238

RATIFICATION OF THE ARTICLES.

was ordered to be made and laid before Congress by the fourth of July. In the meantime the delegates of the States should deposit their powers, for ratifying the Articles, with the secretary.

On the ninth of July it was found that the delegates from New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland had not yet received power to ratify, and that North Carolina, whose legislature had approved the Articles, and Georgia, were not represented.1 On this day the delegates from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina formally signed the engrossed copy. Lee, Morris and Dana were appointed a committee to prepare a special letter to States which had not yet signed, urging them to authorize their delegates to ratify "with all convenient dispatch." North Carolina responded by ratifying on the twenty-first, and Georgia on the twenty-fourth. Not until the twenty-fifth of November did Witherspoon lay before Congress the powers of the New Jersey delegates to ratify, which had been given five days before. New Jersey now repeated its former objections to the Articles, yet it was convinced "that every separate and detached State interest ought to be postponed to the general good of the Union," and "relying on the candor and justice of the States to remove inequality as far as possible," it empowered any one of its four delegates to sign. Witherspoon and Scudder affixed their

names on the following day.

On the sixteenth of February, McKean submitted the act of the Delaware assembly authorizing any one of its delegates to sign. He had signed on the twelfth, but Dick

1 For the proceedings of the North Carolina legislature, December 19-24, 1777, see the State Records of North Carolina (Clark), Vol. XII, 411-451.

QUESTION OF WESTERN LANDS.

239

inson did not sign until the fifth of May following.1 Delaware objected to the "indeterminate provision" in the Articles for settling controversies that might arise in the States, and thought that its own courts of law were competent to settle any to which it might become a party. It also demanded that the western lands should become a common federal estate. The four Virginia delegates signed on the twentieth of May,2 and the Maryland and Connecticut delegates submitted their powers to ratify. Like New Jersey and Delaware, Maryland had no western lands, and it now demanded their utilization for the general welfare.

The objections of the States, which owned no western lands, were so serious that they amounted almost to a conditional ratification. Congress, recognizing their force, urged Virginia, on the thirtieth of October, to reconsider its recent act of assembly to open a western land office, and requested this State, and others claiming western lands, to forbear settling them, or issuing warrants for unappropriated lands in them during the continuance of the war. New York was the first to respond. On the nineteenth of February, 1780, its legislature passed an act "to facilitate the completion of the Articles of Confederation," which led to a peaceful solution of the question of western lands and made the American union possible. The New York representatives in Congress were empowered to agree to a western boundary to the State and to cede the region beyond "for the use and benefit of such States as should become members of the federal alliance.'

1 John Dickinson was a citizen of Pennsylvania, but at this time a delegate from Delaware.

2 May 20, 1779; the Virginia resolutions are given in full in the journal for this day, V, 157-158.

3 Most of the acts of cession of western lands are given in Donaldson's Public Domain, 63-67.

240

CESSION OF WESTERN LANDS.

Congress might dispose of the ceded lands as it saw fit, but land titles in the district should be derived from New York.

Obedient to this authority, the three New York delegates in Congress, by a deed which cited the act of the legislature of their State as sufficient authority, established its western boundary. The New York cession affected the title of lands held under treaties with the Six Nations, and included a region of country whose boundaries were not accurately known, extending from the source of the Great Lakes across the Ohio Valley, and south-eastward to the Cumberland Mountains. The claims of New York conflicted with those of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia. The deed of cession gave the United States the right and title of New York to the triangle, now comprising Erie county in Pennsylvania.1 On the tenth of October, Connecticut offered to relinquish her claim to western lands, but with the reservation of civil jurisdiction over them; an offer which Congress did not accept, and nearly six years passed before the State renewed the subject.2

When on the sixth of September, the Maryland resolutions and the New York act of cession came up in Congress for consideration, it was deemed inexpedient to reopen the subject of the western lands, as it involved "questions, a discussion of which was declined on mature

1 The region ceded by New York became later the cause of serious litigation over land-titles; many of the early settlers were compelled to pay twice for their lands. A history of the settlement of the Chautauqua country, 1792-1800, is given in my Constitutional History of the American People, 1776-1850, Vol. I, Chapter VIII. The history of the litigation over land titles is given quite fully in Huidekoper's Lessee vs. Douglass, 3 Cranch, 3-73.

2 Donaldson's Public Domain, 30-88.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

241

consideration when the Articles of Consideration were adopted." The prospect of solution was no better now, and it was thought advisable only to urge the States to remove the cause of embarrassment by surrendering a portion of their territorial claims. "since they could not be preserved without endangering the stability of the general confederacy." A satisfactory solution of the question was hoped for, because of the act of the legislature of New York, and Maryland was earnestly requested to subscribe to the Articles.

The recommendation of Congress that the States relinquish their western lands to the general government for the common benefit, was made on the day of the Connecticut cession. Congress proposed that the lands should be settled and formed into distinct republican States, empowered to become members of the Federal Union, and possessing the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the older States. Each State formed in the western country should "contain a suitable extent of territory, not less than one hundred or more than one hundred and fifty miles square, or as near this area as possible." This was the first step toward the organization of the Northwestern Territory. The proposition recognizing the rights of sovereignty was soon to be incorporated in the permanent platform of slavocracy, and was to become for many years an issue between Congress and the States, respecting their powers of Congress to prescribe conditions for the admission of a new State.2 Not

1 Journal, October 10, 1780, VI, 146.

2 The issue came up at the time of the admission of Missouri, and for an account of this see my Constitutional History of the American People, 1776-1850, Vol. I, Chapter VI, "The First Struggle for Sovereignty," and Chapter X, "Federal Relations, Missouri." See also the account of the admission of Nebraska in Vol. III of the present work.

242

THE ARTICLES PROCLAIMED.

until the twelfth of February, were the Maryland delegates empowered to ratify, when again that State laid claim to a proportionate share with other States "in the back country," but empowered its delegates to sign, with the understanding that the Articles did not bind any State to guarantee the exclusive claims of a State to the western lands.

In consideration of an event so auspicious as the final approval of the Articles, a special Committee of Three was appointed to report a mode of announcing it to the public.2 It was decided that the act of final ratification should be announced at twelve o'clock on the day when Maryland should sign. Notice should be sent to all the governors and to the American ministers abroad with instructions to announce the ratification to the courts near which they resided. Special notice should be sent to Washington, who should proclaim the completion of the Union to the army under his command. On Thursday, the first of March, 1781, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll of Maryland signed the Articles, and the Confederation of the States was completed. The journal of Congress for the day records that now, each of the thirteen United States had adopted and confirmed the Articles. The work entrusted to the committee of twelve in June, 1776, was thus completed five years later.1

3

The real character of the Articles was now to be tested by actual administration.

1 February 12, 1781, when they laid their authority before Congress; see the Journal, VII, 26.

2 John Walton of Georgia, James Madison of Virginia and John Mathews of South Carolina. February 22, 1781, Journals, VII, 30. 3 Journals, VII, 33-43. The text gives the articles with the names of the attesting delegates.

4 June 11, 1776. March 2, 1781. Journals of Congress.