spoliation. Since the United States never appeared as a claimant, the consideration of such claims might be dismissed, were it not for the fact that the persistence with which they were urged upon Congress by outside parties has made the controversy historic, and led to important results. It will, therefore, be necessary at the proper place to trace the origin, progress and final defeat of an effort which, if it had been successful, would either have prevented the Union or would have engrafted upon its fundamental law a pernicious and fatal doctrine.
The charter claimants were six in number: Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, the two Carolinas and Georgia. Their several charters constituted the only legal and valid titles to any portion of this western country. Their conduct was eminently wise and patriotic through the whole controversy. They engaged in no unseemly squabbles, and met with dignity the noise that was made by those who had neither legal title nor equitable rights. They ended the controversy by the patriotic cession of the whole country to the United States.
Virginia claimed the whole territory from her southern boundary line extending to the Mississippi and up north ward to the Great Lakes, including Kentucky and all the country which afterward became the Northwest Territory. This claim was based upon her charter of 1609, and up held by actual possession and by civil and military occupation. She remained in actual possession until the country was ceded to the United States. Her claim was undisputed by any charter claimant as far north as the 4ist parallel.
Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed that their charters extended westward to the Mississippi, covering the narrow belts running across the territory in possession of Virginia, and embraced in the westward extension of their respective northern and southern boundary lines. Neither of these States had ever occupied any portion of the territory up to the time of the cessions, and neither
