Land Cessions by the Claimant States.

New York’s claim was the least defensible of all, but, on the other hand, New York led the way in vesting whatever title she might have in the Federal Government.  In 1780 she gave proof of the growth of the national idea among her citizens by abandoning all her claim to western lands in favor of the Union.  Congress used this surrender as an argument by which to move the other States to action.  It issued an earnest appeal to them to follow New York’s example without regard to the value of their titles, so that the Federal Union might be put on a firm basis.  Congress did not discuss its own rights, nor the rights of the States; it simply asked that the cessions be made as a matter of expediency and patriotism; and announced that the policy of the Government would be to divide this new territory into districts of suitable size, which should be admitted as States as soon as they became well settled.  This last proposition was important, as it outlined the future policy of the Government, which was to admit the new communities as States, with all the rights of the old States, instead of treating them as subordinate and dependent, after the manner of the European colonial systems.

Maryland then joined the Confederation, in 1781.  Virginia and Connecticut had offered to cede their claims but under such conditions that it was impossible to close with the offers.  Congress accepted the New York cession gratefully, with an eye to the effect on the other States; but for some time no progress was made in the negotiations with the latter.  Finally, early in 1784, the bargain with Virginia was consummated.  She ceded to Congress her rights to the territory northwest of the Ohio, except a certain amount retained as a military reserve for the use of her soldiers, while Congress tacitly agreed not to question her right to Kentucky.  A year later Massachusetts followed suit, and ceded to Congress her title to all the lands lying west of the present western boundary of New York State.  Finally, in 1786, a similar cession was made by Connecticut.  But Connecticut’s action was not much more patriotic or less selfish than Georgia’s.  Throughout the controversy she showed a keen desire to extract from Congress all that could possibly be obtained, and to delay action as long as might be; though, like Georgia, Connecticut could by rights claim nothing that was not in reality obtained for the Union by the Union itself.  She made her grant conditionally upon being allowed to reserve for her own profit about five thousand square miles in what is now northern Ohio.  This tract was afterwards known as the Western Reserve.  Congress was very reluctant to accept such a cession, with its greedy offset, but there was no wise alternative, and the bargain was finally struck.