Magazine of Western History. VOL. III. NOVEMBER, 1885. No. I. SOUTH CAROLINA CESSION. THERE are some events of history which possess but little historic importance, but for this very reason are invested with peculiar historic interest. Such incidents, either from the brief period of their existence, or from their failure to produce any marked results upon the general interests of communities, are soon lost to view amid the great and pregnant events which stand cut as the landmarks of a nation's history. When in after years these lesser facts are recalled to our notice by the researches of the historian or the antiquarian they strike us with surprise, and possess all the charms of novelty. To this class belongs the history of the narrow strip of land touching the southern boundary of North Carolina and Tennessee, and extending from South Carolina to the Mississippi river. This strip is about twelve miles wide and more than four hundred miles long, and was ceded by South Carolina to the United States on the ninth day of August, 1787. The inquirer, whose attention' has never before been especially drawn to the subject, is surprised to find that immediately touching the southern border of our state, South Carolina should ever have owned a territory of such eccentric dimensions and so peculiarly located. The circumstances connected with its cession to the United States recall a train of interesting associations dating from the settlement of the southern states to the years 1802 and 1804, when this strip was finally divided between Georgia and Mississippi territory, each receiving the portion immediately north of its own limits. To understand clearly the causes which led to the possession by South Carolina and the cession to the United States of this singular territory, it is necessary to glance briefly at that period of our history when the thirteen states after the surrender of Yorktown and the treaty of Paris, having secured their independence, were engaged in constructing a general government. One of the questions of the day most difficult of solution was the government of their western territory. The troubles of North Carolina in controlling her froward and precocious daughter, Tennessee, are familiar to us all. Similar difficulties were experienced by all the other states owning western territory. These difficulties were caused partly by the natural barriers of remoteness, inaccessibility, imperfect communications, and divergent interests; and partly by the independent and intractable character of the western settlers, who were restive under any restraints which appeared to be imposed by people at a distance. Domestic troubles were by no means the only ones. There was a strong pressure from without, and especially from the New England and middle states, to induce the great states of Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas to surrender their western territory. A glance at the map will show the grounds of their jealousy in entering into a union with these four states, who then owned more than three-fourths of all the territory ceded by Great Britain in the treaty of Paris. According to Mr. Anderson's History of the United States,' only six states, previous to 1781, had exactly defined boundaries, namely: New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennyslvania, Maryland and Delaware. The disputed claims to western territory, and their final adjustment, are all that is now important to consider. These claims, as is well known, were finally ceded to the United States by all claimants. How different might have been the fate of America, whether for better or for worse, had the four states held to their western lands with the tenacity usually shown by powerful communities! Virginia might now be extending from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from North Carolina to the lakes, embracing an area and numbering a population far overshadowing her sister states, truly the Old Dominion, instead of being shrunken up, as she now is, between the Alleghanies and the ocean, shorn of her lands, and fallen from the first to the tenth state in the Union. The Carolinas and Georgia might now be stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, powerful in lands, population and resources. Such might have been their fate had these states pursued a selfish policy. Such was the fear of the other nine states, who urged the western cessions, and who looked with just alarm upon a union with neighbors who might in a few years acquire, by the settlement of their western lands, such overpowering influence. Whether such unwieldy states could have held together, whether the same wonderful growth and the same healthy development could have been attained by the west under the management of the parent states, it is now idle to inquire. Let us trace briefly the pressure of public opinion, the political artifices, and the domestic difficulties which finally impelled the four great states to the voluntary surrender of the largest tract of land ever alienated in the history of the world by powerful communities without bloodshed. which deprived them of the intervening country. New York also claimed from the lakes to the Cumberland mountains, under certain alleged grants from the Indians. It is evident that these claims of New York were urged for the sole purpose of using them as a lever to compel the other states to abandon their claims to the northwestern territory. It is probable, moreover, that Massachusetts and Connecticut entertained no serious thought of acquiring possession of any portion of this territory, but used their claims as a lever to effect a cession from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, and for other political purposes. Hildreth, who cannot be accused of partiality to Virginia, says, in this connection: The first public movement in this direction was made in congress, in 1777, in the debate and preliminaries to the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. This contest was for the time ended by the refusal of Virginia to cede her western lands, and the refusal of Maryland to enter the confederation without it. Virginia claimed all of the vast territory northwest of the Ohio river, from her charter, from actual possession, and from the fact that the British were expelled from it by the expedition under George Rogers Clark, entirely composed of Virginia troops, and under Virginia authority, and after the refusal or failure of the United States to assist. will be remembered that the parliament her claims west of a line drawn through the west It of Great Britain had, in the beginning of the contest with her colonies, passed an act annexing all the territory northwest of the Ohio river to Canada. The expedition of George Rogers Clark prevented the policy of Great Britain from being successful in limiting the territory of the United States to the Ohio river. The claim of Virginia, however, was not undisputed. Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed that their original charter extended across the belt of this territory, respectively within the latitude of their northern and southern boundaries; and that although they had never exercised any jurisdiction, their rights had not been extinguished by the grants of the crown New York, whose claim was the vaguest and most shadowy, led the way by giving a discretionary power to her delegates in congress to cede that portion of ernmost extremity of Lake Ontario. This was in February, 1780, when the second effort was made to force a cession from the claimant states. Connecticut offered to cede her claims in October of the same year, retaining that portion since known as the Connecticut Reserve. The Virginia legislature, on December 30, 1780, made a cession of all claims northwest of the Ohio, but requiring as a condition a guarantee from the United States to the possession of Kentucky. The delegates from New York, who had been vested with discretionary power, made a deed on March 1, 1781, and on the same day the delegates of Maryland, who were authorized to do so, ratified the articles |