THE PUBLIC LAND PROBLEM

By Thomas Paine.

THIS attack by Thomas Paine on Virginia's unlimited claims to western territory followed closely upon an appeal to Congress from the settlers of Kentucky, denying the rights of Virginia to govern what was known as the Illinois country, or Northwest Territory, as a dependency, and asking to be taken into the Union as a State. The aforesaid territory, including Kentucky proper, had been acquired by conquest of Colonel George Rogers Clark the year before Paine wrote this remonstrance.

Following the British defeat at Yorktown, the conflicting claims of other colonies and land companies, and the refusal of Maryland otherwise to join the Union, led Virginia, in 1784, to cede the disputed territory to the Confederation largely as a result of public opinion growing out of this article reserving only a small portion for her war veterans.

THE condition of the vacant western territory of America makes a very different case to that of the circumstances of trade in any of the States. Those very lands, formed, in contemplation, the fund by which the debt of America would in a course of years be redeemed. They were considered as the common right of all; and it is only till lately that any pretension of claims has been made to the contrary.

In the year 1609, the South-Virginia company applied for new powers from the Crown of England, which were granted them in a new patent, and the boundaries of the grant enlarged; and this is the charter or patent on which some of the present Virginians ground their pretension to boundless territory.

But whether the charter, as it is called, ought to be extinct or not, cannot make a question with us. All the parties concerned in it are deceased, and no successors, in any regular line of succession, appear to claim. Neither the London company of adventurers, their heirs or assigns, were in possession of the exercise of this charter at the commencement of the Revolution; and therefore the State of Virginia does not, in point of fact, succeed to and inherit from the company.

But if, as I before mentioned, there was a charter, which bore such an explanation, and that Virginia stood in succession to it, what would that be to us any more than the will of Alexander, had he taken it in his head to have bequeathed away the world? Such a charter or grant must have been obtained by imposition and a false representation of the country, or granted in error, or both; and in any of, or all, these cases, the United States must reject the matter as something they can know nothing of, for the merits Will not bear an argument, and the pretention of right stands upon no better ground.

The claim being unreasonable in itself and standing on no ground of right, but such as, if true, must from the quarter it is drawn be offensive, has a tendency to create disgust and sour the minds of the rest of the states. Those lands are capable, under the management of the United States, of repaying the charges of the war, and some of which, as I shall hereafter show, might, I presume, be made an immediate advantage of.

I distinguish three different descriptions of lands in America at the commencement of the Revolution. Proprietary or chartered lands, as was the case in Pennsylvania. Crown lands, within the described limits of any of the crown governments; and crown residuary lands that were without or beyond the limits of any province; and those last were held in reserve whereon to erect new governments and lay out new provinces; as appears to have been the design by Lord Hillsborough's letter and the president's answer, wherein he says "with respect to the establishment of a new colony on the back of Virginia, it is a subject of too great political importance for me to presume to give an opinion upon ; however permit me, my lord, to observe, that when that part of the country shall become populated it may be a wise and prudent measure.

The expression is a "new colony on the back of Virginia and referred to lands between the heads of the rivers and the Ohio. This is a proof that those lands were not considered within but beyond the limits of Virginia as a colony; and the other expression in the letter is equally descriptive, namely, "We do not presume to say to whom our gracious sovereign shall grant his vacant lands." Certainly then, the same right, which, at that time, rested in the crown rests now in the more supreme authority of the United States.

It must occur to every person on reflection that those lands are too distant to be within the government of any of the present States.

It is only the United States, and not any single State, that can lay off new States and incorporate them in the union by representation; therefore the situation which the settlers on those lands will be in, under the assumed right of Virginia, will be hazardous and distressing, and they will feel themselves at last like aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, their habitations unsafe and their title precarious.

It seldom happens that the romantic schemes of extensive dominion are of any service to a government, and never to a people. They assuredly end at last in loss, trouble, division and disappointment. And was even the title of Virginia good, and the claim admissible, she would derive more lasting and real benefit by participating it than by attempting the management of an object so infinitely beyond her reach. Her share with the rest, under the supremacy of the United States, which is the only authority adequate to the purpose, would be worth more to her, than what the whole would produce under the management of herself alone, and that for several reasons.

First, because her claim not being admissible nor yet manageable, she cannot make a good title to the purchasers, and consequently can get but little for the lands.