84 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



In 1780 New York authorized the limitation of her western 

 boundaries and the cession of her vacant lands to the United 

 States. " She ceased to use the language of royal grants and 

 discarded the principle of succession. She came forth from 

 among her parchments into the forum of conscience in presence 

 of the whole American people, and recognizing the justice of 

 their claim to territories gained by their common efforts, to 

 secure the inestimable blessing of union, for their good and for 

 her own, she submitted to the national will the determination 

 of her western boundaries, and devoted to the national benefit 

 her vast claims to unoccupied territories." 



Nor can we deny to all the states a share in the honor of a 

 wise and noble compromise. For the consummation of the 

 Union the smaller states intrusted their liberties to the keeping 

 of the greater, and the greater, in a spirit of generosity, finally 

 bequeathed their large inheritance to the common good, and 

 shared the luster of a brilliant destiny with new stars yet to rise 

 in the firmament of liberty. Special praise should be accorded 

 to Virginia, for " in her great cession of the territory northwest 

 of the Ohio, the greatest cession of territory in the history of the 

 world ever voluntarily made by a powerful state able to defend 

 it, she invited the other states to follow her example, and thus 

 made possible the local governments and magical development 

 of the West, while she averted the jealousy, and possibly the 

 anarchy and bloodshed, that might have followed the assertion 

 of her claims." 



J II. THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN 



When the long struggle for independence was concluded, it 

 was not to be doubted that the young Republic would hold out 

 with stubborn insistence for the recognition of its sovereignty 

 over the territory east of the Mississippi. After the battles of 

 the war, which ended with Yorktown, came the battles of diplo- 

 macy, which were to be fought with an equal skill and daring. 

 All the glory and pride of colonial supremac}^ which had ani- 

 mated Great Britain when the Treaty of Paris was made with 

 the French were now to be disputed by the colonies themselves. 



Instructed to claim the whole of the territory south of the 

 St Lawrence and east of the Mississippi, Franklin proposed, in 

 addition, that England should voluntarily cede Canada, in order 

 that its lands might be sold to raise a fund for the compensation 

 of Americans whose property had been destro} r ed ; to which Lord 



