ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 83 



and the unlimited expansion of others. It was indeed no imagi- 

 nary danger, for by offering free lands to settlers the larger states 

 could easily depopulate the smaller. Silas Deane, who had been 

 sent as commissioner to France, had suggested that the North- 

 west Territory was " a resource amply adequate, under proper 

 regulations, for defraying the whole expense of the war." When, 

 therefore, in September, 1776, a resolution of Congress offered a 

 bounty of land to soldiers enlisting for the war, Maryland, seeing 

 that Congress had no land to give and she herself none to contrib- 

 ute, perceived that the states without land would be compelled to 

 buy it of those whose stock was unbounded and at their own 

 price, thus impoverishing themselves and enriching their rivals. 



Virginia in her constitution maintained her charter claims, 

 which if allowed would have made her a mighty empire, greater 

 when developed than all the other states combined. On the 

 30th of October, 1776, Maryland passed a resolution asserting 

 that Virginia's title had "no foundation in justice, and that if 

 the same or any like claim is admitted, the freedom of the 

 smaller states and the liberties of America may be thereby 

 greatly endangered." and expressed the conviction that, the 

 dominion over those lands having been established by the blood 

 and treasure of the United States, " such lands ought to be con- 

 sidered a common stock, to be parceled out at proper times into 

 convenient, free, and independent governments." 



Thus by the foresight of Maryland, to which all honor will be 

 forever due, was first posed the momentous question upon 

 whose decision hung the whole harmonious system of govern- 

 ment which we now enjoy. A year later, and a month before 

 the Articles of Confederation were proposed for ratification, it 

 was moved in Congress " that the United States in Congress 

 assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power to 

 ascertain and fix the western boundary of such states as claim 

 to the Mississippi or South Sea (meaning the Pacific), and shall 

 lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained into sepa- 

 rate and independent states from time to time as the numbers 

 and circumstances of the people may require." Only Mary- 

 land, battling for this great and fruitful idea and appealing to 

 the wisdom of the people as against the ambition and avarice 

 of the states, voted in the affirmative; but a principle had been 

 laid down whose wisdom was eventually to be perceived by all — 

 a principle which has proved the keystone of the Union, sup- 

 porting the splendid arch upon which our local liberties and 

 national power now rest. 



