charter claimants were six in number: Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, the two Carolinas and Georgia. Their several charters constituted the only legal and valid titles to any portion of this western country. Their conduct was eminently wise and patriotic through the whole controversy. They engaged in no unseemly squabbles, and met with dignity the noise that was made by those who had neither legal title nor equitable rights. They ended the controversy by the patriotic cession of the whole country to the United States.
Virginia claimed the whole territory from her southern boundary line extending to the Mississippi and up northward to the Great Lakes, including Kentucky and all the country which afterward became the Northwest Territory. This claim was based upon her charter of 1609, and upheld by actual possession and by civil and military occupation. She remained in actual possession until the country was ceded to the United States. Her claim was undisputed by any charter claimant as far north as the 41st parallel.
Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed that their charters extended westward to the Mississippi, covering the narrow belts running across the territory in possession of Virginia, and embraced in the westward extension of their respective northern and southern boundary lines. Neither of these States had ever occupied any portion of the territory up to the time of the cessions, and neither made any attempt to occupy it. Had either of them desired to test their claims, the tribunal was within easy reach, to which Georgia and South Carolina referred their territorial dispute—the tribunal provided under the ninth article of the confederation. There was no necessity, however, as they all contemplated ceding their claims to the United States.
North Carolina, alone, possessed an undisputed claim. Her western territory was co-extensive with the present State of Tennessee.
A conflict of title between South Carolina and Georgia was submitted to Congress under the ninth article of the confederation, but was settled by friendly compromise before the court appointed by Congress was ready to begin the trial. It was decided that a strip about twelve miles wide, extending from the present limits of the State westward to the Mississippi, and running along the southern border of Tennessee, should belong to South Carolina. All south of this strip to the Florida line should belong to Georgia.
The second class of claimants, under alleged grants and purchases from the Indians, were the State of New York and several land companies. The claim of New York was vague and shadowy, covering a large and indefinite tract of country without specified boundaries, and based upon no acknowledged principles of custom, law or equity. New York made skillful use of this claim, and did the only thing which it was possible to do with it, except to abandon it. She ceded it to the United States. The land companies, especially the Indiana and the Vandalia companies, proved to be arrogant, persistent and aggressive claimants. Hoping to realize immense profits from the lands which they had pretended to acquire for a trifle, they resorted to all the arts of the lobbyist. Having acquired an undue and sinister influence in Congress, they used it to promote discord, and even to imperil the Union. They were ultimately defeated, and their claims justly ignored.
The foreign claimants were Great Britain and Spain. Spain proposed as the price of alliance with the United States, that the region from the Alleghany mountains to the Mississippi river, and from Florida to the Ohio river, should constitute an Indian reservation, of which the western half should be under the protection of Spain and the eastern half under the protection of the United States; that Spain should be permitted to occupy this country with her troops, so that she could claim it from Great Britain under the principle of uti possidetis. This reservation would have covered the present States of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. France sustained Spain in this demand and urged it upon Congress.
Great Britain, in addition to her ancient title to the entire territory of the colonies, laid especial claim to the country northwest of the Ohio river, by virtue of her act of parliament in 1774, commonly known as the ‘Quebec Act,’ by which she had annexed all that region to Canada. In assertion of this claim, she took possession of the country early in the war, and occupied it with British troops. At the suggestion and under the guidance of her illustrious citizen, General George Rogers Clarke, Virginia organized an expedition composed of Virginia soldiers, in Virginia pay, without assistance from the United States, expelled the British from the territory, and held it at the close of the war, in the name of the State.
These foreign claims came up for settlement, not before Congress, but by treaty with foreign nations; yet the uncertainty served to render the whole question still more complicated. The two charter claimants, Virginia and North Carolina, were the only States who supported their titles by actual settlement, and by civil and military occupation. The settlements along the Mississippi, the Wabash and the Ohio, and in Kentucky, and the military occupation by George Rogers Clarke, on the part of Virginia; and the settlements along the Watauga and the Cumberland, and the operations of Robertson and Sevier on the part of North Carolina, supported and maintained the charter rights of all the claimants to the western lands. The cabin and the rifle of the pioneer guarded the charters of the States, and enabled our commissioners in negotiating the treaty of peace to add to the abstract charter titles the plea of possession, and thus to prevent the limitation of the boundaries to the Alleghany mountains or the Ohio river. （Roosevelt's Winning of the West, Vol. 2., p. 373; Vol. 3, p. 243.)
At the treaty of Paris, the United States was fortunate in the services of three of her ablest diplomats, John Adams, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin. After Great Britain signified her willingness to grant independence, negotiations were delayed on several important questions, the most important of which was the question of boundary. The three commissioners were united in demanding boundaries which should include every foot of land within the charter limits of every State. They differed only in the methods of negotiations to secure the end. Dr. Franklin was disposed to confide in France, and to work in harmony with her representatives. Jay was distrustful of the designs of France, and favored direct negotiations with England without the privity of France. Adams, upon his arrival, warmly sided with Jay, and Franklin yielded. Whether the course favored by Franklin would have been successful, can only be conjectured. The course pursued at the suggestion of Jay and Adams was eminently successful, and achieved a brilliant diplomatic victory.
The purposes of Spain, though aided by France, were thwarted, and Great Britain acceded to the demands of the United States. (See Narrative and Critical Hist. of Am., VII. 2, and Lecky's Hist. of Eng., Vol. 4.)
After the fortunate expedient of Jay in sending Vaughan to confer with Lord Shelburne, Great Britain seemed suddenly to adopt a policy at variance with her former obstinate and haughty tone toward America, and there was no longer any trouble about the western boundaries. In addition to the views which the British negotiators expressed, we may well conjecture that there were others to which no public expression was given.
It was no part of British policy to build up either France or Spain in America, and it was, perhaps, fortunate that France took a decided and active part in urging the claims of Spain. The British leaders saw in it an attempt to gain a foothold east of the Mississippi over territory which Great Britain had been accustomed to regard as her own. It was less galling to her pride to yield it to America than to extend the dominions of Spain at the demand of France. In addition to this, the British statesmen believed that the American republics could not hold together, and confidently expected that in a short time some, if not all of them, would return to the mother country. They were already quarreling among themselves over this very territory, and doubtless the quarrel was considered abroad as more dangerous than it really was. Was it not better for Great Britain to leave them this bone of contention than to cure their quarrels by removing the cause? It had already delayed the Union for many years and was still an unsettled question. Would not the quarrel be renewed with greater violence as soon as the pressure of a foreign war was removed? If these states should return they would bring this territory back with them. Besides, a liberal policy and the decision of this point in her favor against the wishes of France and Spain, would tend to detach America from her allies, and restore confidence in the mother country. On the other hand, Great Britain could not hope, and perhaps did not wish, to establish permanently cordial relations with France and Spain. Influenced by considerations of this nature, and in accordance with the heroic British character, which is as positive and magnanimous in concession as it is bold and haughty