Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/104

74 made any attempt to occupy it. Had either of them desired to test their claims, the tribunal was within easy reach, to which Georgia and South Carolina referred their territorial dispute—the tribunal provided under the ninth article of the confederation. There was no necessity, however, as they all contemplated ceding their claims to the United States.

North Carolina, alone, possessed an undisputed claim. Her western territory was co-extensive with the present State of Tennessee.

A conflict of title between South Carolina and Georgia was submitted to Congress under the ninth article of the confederation, but was settled by friendly compromise before the court appointed by Congress was ready to be gin the trial. It was decided that a strip about twelve miles wide, extending from the present limits of the State westward to the Mississippi, and running along the southern border of Tennessee, should belong to South Carolina. All south of this strip to the Florida line should belong to Georgia.

The second class of claimants, under alleged grants and purchases from the Indians, were the State of New York and several land companies. The claim of New York was vague and shadowy, covering a large and in definite tract of country without specified boundaries, and based upon no acknowledged principles of custom, law or equity. New York made skillful use of this claim, and did the only thing which it was possible to do with it, except to abandon it. She ceded it to the United States. The land companies, especially the Indiana and the Vandalia companies, proved to be arrogant, persistent and aggressive claimants. Hoping to realize immense profits from the lands which they had pretended to acquire for a trifle, they resorted to all the arts of the lobbyist. Having acquired an undue and sinister influence in Congress, they used it to promote discord, and even to imperil the Union. They were ultimately defeated, and their claims justly ignored.