British King. The Congress of the United States was the King's successor, and it inherited only such powers as the Colonies themselves acknowledged to have belonged to the Crown.

That the Congress regarded itself as authorized to exercise the same powers over the dependencies of the Union as were exercised by the King in Council over the American Colonies prior to 1763 is proved by various acts and documents.

The memorial of the Indiana Company filed September 14, 1779, asked that Congress direct an order against Virginia

to stay the sale of the lands in question, till Virginia, as well as the memorialists, can be heard before this honorable House and the whole rights of the owners of the said tract of land called Vandalia, of which Indiana is a part, shall be ascertained in such a manner as may tend to support the Sovereignty of the United States and the rights of individuals therein.

The committee of Congress reported, on the remonstrance of Virginia, that they could not find "any such distinction between the question of the jurisdiction and the merits of the cause, as to recommend any decision upon the first separately from the last "-in other words, that the whole question was one of jurisdiction.

Franklin, in his memorial on behalf of the Vandalia Company, filed in February, 1780, used the word "Sovereignty" to describe the power of the Union over the Western region. His words were:

As your Honors have now succeeded to the Sovereignty of the territory in question, your memorialists confide that you will think it just and reasonable to consider the said lands as subject to such contracts and dispositions as were made concerning them while they confessedly belonged to the British Crown; and that your memorialists and their associates, who have ever

been ready to fulfil their parts of the said contract, may not suffer such great injury by the change of Sovereignty as to be deprived of their equitable rights to the said lands.

He asked that the lands be. granted to the persons interested in the Vandalia Company either upon the terms and conditions of their contract with Great Britain approved by order of the King in Council (which contract, as has been said, was ready for delivery with the exception of affixing the seals when the Revolution broke out), "or upon such other terms as may be convenient to the interests of the United States and not injurious to your memorialists and their associates."

The form of this memorial was exactly such as might have been addressed to the King in Council before the Revolution, and the word "Sovereignty" plainly meant the power which the King, as Sovereign, had previously exercised and not sovereign power in the sense of unlimited, unconditional power.

The first statement of the Congress on this subject was contained in the Instructions given by it on October 17, 1780, to the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Courts of France and Spain, regarding the claims of Spain to the Western region. These Instructions were reported by a committee consisting of James Madison, John Sullivan of New Hampshire, and James Duane of New York. Spain, on January 31, 1780, through the French Minister, had expressed a willingness to enter into a treaty of alliance with the United States and France, providing the United States would admit that the western limits of the Confederation extended only so far as there had been actual settlements from the Colonies prior to the Proclamation of the King made in 1763, closing the Western region to settlement. Spain based its claim on the propositions that the United States had no possession of the region beyond those limits be

fore the Revolution and that they could not claim "in the right of sovereignty of Great Britain" because they had "abjured the dominion" of that country.

To this the Ministers at the Courts of France and Spain were instructed to reply that the Mississippi was the boundary of the United States on the west because "by the definitive Treaty of Paris of 1763, Article Seventh, all the territory now claimed by the United States was expressly and irrevocably ceded to the King of Great Britain; and the United States are, in consequence of the revolution in their government, entitled to the benefits of that cession."

The Instructions then proceeded:

The first of these positions is proved by the Treaty itself. To prove the last, it must be observed that it is a fundamental principle in all lawful Governments, and particularly in the Constitution of the British Empire, that all the rights of Sovereignty are intended for the benefit of those from whom they are derived, and over whom they are exercised. It is known also to have been held for an inviolable principle by the United States, while they remained a part of the British Empire, that the Sovereignty of the King of England, with all the rights and powers included in it, did not extend to them in virtue of his being acknowledged and obeyed as King by the people of England, or of any other part of the Empire, but in virtue of his being acknowledged and obeyed as King of the people of America themselves; and that this principle was the basis, first of their opposition to, and finally of the abolition of his authority over them. From these principles it results, that all territory lying within the limits of these States, as fixed by the Sovereign himself, was held by him for their particular benefits, and must, equally with his other rights and claims in quality of their Sovereign, be considered as having devolved on them, in consequence of their resumption of the Sovereignty to themselves.

As further evidence in support of the opinion of the Congress that their powers were the same as those

exercised prior to the Revolution by the King in Council, there may be cited the report made on August 16, 1782, of a committee consisting of Daniel Carroll of Maryland, Edmund Randolph of Virginia, and Joseph Montgomery of Pennsylvania, appointed to report facts and observations to be referred to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs," to be by him digested, completed and transmitted to the Ministers Plenipotentiary for negotiating a peace, for their information and use." In their report, the committee said:

If the vacant lands cannot be demanded upon the titles of individual States, they are to be deemed to have been the property of his Britannic Majesty, as Sovereign of the thirteen Colonies immediately before the Revolution, and to be devolved upon the United States collectively taken. The character in which he was so seized was that of King of the thirteen Colonies collectively taken. Being stripped of this character, his rights descended to the United States for the following reasons: 1. The United States are to be considered in many respects as one undivided independent nation, inheriting those rights which the King of Great Britain enjoyed as not appertaining to any one particular State, while he was what they are now, the Superintending Governor of the whole. 2. The King of Great Britain has been dethroned as King of the United States, by the joint efforts of the whole. 3. The very country in question has been conquered through the means of the common labors of the United States.

While this report was not adopted, it is evident that it was not because it did not state the views of Congress, but because it was not thought proper at that time, while the States were still hesitating about ceding their rights in the Northwest Territory, for Congress to take a definite stand, which might prejudice the claims of the States against the Union. There is every reason to believe that if the claims of the States had not at the

moment conflicted with those of the Union, this declaration of the rights of the Union over the Northwest Territory would have been unanimously adopted.

Gouverneur Morris, in a letter of January 1, 1783, to John Jay, who was then in Paris, and who was acting with Adams and Franklin in negotiating the definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, said:

You and I differ about the Western country, but you and your Sovereign are of the same opinion.

On September 13, 1783, while Congress was considering the report on the conditional cession of 1781 made by Virginia, and there appeared to be some probability that it would yield to the conditions, Maryland presented a remonstrance of its Legislature, in which it was declared:

The United States have succeeded to the Sovereignty over the Western territory, and are thereby vested as one undivided and independent nation, with all and every power and right exercised by the King of Great Britain over the said territory.

In the latter part of 1784 and the early part of 1785, treaties were made with the Indians whereby a strip of land constituting about the east quarter of the present State of Ohio was opened to settlement by the extinguishment of the Indian title. The principal one, which was with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa Indians, was expressed in language which showed that the American Union regarded itself as a single nation, acting as the Sovereign and Imperial State over the Indian tribes, as native States, which stood to it in the relationship of constitutional protectorates. The second Article of the Treaty provided that:

The said Indian nations do acknowledge themselves and all their tribes to be under the protection of the United States, and of no other Sovereign whatsoever.