vote of seven States, including Maryland; Delaware unrepresented; Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia in the negative. This was a test vote, and having thus secured the welfare of future generations, rather than any temporary advantage to the ceding States, the delegates of Massachusetts, Rufus King and Samuel Holten, on the 19th of April, 1785, executed a deed of cession as to all the territory west of the present western boundary of New York; whereupon Congress resolved "to accept said deed of cession, and that the same be recorded and enrolled among the acts of the United States in Congress assembled.”

Another year elapsed, when Connecticut resumed the consideration of a cession of western territory, and at a general assembly of the State, on the second Thursday of May, 1786, passed the following act:

"Be it enacted by the Governor, Council and Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That the delegates of this State, or any two of them, who shall be attending the Congress of the United States, be, and they are hereby directed, authorized, and fully empowered, in the name and behalf of this State, to make, execute and deliver, under their hands and seals, an ample deed of release and cession of all the right, title, interest, jurisdiction and claim of the State of Connecticut, to certain western lands, beginning at the completion of the forty-first degree of north latitude, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary line of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as now claimed by said commonwealth, and from thence by a line to be drawn north, parallel to, and one hundred and twenty miles west of the said west line of Pennsylvania, and to continue north until it comes to fortytwo degrees and two minutes north latitude; whereby all the

right, title, interest, jurisdiction and claim of the State of Connecticut to the lands lying west of the said line, to be drawn, as aforementioned, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary line of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as now claimed by said commonwealth, shall be included, released, and ceded to the United States in Congress assembled, for the common use and benefit of said States, Connecticut inclusive."

This pertinacity succeeded, and on the 26th of May, 1786, it was resolved, "that Congress, in behalf of the United States, are ready to accept all the right, title, interest, jurisdiction and claim of the State of Connecticut to certain western lands, beginning at the completion of the forty-first degree of north latitude, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary line of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as now claimed by said commonwealth; and from thence, by a line to be drawn north, parallel to, and one hundred and twenty miles west of the said west line of Pennsylvania, and to continue north until it comes to forty-two degrees two minutes north latitude, whenever the delegates of Connecticut shall be furnished with full powers and shall execute a deed for that purpose."

On the 14th of September, 1786, William Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Sturges, delegates from Connecticut, executed a deed of cession agreeably to the above resolution, and it was resolved" that Congress accept the said deed of cession, and that the same be recorded and enrolled among the acts of the United States in Congress assembled."

The western boundary of Pennsylvania, so frequently mentioned in these transactions, had been in dispute between the colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania, but on the 31st of August, 1779, an agreement was concluded between com

!

1

missioners appointed by those States respectively, that the line run in 1767, by Jeremiah Mason and Charles Dixon, and which had been established as the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, should be extended due west five degrees of longitude, to be computed from the river Delaware for the southern boundary of Pennsylvania; and that a meridian drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of the said States respectively, should be the western boundary of Pennsylvania forever. Both States concurred in the action of the commissioners.

One of the conditions of the cessions just enumeratedoriginally contained in the resolution of Congress of October 10th, 1780, and recognized in the deed of Virginia-pledged the government of the Union to the formation of States, each with an extent not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square. By a resolution of Congress, dated July 7, 1786, to which Virginia responded by an act dated December 30, 1788, this condition was changed so as to empower Congress to make a division of the territory northwest of the Ohio, into not less than three nor more than five States.

Some further particulars upon the subject considered in this chapter should here be added:

Connecticut, in 1786, provided for the survey of that portion of the Reserve east of the Cuyahoga River, and opened a land office-in 1792, granted five hundred thousand acres, the west part thereof, to certain citizens of the State as a compensation for property burned and destroyed in the towns of New London, New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk, by the British troops during the Revolution-in 1795, sold the balance of the Reserve, and in 1800, ceded her jurisdiction over the tract to the United States, in consideration of an

act of Congress, passed April 28th, authorizing the President to issue letters patent to the Governor of Connecticut in trust for the grantees of the soil. The proceeds of the Western Reserve were applied to the school fund of Connecticut.

On the 9th of August, 1787, South Carolina, by John Kean and Daniel Huger, her delegates in Congress, ceded to the United States the territory west of the mountains which divide the western from the eastern streams. A similar cession, but by no means so liberal in its terms, was made by North Carolina on the 25th of February, 1790, while the Western limits of Georgia were not adjusted until 1802.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTH WESTERN TERRITORY.-ORDINANCE OF 1787.

To dispose of the soil and to determine the political institutions of the valley between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, was recognized by the Congress of the Confederation, as a grave and urgent duty. The members exaggerated the value of the lands, as a resource of revenue and credit to the government; but there was no error, either of purpose or policy, in their political regulations for the undeveloped empire of the west.

Still, the necessity of the case was substituted for any direct constitutional authority. The Articles of Confederation conferred upon Congress the power of "regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated," and of admitting other colonies into the confederacy with the assent of nine States by their delegates; but we look in vain for any other warrant of the legislation by Congress for the disposition and government of the western territory. The power to raise a revenue, from which the requisite implication might have been derived, consisted only of a right to make requisitions upon the respective States without the authority to enforce their compliance. But, in the course of events, Congress had acquired a public domain, and the proposition that checked or answered cavil, was, that the