The waste lands within the United States constituted one of the early obstacles to the organization of any government for the protection of their common interests.  In October, 1777, while Congress were framing the Articles of Confederation, a proposition was made to amend them to the following effect, viz: 

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, and lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained into separate and independent States from time to time as the numbers and circumstances of the people thereof may require.

It was, however, rejected, Maryland only voting for it, and so difficult did the subject appear that the patriots of that body agreed to waive it in the Articles of Confederation and leave it for future settlement.

On the submission of the Articles to the several State legislatures for ratification the most formidable objection was found to be in this subject of the waste lands.  Maryland, Rhode Island, and New Jersey instructed their delegates in Congress to move amendments to them providing that the waste or Crown lands should be considered the common property of the United States, but they were rejected.  All the States except Maryland acceded to the Articles, notwithstanding some of them did so with the reservation that their claim to those lands as common property was not thereby abandoned.

On the sole ground that no declaration to that effect was contained in the Articles, Maryland withheld her assent, and in May, 1779, embodied her objections in the form of instructions to her delegates, which were entered upon the Journals of Congress.  The following extracts are from that document, viz: 

Is it possible that those States who are ambitiously grasping at territories to which in our judgment they have not the least shadow of exclusive right will use with greater moderation the increase of wealth and power derived from those territories when acquired than what they have displayed in their endeavors to acquire them? ...

We are convinced policy and justice require that a country unsettled at the commencement of this war, claimed by the British Crown and ceded to it by the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common enemy by the blood and treasure of the thirteen States, should be considered as a common property, subject to be parceled out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent governments, in such manner and at such times as the wisdom of that assembly shall hereafter direct. ...

Virginia proceeded to open a land office for the sale of her Western lands, which produced such excitement as to induce Congress, in October, 1779, to interpose and earnestly recommend to “the said State and all States similarly circumstanced to forbear settling or issuing warrants for such unappropriated lands, or granting the same, during the continuance of the present war.”