion is the territory of the United States. But here the term territory means that part of the dominion not formed into States, and this is its common acceptation in our political history. The Territories are of two kinds. A definite district or region having a full Territorial government is an organized Territory; territory without such a government, and subject only to the laws of Congress, is unorganized. Arizona belongs to the first class, Indian Territory to the second. Alaska has a Governor appointed by the President and is directly subject to Congress.

590. Ordinance of 1787.-Preparations for settling the West and forming new States were already in progress in

1 See Hinsdale: How to Study and Teach History, Chap. XX.