intelligent reader will not be surprised to find that this resolution never came to a vote. On various pretexts, the consideration of this motion and the report of the committee were postponed from day to day until May 6, when it was indefinitely postponed. From this date this committee disappears from the records of Congress. The portion of the report relating to the cession of Virginia was subsequently referred to another committee.
Meanwhile a committee, called the Grand Committee, which consisted of one member from each State, appointed to consider the most effectual means of supporting the credit of the United States, made several ineffectual attempts to secure action on the cessions of Connecticut, New York and Virginia.
A step forward was taken when Congress, October 29, 1782, on the motion of Maryland, accepted the cession of New York. June 4, 1783, Congress took up the report of a committee to which had been referred the motion of Mr. Bland, to accept the cession of Virginia. This committee recommended that Congress should take up the old report of November 3, 1781, which had slumbered on the journals since the effective narcotic administered by Mr. Lee. Whereupon Congress ordered: ‘That so much thereof as relates to the cession made by the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the 2nd day of January, 1781, be referred to a committee of five members.’
This committee reported June 20, 1783, recommending changes in the cession of Virginia. Pending the proceedings, the delegates of New Jersey filed a remonstrance from the general assembly of their State, protesting against the acceptance of the Virginia cession, unless the said State will ‘make a liberal surrender of that territory of which they claim so boundless a proportion.’ This remonstrance revives the old claim of the rights which had accrued to the other States by reason of the defense of the country by the common blood and treasure, an argument which had lost what little plausibility it ever had, for Virginia had some time before rescued the territory from the British by the blood and treasure of Virginia alone.
The committee to whom the cession of Virginia had been referred, reported September 13, 1783, recommending the acceptance of the cession, as soon as the State should agree to repeal the seventh and eighth conditions of the cession. The remaining six conditions were approved, although the first was considered unnecessary, and an amendment was suggested to the second to more fully carry out its provisions. The seventh was considered to be really embraced in the sixth, but its repeal was urged. The real objection was to the eighth condition, which was wrong in principle, and its repeal was important. Of these two conditions whose repeal was desired, the seventh declared all purchases from the Indians void, and the eighth required the United States to guarantee to Virginia all her remaining territory.
The report of this committee was decisive, and was adopted, September 13, by the votes of all the States represented, except New Jersey and Maryland. Virginia readily accepted the amendments proposed. The condition in reference to purchases from the Indians was unnecessary, being embraced in the other conditions which had been approved. The condition requiring that the United States should guarantee all remaining territory was intended to apply to Kentucky, and to operate as a contract with the United States to protect the State against claims that might arise under the cession of New York or the revival of the plea of ‘common stock.’ In her anxiety to put a quietus on all such claims, Virginia had gone too far, and had framed this condition at variance with her own theories. Maryland, in the instructions to her delegates to accede to the Confederation, had protested against this condition, and Maryland was right. Its acceptance would have operated as an ex parte adjudication or a prejudication of all claims against the State, and would have barred all proceedings under the ninth article of the Confederation, to which any claimant State might be entitled. There were no adverse charter claimants, and the shadowy claims of New York had been ceded to the United States. There was no probability that any State would appear as a contestant. Still, it would besetting a precedent wrong in theory that any State might secure from Congress a guarantee to its territory, and thus acquire an exemption from the jurisdiction of the tribunal, provided by the ninth article of the Confederation for the trial of contests between the States. At the next meeting of her legislature, Virginia promptly instructed her delegates to execute to the United States a deed of cession conforming to the amendments proposed by Congress. This deed was accordingly executed by her delegates and accepted by Congress, March 1, 1784, New Jersey alone voting against acceptance; Maryland, Georgia and New York being absent, South Carolina divided; all the other States voting for it.
The acceptance of the deed met with petty opposition from a peculiar source. Mr. George Morgan, the agent of the Indiana Land company, who had all along been besieging Congress, now appeared in a new role. He filed a petition in the name of the State of New Jersey, as its agent, praying Congress to take jurisdiction under the ninth article of Confederation and try the case as between two states. He recites that a hearing had been ‘obtained before a very respectable committee of Congress,’ alluding to the report of November 3, 1781, and presents his credentials as agent of New Jersey. A motion by Mr. Beatty, of New York, to refer this petition to a committee was voted down, as also a motion by Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, to appoint a committee to prepare an answer to the State of New Jersey.
It was immediately following this action that the deed of Virginia was presented and accepted, as above related. ‘Simultaneously with this acceptance,’ Jefferson submitted his famous plan for the subdivision and government of the Northwest Territory, and such other western territory as might be obtained by cessions expected from the other states. The adoption of this report, April 23, 1784, and the subsequent acts of Congress, show that the main cause of jealousy was removed, and the title of the United States to the Northwest Territory was considered assured by this cession of Virginia and its acceptance. Virginia had fought and won the battle directed against her charter rights, and had made generous use of her victory. We hear no more of ‘common stock,’ ‘blood and treasure of all,’ and limiting the ‘western boundaries.’
As yet, however, the cession of Connecticut had not been accepted, while Massachusetts, the two Carolinas and Georgia were sleeping on their claims. All threats of coercion, all acrimonious controversy had ceased. The history of the subsequent cessions involves only the recital of successive patriotic acts, taken by the remaining charter claimants, at leisure. They were subjected to no pressure except the example of New York and Virginia, the force of public opinion, and their own patriotism. They seemed to be in no hurry.
North Carolina vacillated, her legislature passing an act in June, 1784, to cede Tennessee, and repealing the same in November before Congress could accept it.
November 13, 1784, Massachusetts authorized her delegates to cede her claims, and her cession was accepted April 19, 1785, the anniversary of Lexington. This cession was free from reservations or conditions of a selfish character, and bore on its face the evidence of its patriotic purpose.
As early as October 10, 1780, Connecticut had offered to cede the rights of soil in a portion of her western claim, reserving to herself the jurisdiction to the entire claim. The acceptance of such a proposition would have had the effect of confirming her title and establishing her in jurisdiction. In May, 1786, her legislature modified the terms of the original offer, in accordance with which her delegates in Congress executed a deed of cession, September 13, 1786. The next day Congress, in order to complete the title of the United States to the Northwest Territory, accepted the cession of Connecticut, notwithstanding the reservation by which that State sought to convert the surrender of her abstract claims into a real establishment of possession. Reserving both soil and jurisdiction to the strip of land about 120 miles long lying south of Lake Erie, she surrendered the rest of the territory to the United States. Thus she was the only state that gained possession of land by making cession to the United States. After granting a large portion of this reserve to her citizens, and selling the remainder for the benefit of her school fund, she ceded jurisdiction to the United States, May 30, 1800.
The title to the Northwest Territory being now freed from all claimants, the pressure was directed against the Carolinas and Georgia. It is not surprising that Georgia should cling to her western territory with more tenacity and yield it with more reluctance than any of her sister States. Separated from it by no mountain barriers, and lying in immediate contact, these western possessions seemed more a part of herself, and no adverse interests urged her few western settlers to demand a separation.