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MUTINEERS PARDONED.

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confer with the Executive authority of Pennsylvania, and if there was no satisfactory ground for expecting adequate and prompt exertions to support the dignity of the Federal Government, that the President be directed to summon Congress to meet at Trenton or Princeton: that the Secretary of War communicate to the Commanderin-chief the disposition of the said troops, that he may adopt measures for suppressing all disturbance.

As soon as it was known that the mutineers were on their way from Lancaster to Philadelphia, a committee of Congress appointed for that purpose instructed Major Jackson to endeavor to prevail on them to return, and to point out to them the impropriety of their conduct, and the danger they incurred: that if they persisted in coming to Philadelphia, the earliest notice of their purpose should be given.

The committee appointed to confer with the Executive of Pennsylvania-consisting of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Ellsworth-having had a conference with the Executive Council, learnt from them that the militia of the State were not disposed to act against the mutineers, and were, moreover, ill provided for service. The Executive refused to give their answer in writing, that not being, they alleged, their ordinary practice.

In this state of things, the committee advised the President to summon Congress to meet at Princeton or Trenton.

The Commander-in-chief immediately ordered General Howe, with fifteen hundred men, to Philadelphia, to suppress the mutiny. When Howe arrived, some of the mutineers had been arrested for trial by a court-martial. They were found guilty, but were subsequently pardoned.

The public authorities of New Jersey professed themselves ready to support the authority of Congress, and VOL. I. - 20

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PERMANENT SEAT OF CONGRESS.

[CHAP. IV.

the Faculty of Princeton College offered it the use of the College for their deliberations. The people of Trenton made a similar tender of their services in support of the authority of Congress, for which they also received the thanks of that body. It met at Princeton in June.

It was in consequence of the insult from those mutineers, that Congress declared it expedient to provide a place for their meeting, which should be under their exclusive control. As soon as this determination was known, an emulation arose among the Middle States to provide a permanent seat for that body within their respective territories; and offers were made from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, to cede a district sufficiently large for that purpose. This subject long afterwards excited a lively interest in the contending States, and the subject continued undecided until after the new Constitution went into operation, when it was settled by compromise.

The Legislature of Pennsylvania, in August, passed unanimous resolutions, inviting Congress to return to Philadelphia, and there continue until they had determined on the place of their permanent residence; assuring them of adequate support and protection, and that, being disposed to render the permanent residence of Congress in the State commodious and agreeable, they requested that body to define what jurisdiction they deemed necessary to be vested in Congress. To this application Congress made no formal reply.

If the unsatisfied claims of the army threatened to be a source of civil strife, the unsettled western lands proved to be a source of more protracted discordance among the States. To these dissensions we will now advert. We shall more highly estimate the value of our political union

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UNSETTLED WESTERN LANDS.

307

by adverting to the shallows and straits it had to pass, before it reached its present haven of safety.

All of these lands, to the Mississippi, were claimed by the different States to which they were severally attached, under their respective royal charters; and Virginia, moreover, claimed the country between the Ohio, the Lakes, and the Mississippi also by right of conquest, in the expedition conducted by George Rogers Clarke, in the year 1779.

The States which asserted claims to these unsettled lands were Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Those, whose limits being more strictly defined, had no such claims, were New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

In those early charters which extended the territory of the grantees to the Pacific Ocean, the grants were considered to confer only a right of jurisdiction, and of preemption from the Indians, and not the right of soil, which was supposed to remain in the Indians, the original proprietors and present occupants; and the right of purchasing from them was held to belong exclusively to the sovereign, who sometimes made special cessions of the power, and sometimes exercised it himself, and then made grants, in small portions, of the soil thus purchased, by the way of public bounty, or by a regular system of sale.

As soon as the States had a prospect of independence, this diversity of circumstances gave rise to a diversity of views and interests with regard to these unsettled and ungranted lands; and while some of them maintained that the right to the pre-emption of these lands having been vested in the British Crown, they would, on a successful issue of the contest, be the common property of

308

CLAIMS TO WESTERN LANDS.

[CHAP. IV.

all; the other States within whose chartered limits such lands lay, considered that the right to pre-emption being a consequence of the right of sovereignty and jurisdiction, such right of pre-emption, as well as every other sovereign right, would pass to them severally by their independence.

The claim asserted by Virginia, comprehending the present States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, being so much greater than the claims of all the other States, were chiefly regarded in this controversy; and one of the clauses in the articles of Confederation, as proposed in 1777, having provided that "no State should be deprived of territory for the United States, this provision was held to sanction the claims of the States" to their western lands, and was so interpreted by the votes of a majority. This diversity of interests among the States therefore created an impediment to the adoption of the articles of Confederation.

In June, 1778, it was proposed to give the United States power to appoint Commissioners to determine the boundaries of those States which claimed to the Pacific, and only the five States of Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland voted for it. A further modification was subsequently proposed, and in like manner rejected.

But the States which claimed these lands were subsequently induced to cede them, for the sake of effecting the adoption of the articles of Confederation by all the States; and the cession was the more readily made, because it was foreseen that the ceding States could not permanently or very long retain jurisdiction over those portions of their respective territories which were at once at a great distance from the seat of government, and were large enough to become States themselves. The

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CLAIMS OF VIRGINIA OPPOSED.

309

separation of Vermont from New York and New Hampshire was already manifest, and that of Kentucky from Virginia, and of Tennessee from North Carolina, soon after indicated.

The State of Maryland, in December, 1778, aware of the claims of Virginia, urged with great earnestness, in the instructions to her Delegates in Congress, that such claim was not only contrary to the principles of justice, but would be dangerous to the independence and welfare of Maryland. This paper was followed by a remonstrance on the part of Virginia, and a vindication of her rights.

In the following year, the petition of a company of land speculators, called the Vandalia Company, stated that they had obtained a grant of lands from the Crown, in 1768, in the country north-west of the Ohio, which extinguished all claims of Virginia to the said lands; yet that State had taken steps to dispose of those lands. They ask the interposition of Congress, against which interposition Virginia strongly remonstrated.

In February, 1780, the State of New York, for the avowed purpose of removing objections to the Confederation, empowered her Delegates to restrict her western boundaries by such lines as they should deem expedient, both as to jurisdiction and right of soil; and that the land thus ceded should enure to the benefit of the United States.

This act of the New York Legislature, the instructions of Maryland to her Delegates, and the remonstrance of Virginia, were all referred to a committee of Congress, whose report was adopted the sixth of September of that year. The committee state that the conflicting views of Maryland and Virginia involve questions, of which it was thought prudent to decline the discussion, when the