rights which they had possessed when colonies,' and that any part of the West claimed by any colony had been, as it were, carried into the Revolution and belonged to the state within whose colonial boundaries it had been included. For example, in the instructions given to John Adams by Congress in August, 1779, after his appointment as commissioner to discuss terms. of peace with the British government, a statement was made of the boundaries he was to claim for the United States. He was to contend for the Mississippi as the western boundary, and to urge "that the whole of the said countries and islands lying within the boundaries aforesaid, and every citadel, fort, post, place, harbor, and road to them belonging, be absolutely evacuated by the land and sea forces of his Britannic Majesty, and yielded to the powers of the States to which they respectively belong... That is to say, the West was to be demanded on the ground that it belonged to one or another of the individual states. This doctrine was clearly stated in a report of a committee of Congress of January 8, 1782. It declared that, under the authority of the English king,

the limits of these states, while in the character of colonies, were established; to these limits the United States, considered as independent sovereignties, have succeeded. Whatever territorial rights, therefore, belonged to them before the revolution, were necessarily devolved upon them at the era of independence. Those grounds support the assertion that the United States are bounded as they are declared to be in the instructions given to Mr. Adams on the day of August, 1779.3

This contention for the West on the ground of the old charters was strongly urged in a letter written by the American foreign secretary, Robert R. Livingston, in January, 1782, to Franklin, one of the American peace commissioners, for the latter's guid

ance.4

But in spite of these vigorous assertions of the charter theory, the principle of collective control of the West was not lost.

1 Secret Journals of Congress, III, 170.

'Sparks, Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, IV, 340–341. 3 Secret Journals of Congress, III, 152.

Sparks, Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, III, 268 and ff.

ence.

According to a "Sketch of Articles of Confederation," submitted by Franklin in the Second Continental Congress, July 21, 1775, a congress composed of delegates chosen annually in each colony was to settle all disputes between the colonies "about limits or any other cause, if such shall arise; and the planting of new Colonies when proper." In the appendix to Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet of the Revolutionary period, Paine called attention to the "back lands" as a common fund which could be used for sinking debts which might be contracted. On December 1, 1776, Silas Deane, then in Paris, in a letter to the Secret Committee of Congress, declared that emigration from Europe to America would be greatly increased by the establishment of American independThe result of this, Deane said, would be a demand for new lands. "On this demand," he wrote, "I conceive a certain fund may now be fixed," and he referred to the territory between the Ohio, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi "as a resource amply adequate, under proper regulations, for defraying the whole expense of the war, and the sums necessary to be given the Indians in purchase of the native right." But to give this territory value, inhabitants were needed. He accordingly proposed that a grant of land should be made near the mouth of the Ohio to a company of Europeans and AmeriThis company, he thought, should form a separate state "confederated with and under the general regulations of the United States General of America." He proposed that Congress should reserve one-fifth of all the lands, mines etc. within this grant, "to be disposed of by the Congress in such manner as good policy and the publick exigencies may dictate . . .” In the matter of government Deane thought they should take the advice of Congress. The proposed grant would contain more than 25,000,000 acres, and, if a settlement were made, the one-fifth reserved by Congress would soon be of immense value. "I have spoken with many persons of good sense on this subject," he added, "which makes me the more sanguine."

cans.

'Force, American Archives, fourth series, II, 1887 et seq.

"Collections of the New York Historical Society for 1886, 382 et seq.

The idea suggested by Deane had already occurred to Congress. In September, 1776, that body resolved that a bounty of twenty dollars should be given to each non-commissioned officer and private who enlisted to serve during the war, and that provision should be made for granting lands to officers and soldiers who should so enlist. Such lands were to be provided by the United States and the expenses incurred were to be borne by the states in the same proportion as the other expenses of the war. Maryland at once objected to this proposal and entered upon that course of action which was the chief factor in leading to the actual creation of our federal domain. On October 9, 1776, the Maryland Convention resolved:

That this State ought not to comply with the proposed terms of granting lands to the officers and soldiers, because there are no vacant lands belonging solely and exclusively to this State; the purchase of lands might eventually involve this State in an expense exceeding its abilities; and an engagement by this State to defray the expense of purchasing land, according to its number of souls, would be unequal and unjust.2

It appears from a letter written by Samuel Chase, one of Maryland's delegates to Congress, to the Maryland Council of Safety on November 21, 1776, that he and his colleagues from Maryland had proposed and urged in Congress their claim "that the back lands acquired from the Crown of Great Britain in the present war should be a common stock for the benefit of the United States, and should remain open for the determination of some future Congress." 3

The first draft of the Articles of Confederation was reported to Congress by a committee on July 12, 1776. It provided that the United States should have the power to limit "the Bounds of those Colonies, which by Charter or Proclamation, or under any Pretence, are said to extend to the South Sea" and to assign "Territories for new Colonies, either in lands to be thus separated from Colonies and heretofore purchased or obtained by the Crown of Great Britain from the Indians, or

1 Force, American Archives, fifth series, III, 53, 209. 2 Force, American Archives, fifth series, III, 120.

3 Ibid. 788.

I

hereafter to be purchased or obtained from them," and to dispose of "all such Lands for the general Benefit of all the United Colonies." When the Articles were being debated in the committee of the whole on July 25, 1776, Chase emphatically stated the Maryland doctrine: "No Colony has a right to go to the South Sea; they never had; they can't have. It would not be safe to the rest." In like vein spoke Wilson of Pennsylvania:

Every gentleman has heard much of claims to the South Sea. They are extravagant. The grants were made upon mistakes. They were ignorant of the Geography. They thought the South Sea within one hundred miles of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not conceived that they extended three thousand miles . I wish the Colonies themselves would cut off these claims.

On the other hand, Jefferson, who was opposed to the Maryland doctrine, asked: "What are reasonable limits? What security have we, that the Congress will not curtail the present settlements of the States? I have no doubt that the Colonies will limit themselves." And a few days later Harrison of Virginia inserted: "Virginia owns to the South Sea. Gentlemen shall not pare away the Colony of Virginia." And Huntingdon said: "I doubt not the wisdom of Virginia will limit themselves. A man's right does not cease to be a right, because it is large; the question of right must be determined by the principles of the common law." 2 The clauses of the first draft of the Articles of Confederation which have been quoted were omitted in the subsequent and final drafts.

On October 15, 1777, it was moved in Congress

that the United States in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of such States as claim to the Mississippi or South Sea, and lay out the land beyond the boundary, so ascertained, into separate and independ

1

1 Journals of the Continental Congress, edited by W. C. Ford, V, 550–551. See Notes of Debates in the Continental Congress, by John A. Adams, in Journals of the Continental Congress, edited by W. C. Ford, VI, 1071 et seq.

ent states, from time to time, as the numbers and circumstances of the people thereof may require.'

Maryland alone voted in the affirmative. The opposition was at this time so strong that the states with claims to western lands succeeded in adding a clause to the ninth of the Articles of Confederation, "that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States."

With the exception of Maryland, the states which had no claims to the West held that the vacant lands should be used for the fiscal benefit of the Confederation, but that the jurisdiction over them should be vested in the state to which the territory in question was nominally attached. Maryland, however, on December 15, 1778, instructed its delegates in Congress not to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the land claims had been placed on a different basis, and by this determined attitude brought about the solution of the problem: the cession by the states to Congress of their western claims. New York led the way; in February, 1780, it passed an act empowering its delegates in Congress to limit the western extension of the state by such a line as they should deem expedient, both with respect to ownership and jurisdiction, provided that the territory which might be so ceded should be used for the benefit of the states which should become members of the federal union.3 In September of the same year Congress recommended that those states which had claims to the West should pass such laws "as may effectually remove the only obstacle to a final ratification of the Articles of Confederation." By 1786 Virginia, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut had ceded their claims to the territory northwest of the Ohio, with the exception of Connecticut's Western Reserve, and the way was open for Congress to organize it as a federal domain. South of the Ohio the states continued for several years to claim the

1 Journals of the Continental Congress, edited by W. C. Ford, IX, 807. Welling, The States Rights Conflict over the Public Lands. Papers of the American Historical Association, III, no. 2, 169.

3 Hening, The Statutes at Large of Virginia, X, 560 et seq.

Hening, op. cit., X, 563.