CESSIONS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN TERRITORY.

We have thus far noticed the cessions of the territory northwest of the Ohio River, as they are important not only in the history of the Public Domain, but also in the history of American constitutional development. The subject of land-cessions by the States, however, will not have been completely treated without some notice of the cession of territory southeast of the Ohio. But there is nothing particularly interesting in the cessions made by the three Southern States. The facts can be stated in a few words.

On March 8, 1787, South Carolina offered to Congress to cede her Western claim, and Congress accepted the cession on August 9, 1787. The territory ceded by South Carolina is a narrow strip of land which extends from the northwestern boundary of South Carolina to the Mississippi, and which now forms the extreme northern portion of the States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It contains an area of 4,900 square miles.1

The next Southern State that ceded her territory was North Carolina. Her cession was accepted by Congress on April 2, 1790. The cession constituted the present State of Tennessee. In accepting the cession offered by North Carolina, Congress made a poor bargain. In the deed of cession North Carolina stated certain conditions by which Congress had to satisfy a number of claims before it should make any disposition of the ceded lands. It proved afterward that Congress could hardly make any disposition whatever of the acquired land, for the claims were even in excess of lands whose Indian title had been extinguished by that State. Being thus covered by reservations, the cession made by North Carolina was only nominal, and no public lands were created out of the ceded territory.

The last State that made cession of her Western lands was Georgia. This State made her first movement toward cession

'Public Domain, 76.

on February 5, 1788, but her cession was not accepted by Congress. Here, for the first time in the history of the Land Cession, we meet with conflicting claims on the part of the National and of the State Government. The cession as proposed by Georgia in 1788 included the territory lying between 31° and 32° 30' north latitude. The eastern boundary-line began with the western extremity of Georgia, and the western limit was the Mississippi River, as in the case of other State claims. This territory was in the province of British West Florida, which was ceded by Great Britain to the United States in 1783. Consequently, the United States claimed the right of jurisdiction over this territory.

In the meantime the Legislature of Georgia sold 13,500,000 acres of lands in the Mississippi Territory to certain Yazoo Companies. The lands thus sold were not within the limits of the State of Georgia, but in the territory whose title belonged to the United States according to the treaty of 1783. The Yazoo Companies sold out their claims to the lands, and various new companies were organized under such sales. In February, 1796, the Legislature of Georgia passed an act and annulled the sale of the Yazoo Companies to several land companies for the lands west of the river Chattahoochee. Thus arose the litigation for lands in Georgia.

On April 7, 1798, Congress passed an act authorizing the President to appoint three commissioners to settle the conflicting claims of the United States, and to receive the cession of Georgia. The United States Commissioners and the Commissioners of Georgia came finally to an agreement, and on April 24, 1802, Georgia ceded her entire Western claims. The ceded territory was estimated at 88,578 square miles. The Georgian cession cost the United States in all about $6,200,000, as it was encumbered with various land claims.

The following table shows the dates and area of cessions by the States:

Table II. shows where the ceded lands are now located:

We have now come to the second great acquisition of territory by the United States-viz.:

THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.

We have seen that the public lands were created by cessions from the States, but we must keep in mind that the creation of the public lands was not accompanied by an increase of area in national domain, for the cessions were

within the national domain and of definite extent and character. The transaction was within one household, and the transfer of ownership was from members of the same household to a representative head of all. The purchase of Louisiana was an international transaction. It was a dealing with foreign soil belonging to a foreign sovereign. It was an acquisition that was accompanied by a vast increase of area in national as well as in public domain. The whole acquisition became public lands, out of which eleven commonwealths and six territories have already sprung.' The new territory was no less than eleven hundred and eighty thousand square miles, being five times greater than the area of France.

Indeed, the purchase of Louisiana was the most important acquisition the United States has ever made. The possession of a vast empire west of the Mississippi, and the advantages of free, untrammeled river navigation, have made the United States a truly great power in the world. Supposing France or Spain had control of the great central valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. In the southeast lies New Orleans, a key to the great water-course to which the United States could not have had access. Far up along the Pacific Coast lie now the Territory of Washington and the State of Oregon, whose land once belonged to the province of Louisiana. A little lower down the coast there is the State of California, with its rich gold-mines and its capacious harbor. Supposing a great Latin empire had arisen in this province of Louisiana. California, with its gold-mines; Nevada and Colorado, with their silver; New Mexico and Texas with their agricultural resources, would not now belong to the United States. The great West, with all its natural wealth and resources, would now be subject to European powers. The territory back of the Alleghanies and east of the Mississippi, which was the first curtailment of French claims, might, in the chances of war and politics, have undergone a retroces

'Public Domain, 105.

sion to France or a total loss to Spain, and the United States have remained pent up, confined along Atlantic borders. The United States, of such a character, would have been entirely different from the United States of to-day. Good policy, prudential measures, and the final purchase of Louisiana, made the United States the master of the best portions of the New World. Let us now briefly review the history of the purchase of Louisiana by the United States.

HISTORY OF SETTLEMENT IN LOUISIANA.

The name Louisiana was originally applied to a vast region of an unknown extent back of the Alleghany Mountains, and along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Of indefinite and ambiguous character, French Louisiana was much like the English Virginia, and, like the latter, it had to undergo several curtailments, until it assumed a definite historical character.

In 1683, La Salle christened the country in honor of Louis XIV. The French cavalier performed a baptismal duty similar to that discharged by the English courtier, Sir Walter Raleigh, when he christened Virginia in honor of the virgin queen Elizabeth. Both adventurers failed, however, in their colonial enterprise. La Salle met with scarcely a better fate than the luckless Raleigh, for he was shot by one of his own men on a relief expedition to Canada. The task of first organizing Louisiana for economic purposes fell upon Sieur Antoine Crozat; and Louis XIV. granted a charter for commercial privileges in Louisiana. The charter was surrendered by Crozat in 1717, and in the same year it was granted to the "Company of the West."

The French domination in Louisiana lasted till November 3, 1762, when it was ceded to Spain. On February 10, 1763, France and Spain ceded all their possessions in North

'Historical Collections of Louisiana, III, 38.

2 Ibid. 49.