between Spain and England broke out in 1739, and Georgia, as the frontier colony, contiguous to the far older and stronger Spanish settlement of East Florida, was peculiarly exposed to its ravages. Oglethorpe, at the head of the South Carolina and Georgia militia, made an attempt on Saint Augustine, which miscarried; and this, in 1742, was retaliated by a much stronger Spanish expedition, which took Fort St. Simon, on the Altamaha, and might easily have subdued the whole colony, but it was alarmed and repelled by a stratagem of his conception. Oglethorpe soon after returned to England; the trustees finally surrendered their charter to the Crown; and in 1752 Georgia became a royal colony, whereby its inhabitants were enabled to gratify, without restraint, their longing for Slavery and Rum.

"The struggle of Oglethorpe in Georgia was aided by the presence, counsels, and active sympathy, of the famous John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, whose pungent description of Slavery as 'the sum of all villainies,' was based on personal observation and experience during his sojourn in these colonies."

CHAPTER II

PUBLIC LANDS

The Land Question in the Controversy over Colonial Rights-In the Confederation-Cession of State Lands to the Union-Organization of the Northwest Territory-Control of Congress over the Territories-System of Public Land Sales-Opposition of Senator Thomas H. Benton [Mo.]-Sketch of Benton-His Speech, "Free Land the Cure of Poverty"-Debate between Webster and Hayne on Revenue from Public Lands (Foot Resolution)-Representative Andrew Johnson [Tenn.] Proposes Homestead Bill-Debate on the Bill: in Favor, Mr. Johnson, John L. Dawson [Pa.], Galusha A. Grow [Pa.], Joseph R. Chandler [Pa.], Charles Skelton [N. J.], Joseph Cable [O.], and Cyrus L. Dunham [Ind.]; Opposed, Thomas J. D. Fuller [Me.] and Richard I. Bowie [Md.],—Sketches of Debaters-Bill Passed in 1862.

As

S we have seen, the land question was fundamental to the dispute between America and Great Britain over colonial rights, the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1768 protesting against the Townshend taxes and their enforcing acts as violative of the original contract between the Crown and the settlers that "if these adventurers, at their own cost and the hazard of their lives would purchase a new world and thereby enlarge the King's dominions, they should enjoy all the rights of "His Majesty's subjects within the realm" including freedom from taxation in which they had no voice.1

■ Volume I., p. 59.

I

In order to bring the colonists to terms the British government restricted the right of the colonists to "the use of the earth" by prohibiting their fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. It also made it difficult to procure grants of the crown lands; this Burke represented as a grievous invasion of the natural and divine right of man to "occupy and replenish the earth."" This action of the British government Thomas Jefferson made a chief reason for separation from the mother country, charging that the King had "endeavored to prevent the population of these States" by restricting the laws for naturalization, refusing to pass others to encourage migration hither, "and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands."

The Land Question in the Confederation. The land question played an even more important part in the Union of the States under the Articles of Confederation. As we have seen, it was by the advice of Dr. John Witherspoon that the value of landed property was adopted as a standard in apportioning the contributions of the States to the Federal treasury,3 and it was only through his error in not excluding therefrom the value of improvements (labor products) that assessment was made difficult, so that the standard was changed to population, with the result that, after a bitter sectional controversy over the counting of slaves, a compromise was reached by reckoning five slaves as three freemen, which method being also adopted in apportioning Representatives under the Constitution caused the recognition of slavery in our national charter, and so made its abolition a political issue requiring the arbitrament of war, instead of a • Volume I., p. 109.

* See Volume I., p. 100. 3 See Volume I., p. 169.

merely economic one, capable of settlement by compensation. Pelatiah Webster in his Dissertation on the Constitution (1783), proposed the value of land alone as a natural and just standard of determining contributions to public revenue, in that this value was created by population."

The disposition of the vacant and unpatented western lands was also a leading subject of controversy in Congress during the deliberations over the Articles of Confederation. It was proposed in 1777 that Congress should fix the western bounds of each State, and lay out the lands beyond such bounds into new States. Maryland voted for this; New Jersey was divided on the proposition, and the other States were opposed to it. Maryland continued her contention in 1778, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Delaware voting with her; Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia voting against the proposal, with New York divided, and North Carolina and New Hampshire, being unrepresented, not voting.

In 1779 the Articles of Confederation were ratified by all the States except Maryland, who insisted on an amendment thereto securing the western lands for the benefit of all the States in common. As we have seen, 2 New York, with claims to western lands bordering on Lake Erie, patriotically led the way to a complete federation of the States by empowering her delegates, in 1780, to permit Congress to fix her western boundary, and take over the lands thus excluded "for the use and benefit of the United States . . . . and for no other use or purpose whatever." Congress recommended similar action to the other States with western lands, • Volume I., p. 176.

1 See Volume I., p. 191.

2

and, in compliance, Virginia, on January 2, 1781, agreed to cede to the United States all her claim to lands northwest of the Ohio. On March 1, Maryland ratified the Articles of Confederation, thus completing the Union.

The Northwest Territory. New York formally ceded the lands west of her present boundary to the United States in 1781. Virginia consummated her cession in 1784; Massachusetts ceded her claim to lands west of New York in 1785; Connecticut, her claim to lands in the same region in 1786. Virginia and Connecticut, however, reserved for special purposes, such as pensions to soldiers, certain lands, the former State retaining a considerable area in what is now southern Ohio, which was known as the Virginia Military District, and the latter State retaining 3,250,000 acres in northeastern Ohio known as the Western Reserve.

At the time of Virginia's cession (March 1, 1784), Thomas Jefferson, as chairman of a committee on organization of the territory, reported a temporary plan of government. Jefferson's scheme contemplated dividing the territory into nine States, Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Mesopotamia, Illinoia, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia, bounded by parallels of latitude two degrees apart and two meridians of longitude drawn through the mouth of the Kanawha and the falls of the Ohio. The plan provided that the territory should have "a republican form of government" and that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime," should exist in these States after 1800. This proposition was negatived by seven States on April 23.

Finally, on July 13, 1787, while the Constitutional Convention was in session, Congress organized the