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Show GRANTS TO STATES ON ADMISSION TO UNION 287 American history when the Supreme Court, speaking only for a minority of judges, struck down the occupancy laws of Kentucky because they were held to be in violation of the compact and of Virginia law. Kentucky and Virginia having ratified the compact and Kentucky in its 10th convention having drafted a constitution, Congress consented that it should be "formed into a new state separate from and independent of" Virginia and be admitted as "a new and entire member." Kentucky thereby entered the Union on June 1, 1792, not under any Federal limitations but under the strict limitations of her compact with Virginia.6 Vermont and Kentucky when admitted into the Union had retained full ownership of any public lands remaining ungranted and, conversely, the United States had no land within them. Tennessee Tennessee, the third state to gain admission, was in a different situation, however, when it sought entrance into the Union. North Carolina had ceded its vacant western lands to the Federal government in 1790; notwithstanding this, it had continued to make grants west of the mountains, contrary to the rights of the United States and to the wishes of the people in what was to be Tennessee. According to the terms of the cession the Federal government owned the vacant land, and Tennessee was therefore a public land state like the other 30 states to be created out of the public domain. However, when Congress moved to admit Tennessee as a state "on an equal footing with the original states, in all respects, whatever" it made no mention of its ownership of the public lands, as it was to do in all subsequent 6 Act of Feb. 4, 1791, I Stat., 189; Paul W. Gates, "Tenants of the Log Cabin," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLIX (June 1953), 19 ff.; Thomas D. Clark, History of Kentucky (New York, 1937), pp. 110 ff. enabling acts except those applying to Maine, Texas, West Virginia, and Hawaii. Because of this omission, Tennessee in 1799 declared that Congress had no claim on her vacant lands. The new state proceeded to create a land office and to provide for the granting of land titles, but may have intended such action to advance its bargaining position vis-a-vis the Federal government. When Congress refused to recognize the state's claim to the vacant land, it suspended the making of such grants. Years of wrangling between North Carolina and Tennessee over the right of the former to make grants in the latter culminated in a compact in 1806 between the two states which was ratified by them both and by the Federal government. It provided for a congressional reservation in western Tennessee where some land had already been granted by North Carolina. The reservation was to be subject to disposal by the Federal government but Tennessee was to have full power to make grants of all vacant land elsewhere in the state. If there was not sufficient land left in the region over which Tennessee had the power of disposal to meet its many promises of land, Congress agreed to provide for that need within the reservation. The compact also provided that Tennessee's rights, title, and claim to the lands in the reservation should cease, and that the lands in it should be wholly exempt from taxes while held by the United States and for 5 years after sale. Tennessee agreed to appropriate 100,000 acres east of the reservation for two colleges, 100,000 acres for the use of academies to be established, one in each county, and 640 acres, in every 6-mile square area, where possible, for public schools. Thus in 1806 Congress enacted restrictions on Tennessee that were later to be written into the enabling acts of other public land states. The restrictions, however, were to have little importance, for the lands in the reservation never were actually managed, surveyed, or granted by the United States. The final solution to the vexing question of Federal lands |