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Show STATE CESSIONS OF WESTERN LAND CLAIMS 51 the right of Congress to deal with the lands or the land companies that claimed them. Many prominent men of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania had invested in these land companies. It has been maintained that it was the conflicting interests of these speculators that motivated the policy of the states in the Continental Congress rather than the fear of aggression by the large states against the small states. Perhaps it was as much intercompany rivalry as interstate rivalry that motivated them.5 In addition to the demands of the small states and the rivalry of the land companies, there were other pressures for the surrender of the western land claims. The Continental Congress was in sore need of money for which the western lands offered the best hope at the time. Also, the Congress had promised land bounties to enlisted men and officers and bounties of 50 acres to Hessian and other foreign mercenaries in the British Army who would desert. It had also promised to reward "amply" officers and soldiers of the British Army who would desert.6 Thomas Jefferson's position on the western land claims reflects his abhorrence of speculators and is consistent with his belief that the public lands should be made available in small tracts to actual settlers. He felt the "interests of the pioneers could be better safeguarded by states than by Congress which seemed more susceptible to the pressure of speculative land companies." It was, therefore, not parochialism that led him to favor Virginia's withholding her western lands until he could be assured that the rights of small settlers would be protected, as he had tried to protect them in Kentucky.7 5 Thomas P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution (New York, 1937), esp. pp. 189 ff.; Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison, Wis., 1940), pp. 198 ff. 'Ford, Journals, Aug. 14, 1776, V, 665 and April 29, 1778, X, 406. 7 Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian (Vol. 1 of Jefferson and His Times, [Boston, 1948]), pp. 238, 244, 251 ff.; 412 ff. The sharpness of feeling expressed by Maryland and New Jersey over the "selfishness" of the states with western land claims and the equally sharp remonstrance from Virginia led Congress to adopt on September 6, 1780, a mollifying resolution in which it pressed for "a liberal surrender" of the western lands to remove the only obstacle to the final ratification of the Articles of Confederation, and at the same time it "earnestly requested" the Legislature of Maryland to authorize ratification.8 A month later Congress drafted and adopted a general statement indicating the policy it would follow in the administration of any lands ceded to it. The lands were to be "disposed of for the common benefit of the United States," were to be "settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become members of the Federal Union, and shall have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other States. . . ." The lands were to "be granted and settled at such times and under such regulations as shall hereafter be agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled. . . ."9 This statement of policy, adopted before the United States had any public lands and before the Articles of Confederation were ratified and in force, is significant for its assumption of authority by the Congress. The Articles themselves did not give the Confederation power to receive lands from the states, to manage and dispose of them, nor to institute governments and make laws for their inhabitants. State Cessions (The reader is referred to the map, Chapter V). Maryland was finally brought to accede to the Articles of Confederation in 1781 by the threat that the British success in the South posed and by an indication that Vir- 8 Ford, Journals, XVII, 806-807. 9 Ford, Journals, XVIII, 915. |