government in the dispute between Pennsylvania and Connecticut which had been settled in the federal court. Neither should anything contained in the deed pledge the United States to extinguish the Indian title to the ceded lands. All of this being agreed to, the Western Reserve was added to the Northwest Territory. On the other hand the "military tract" was reserved, and even added to, but did not become United States donation lands. They were considered as Virginia's bounty to the men who had defended and preserved the country. The jurisdiction, however, was in the general government.
In 1787 South Carolina ceded unconditionally such land as she laid claim to between the mountain range by which her territory was traversed, and the Mississippi River. In 1790 North Carolina made her cession similarly, except that neither the lands nor the inhabitants west of the mountains should be "estimated" for the expenses of the Revolutionary War; that soldiers should receive the bounty lands promised them; that certain entries already made might be changed; that the ceded territory should be formed into a state or states, with all the privileges set forth in the ordinance of the late congress for the government of the Western Territory of the United States; provided, always, that no regulations made, or to be made, by congress should tend to emancipate slaves. The inhabitants of the ceded territory were to be liable to pay their proportion of the United States debt, and the arrears of the debt of North Carolina to the Union. The laws of this state should be in force in the territory until repealed or altered, and nonresident proprietors should not be taxed higher than residents.[1]
- ↑ There is much that is confusing and contradictory in the act of North Carolina, as in the reference to the ordinance of 1787, and the clause forbidding the passage by congress of an act tending to emancipate slaves.
