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(Quebec, then including Canada and the Northwest Territory,-St. John's and Nova Scotia, East and West Florida), but also the West Indies, the Bermudas, and even Ireland!

The Articles of this draft on these subjects read:

Article XI. A perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive, is to be entered into as soon as may be with the Six Nations; their limits to be ascertained and secured to them; their land not to be encroached on, nor any private or Colony purchases made of them hereafter to be held good; nor any contract for lands to be made, but between the Great Council of the Indians at Onondaga and the general Congress. The boundaries and lands of all other Indians shall also be ascertained and secured to them in the same manner, and persons appointed to reside among them in proper districts; and shall take care to prevent injustice in the trade with them; and be enabled at our general expense, by occasional small supplies, to relieve their personal wants and distresses. And all purchases from them shall be by the Congress, for the general advantage and benefit of the United Colonies.

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Article V. That the power and duty of the Congress shall extend to the settling all disputes and differences. between Colony and Colony, about limits or any other cause, if such should arise, and the planting of new colonies when proper. The Congress shall also make such general ordinances as, though necessary to the general welfare, particular assemblies cannot be competent to, viz., those that may relate to our general commerce, or general currency; the establishment of posts; and the regulation of our common forces. .

Article XIV. Any and every Colony from Great Britain upon the Continent of North America not at present engaged in our Association, may, upon application and joining the said Association, be received into the Confederation, viz., Ireland, the West India Islands, Quebec, St. John's, Nova Scotia, the Bermudas, and the East and West Floridas; and shall thereupon be entitled to all the advantages of our Union, mutual assistance and commerce.

The draft of Articles of Confederation reported on July 12, 1776, by the committee appointed by Congress for the purpose, consisting of one member from each State, was, as we are told by Madison, and as the Secret Journals state, written by Dickinson. It contained full and carefully drawn provisions intended to cover all the problems which then confronted the United States, growing out of their relations with external communities subject to their control. These provisions were as follows:

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Article XIV. No purchases of lands, hereafter to be made of the Indians, by Colonies or private persons, before the limits of the Colonies are ascertained, to be valid. All purchases of lands not included within those limits, when ascertained, to be made by contracts between the United States assembled, or by persons for that purpose authorized by them, and the Great Councils of the Indians, for the general benefit of all the United Colonies. Article XVIII. The United States assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of Regulating the trade, and managing all affairs with the Indians: Limiting the bounds of those Colonies which, by Charter or Proclamation, or under any pretence, are said to extend to the South Sea; and ascertaining the bounds of any other Colony that appear to be indeterminate: Assigning territories for new colonies; either in lands to be separated from Colonies and heretofore purchased or obtained by the Crown of Great Britain from the Indians, or hereafter to be purchased or obtained from them: Disposing of all such lands for the general benefit of all the United Colonies: Ascertaining boundaries in such new colonies within which forms of government are to be established on the principies of liberty.

Article XX. Canada, acceding to this Confederation, and entirely joining in the measures of the United Colonies, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of the Union. But no other Colony shall be admitted into the same unless such admission be agreed to by the delegates of nine Colonies.

In order to appreciate the significance of these words, it is necessary to understand the situation which existed at the time between "the United States assembled " and the regions which were in fact or in expectation under its control.

The five matters to be decided in the government of these regions were:

First. The arrangements which were to be made with the Indian tribes. These tribes at the outbreak of the Revolution were, by treaty, under the protection of the State of Great Britain, but the protectorate was of that peculiar kind which is now described as a "protectorate over uncivilized regions" or a "constitutional protectorate"-that is, a political relationship between a State and an external community of so low a degree of civilization as to be unfitted for any form of government except a tribal form, under which the minor community is permitted to keep the form and ceremony of a half-sovereign State, while the dominant State has, in fact, the powers over the minor community which it would have if that community were a dependency of itself as an Imperial State-which powers, however, it refrains from exercising except upon emergency. This relationship is allowed to exist by the dominant State in order to carry on the government of the minor community with the least friction possible, until it arrives at a point of development where it can either be converted into a true dependency, or where its land and population can be incorporated with those of the dominant State.

Second. The arrangements to be made with the Land Companies. The Vandalia Company, which Franklin had promoted, claimed two million five hundred acres just west of the Allegheny Mountains northeast of Virginia, by grant from the British Crown. A charter had been prepared, giving powers to the company as a colonizing company, which was ready except for the affixing

of the seals when the war broke out. Many Englishmen were interested in the company. The Ohio and Indiana Companies, which had been promoted by Arthur Lee and Samuel Wharton, claimed lands in the same region, under grants from Virginia and from the Indian tribes, which had been recognized by the Crown and merged in the grant to the Vandalia Company. The Illinois Company and the Wabash Company claimed large and indeterminate amounts of land on the Illinois and Wabash Rivers, by grant from the Indians. These Land Companies were inchoate colonies-" new colonies."

Third. The arrangements to be made for the part of the North American Continent which was dependent on the State of Great Britain at the outbreak of the Revolution, not included within the limits of any Colony or Land Company. These lands were "lands to be separated from Colonies and heretofore purchased or obtained by the Crown of Great Britain from the Indians, or hereafter to be purchased or obtained from them."

The charter-limits of some of the thirteen Colonies extended to "the South Sea," that is, to the Pacific Ocean; but the British Government, by the Proclamation of the King in Council of 1763 (issued soon after the Treaty of 1763, which fixed the western boundary of the British possessions in America at the Mississippi River) had claimed that those provisions of the Charters which made the South Sea the western boundary were rescinded, and by that Proclamation had, by forbidding grants of land by the Colonies beyond the ridge of the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains, practically fixed the western boundaries of these Colonies along the ridge of those mountains. These Colonies had, however, prior to the Proclamation of 1763, in fact "appropriated" land beyond the ridge of the mountains by including it within the boundaries of their counties and other municipalities. Virginia, in its Constitution adopted June 29, 1776, made

an express claim to jurisdiction, as the Imperial State of an Empire, westward of the mountains to the Mississippi River, by declaring that its western boundary should be as fixed by the Virginia Charter of 1609 and the Treaty of 1763 "unless, by Act of the Legislature [of Virginia], one or more Governments be established westward of the Allegheny Mountains." By Dickinson's draft of the Articles of Confederation, Congress was to be given the power, which the King in Council had claimed, of "limiting the bounds" of the Colonies which claimed to the South Sea, and of "separating from" them the lands westward of the bounds so limited. The lands thus to be "separated from Colonies" constituted an enormous region extending from the Mississippi River on the west to the ridge of the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains on the east, and from near the Gulf of Mexico on the south to the present northern boundary of the United States. It was realized by the Congress from the outset that if this region should be brought into a state of dependence on any European Power, it would be a menace to the existence of the Confederation, and if it should be kept permanently in dependence on the Confederation, or on a State or States of the Confederation, it would raise problems in government of the most serious kind. That it must, however, be held in a state of dependence during its settlement was evident. The proper provision to be made in the Articles of Confederation regarding this region was necessarily the most difficult. matter to be decided in the framing of the Articles.

The theory of Dickinson's draft was that this region: belonged to the United States by manifest destiny and anticipated conquest, or by the Indian treaties. It did not claim the region under the Charters of the Colonies.. The expression was: "Limiting the bounds of those Colonies which, by Charter or Proclamation, or under any pretence, are said to extend to the South Sea"-the claims

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