form, in which it was presented to them, at least so far as those objections can be gathered from the official acts of those states, or their delegates in congress, some of them will appear to be founded upon a desire for verbal amendments conducing to greater accuracy and certainty; and some of them, upon considerations of a more large and important bearing, upon the interests of the states respectively, or of the Union.[1] Among the latter were the objections taken, and alterations proposed in respect to the apportionment of taxes, and of the quota of public forces to be raised among the states, by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania.[2] There was also an abundance of jealousy of the power to keep up a standing army in time of peace.[3]
§ 227. But that, which seemed to be of paramount importance, and which, indeed, protracted the ratification of the confederation to so late a period, was the alarming controversy in respect to the boundaries of some of the states, and the public lands, held by the crown, within these reputed boundaries. On the one hand, the great states contended, that each of them had an exclusive title to all the lands of the crown within its boundaries; and these boundaries, by the claims under some of the charters, extended to the South sea, or to an indefinite extent into the uncultivated western wilderness. On the other hand, the other states as strenuously contended, that the territory, unsettled at the commencement of the war, and claimed by the British crown, which was ceded to it by the treaty ofPage:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/254
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HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATION.
[BOOK II.
