Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/157

Rh The following conclusions seem to be irresistible:

First.—The extension of the original United States beyond the Alleghany mountains, in opposition to the claims of Great Britain and the active efforts of France and Spain, was due alone to the titles of the charter claimant States, supported by an actual adverse possession on the part of Virginia and North Carolina.

Second.—Virginia, by expelling the British from the country north of the Ohio, by her expedition under George Rogers Clarke, and by taking military possession of the country, not only maintained her own charter claims, but also supplied the United States with the argument of uti possidetis, which successfully met the claims of Great Britain under the Quebec Act.

Third.—The whole country owes a debt of gratitude to all the charter claimants for ceding the only valid titles to this immense territory, and for their firmness and wisdom in resisting and defeating the effort to engraft on the fundamental law the dangerous principle that Congress should have power to abridge the limits of the States, invade their jurisdiction and sequester their territory.

Fourth.—The territory ceded by all charter claimants amounted in area to 404,955.91 square miles, all of which was embraced in the cessions of the four Southern States, Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia. The claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut, extending in square miles. Thus, the undisputed area of the cessions by the Southern States amounted to 310,640 square miles. If the area of Kentucky be added, which was erected into a State in 1792, before the completion of the western cessions, the undisputed contribution of the South was 361,040 square miles. The total contribution of the South, disputed and undisputed, including Kentucky, was 445,355.91 square miles.

The cessions of all other charter claimants amounted