St. Clair and Wayne 341 



X 



ity there was in the titles of Massachusetts and Con 

 necticut came from the existence and actions of the 

 Federal Union. 12 



All the States that did not claim lands beyond 

 the mountains were strenuous in belittling the claims 

 of those that did, and insisted that the title to the 

 Western territory should be vested in the Union. 

 Not even the danger from the British armies could 

 keep this question in abeyance, and while the war was 

 at its height the States were engaged in bitter wran 

 gles over the subject; for the weakness of the Federal 

 tie rendered it always probable that the different 

 members of the Union would sulk or quarrel with 

 one another rather than oppose an energetic resist 

 ance to the foreign foe. At different times differ 

 ent non-claimant States took the lead in pushing 

 the various schemes for nationalizing the Western 

 lands; but Maryland was the first to take action 



" For this Northwestern history see "The Life, Journal, 

 and Correspondence of Manasseh Cutler," by Wm. Parker 

 Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler; "The St. Clair Papers," by 

 W. H. Smith; "The Old Northwest," by B. A. Hinsdale; 

 "Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions," by Herbert 

 Adams. See also Donaldson's "Public Domain," Hildreth's 

 "History of Washington County," and the various articles 

 by Poole and others. In Prof. Hinsdale's excellent book, on 

 p. 200, is a map of the Territory of the Thirteen Original 

 States in 1783. This map is accurate enough for Virginia 

 and North Carolina; but the lands in the West put down as 

 belonging to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia, did 

 not really belong to them at all in 1783; they were held by 

 the British and Spaniards, and were ultimately surrendered 

 to the United States, not to individual States. These States 

 did not surrender the land- they merely surrendered a dis 

 puted title to the lands. 



