310

RESOLUTIONS ABOUT WESTERN LANDS. [CHAP. IV.

articles of Confederation were first debated; and that the same considerations still exist. They, however, press upon the States which can remove the embarrassment, "a liberal surrender of a portion of their territorial claim," the policy of which they strongly urge;1 and Maryland is also earnestly requested to authorise her Delegates to sign the Confederation.

A few weeks later- the tenth of October-Congress passed a resolution,' that the lands ceded to the United States should be disposed of for the common benefit, be laid off into States not less than one hundred, nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square, be formed into republican States, which were admissible into the Union; and that certain expenses in defending or acquiring the ceded territory were to be reimbursed to the States which had incurred them.

4

In compliance with this recommendation, Virginia, in January of the following year,3 passed an act for ceding all its territory north-west of the Ohio. Connecticut had, in October, 1780, passed a resolution respecting the cession of her western lands; and on the thirty-first of January, 1781, that cession, together with those of New York and of Virginia, were referred to a committee of

seven.

On the twelfth of February, the Delegates from the State of Maryland laid before Congress an act of the State of Maryland, authorising her Delegates to sign the articles of Confederation.

On the first of March, 1781, the Delegates from the State of New York made the cession which the act of their Legislature of the preceding year had authorised them to make. But the Delegates had previously executed

1

1 VI. Journals of Congress, page 279. 3 January 2, 1781.

* Ibid. page 325.

4 VIII. Journals of Congress, page 355.

1783.]

CONFEDERATION RATIFIED.

311

another deed, in which they recited that the act of cession made by Virginia stipulated that the United States should guarantee to that State the boundaries of the territory reserved for her future jurisdiction: they therefore declare that the cession they were then about to make should not be absolute, unless the boundaries reserved for New York were in like manner guaranteed.

On the same day, the Delegates from the State of Maryland signed the articles of Confederation; but they at the same time declared that they did not relinquish any right or interest that Maryland, with the other Confederated States, had in the "back country;" but claimed the same as fully as had been previously done by their Legislature and further, that no article in the Confederation could or ought to bind Maryland, or any other State, to guarantee any exclusive claim of any particular State to the soil of the said back lands.

By this act, the ratification of the articles was complete; eleven of the States having ratified them in 1778, Delaware in 1779, and Maryland in 1781.

The committee of seven made their report respecting the ceded lands on the first of May, 1782.

They advise the acceptance of the cession made by New York, and assign as reasons for their recommendation, that those lands once belonging to the Six Nations. were under the protection of New York for one hundred years, which was not only duly recognised by the British government, but also by the neighboring colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

They earnestly recommend Massachusetts and Connecticut to release to the United States their claims to the aforesaid territory.

They cannot, consistently with the interests of the

I

1 For articles of Confederation, see Appendix No. III.

312

REPORT ON THE LANDS CLAIMED.

[CHAP. IV. United States, accept of the cession proposed by Virginia, or guarantee the tract claimed by her in her act of cession-assigning as reasons, that all the lands Virginia has thus ceded are within the claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, as part of the territory of the Six Nations; as are also those lands which she requests to be guaranteed: and further, because a large part of the ceded lands are westward of the west boundary line of Virginia, as established by the King in council: because a part of the same lands have been legally sold and conveyed away before the Declaration of Independence, by persons claiming the absolute property: because, in the year 176–, a part was set apart by the Crown for a separate government and colony: and, lastly, because the conditions annexed to the cession are incompatible with the honor, interests, and peace of the United States.

They therefore earnestly recommend to Virginia to reconsider their cession, and to make it consistent with their former acts under the royal government, without any condition whatever.

They say they have conferred with the agents for the Indiana, Vandalia, Illinois, and Wabash Companies; they think, if the lands be finally ceded to the United States, the purchases made by the Indiana Company should be confirmed, and that, for the purchases by the Vandalia Company, the grantees be reimbursed the purchasemoney and charges, and that the petition of the Illinois and Wabash Companies be dismissed, as they purchased of the Indians without any authority from the government. They at the same time recommend that the right of purchasing lands of the Indians beyond the bounds of any State be exclusively in Congress: that Congress may form new States of the ceded lands, not to exceed one hundred and thirty miles square: that in such new States

1783.] CLAIMS TO WESTERN LANDS REFERRED.

313

engagements to the officers and soldiers, and the rights of settlers, shall be confirmed: and that all reasonable expenses incurred in conquering and defending the lands in those States shall be paid; and all right to the soil, except it has been purchased of the Indians by public treaty, shall be disclaimed.

Various attempts were made by the friends and opponents of this report, from time to time, to amend it, without success, until the sixth of September, 1782, when a member from New Jersey offered several resolutions, declaring that cessions of the western territory, in conformity with the recommendations previously made by Congress would be "an important fund for the discharge of the national debt;" that, therefore, it be recommended to the States having claims to western lands to make such cessions; or, if already made, and not in conformity with the terms prescribed by Congress, that they reconsider such cessions: that if this recommendation be complied with, no determinations of the States relative to private property in any such lands shall be reversed or altered without their consent, unless where the ninth article of the Confederation shall render it necessary:" which resolutions were adopted-New Jersey, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia dissenting-and a committee of five was appointed to consider them.

The committee made a report on the twenty-fifth of September, which simply recommended the adoption of the four propositions previously submitted. But the report was negatived by the votes of the four Southern States.3

2

VII. Journals of Congress, page 455.

Witherspoon, Madison, Rutledge, Osgood, and Montgomery. 3 VII. Journals of Congress, page 482.

314

REMONSTRANCE OF NEW JERSEY. [CHAP. IV.

On the twenty-ninth of October, 1782, Congress accepted the cession made by New York on the first of March, 1781.

On the fourth of June, 1783, Congress referred so much of the report of the committee of the first of May, 1782,1 as relates to the cession of Virginia, to a committee of five, who were Rutledge, Bedford, Carroll, Higginson, and Wilson.2

On the twentieth of June their report was acted on. The Delegates from New Jersey submitted a remonstrance of the Legislature of that State.

They express their surprise that the subject of the cession by Virginia is to be again acted on, after the late recommendation made by Congress respecting that cession; they regard the claims of their State to its proportion of all vacant territory as incontrovertible; they express their dissatisfaction with the terms of the cession made by Virginia; request that Congress will not accept it, and urge that State to a more liberal surrender.

The subject was resumed on the thirteenth of September, when, the report being amended, the Delegates from Maryland referring to the limits of the United States by the treaty of peace, and to the claims of all the States to the unsettled western territory, offered a resolution, that a committee be appointed to report the territory lying without the boundaries of the individual States, and the most eligible portions of the same for one or more independent States, and the establishment of a land office;" which resolution was rejected.

he report of the committee, as amended and passed, states the eight conditions on which Virginia had made the cession.

1 VII. Journals of Congress, page 360. 2 VIII. Journals of Congress, page 276.

3

Ibid. page

354.

3