title should be
abandoned. To the States of Maine and Massachusetts, who are the joint
proprietors of the unseated lands, the territory is of a certain
importance from the value of the land and timber, and to the latter,
within whose jurisdiction it falls, as a future means of increasing her
relative importance in the Union, and a just and proper feeling on the
part of their sister States must prevent their yielding to any unfounded
claim or the surrender of any territory to which a title can be
established without an equivalent satisfactory to those States.

To show the basis on which the title rests--

It is maintained on the part of the United States that the territory
they held on the continent of North America prior to the purchase of
Louisiana and the Floridas was possessed by a title derived from their
own Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776, the assertion
of that independence in a successful war, and its acknowledgment by
Great Britain as a preliminary to any negotiation for a treaty of peace.
It is admitted on the part of Great Britain that a territory designated
by certain limits was _granted_ to the United States in the treaty of
1783. As a matter of national pride, the question whether the territory
of the original United States was held by the right of war or by virtue
of a grant from the British Crown is not unimportant; as a basis of
title it has not the least bearing on the subject. From the date of the
treaty of 1783 all pretensions of the British Crown to jurisdiction or
property within the limits prescribed by the provisions of that
instrument ceased, and when a war arose in 1812 between the two nations
it was terminated by the treaty of Ghent, in which the original
boundaries were confirmed and acknowledged on both sides.

The treaty of 1783, therefore, is, in reference to this territory, the
only instrument of binding force upon the two parties; nor can any other
document be with propriety brought forward in the discussion except for
the purpose of explaining and rendering definite such of the provisions
of that treaty as are obscure or apparently uncertain.

The desire of full and ample illustration, which has actuated both
parties, has led to the search among neglected archives for documents
almost innumerable, and their force and bearing upon the question have
been exhibited in arguments of great ability. Such has been the talent
shown in this task of illustration and so copi