mise and concession. The foremost
statesmen of the Revolution were eminently practical politicians. They
had high ideals, and they strove to realize them, as near as might be;
otherwise they would have been neither patriots nor statesmen. But they
were not theorists. They were men of affairs, accustomed to deal with
other men; and they understood that few questions of real moment can be
decided on their merits alone. Such questions must be dealt with on the
principle of getting the greatest possible amount of ultimate good, and
of surrendering in return whatever must be surrendered in order to
attain this good. There was no use in learned arguments to show that
Maryland's position was the proper one for a far-sighted American
patriot, or that Virginia and North Carolina had more basis for their
claims than Connecticut or Georgia. What had to be done was to appeal to
the love of country and shrewd common-sense of the people in the
different States, and persuade them each to surrender on certain points,
so that all could come to a common agreement.

Land Cessions by the Claimant States.

New York's claim was the least defensible of all, but, on the other
hand, New York led the way in vesting whatever title she might have in
the Federal Government. In 1780 she gave proof of the growth of the
national idea among her citizens by abandoning all her claim to western
lands in favor of the Union. Congress used this surrender as an argument
by which to move the other States to action. It issued an earnest appeal
to them to follow New York's example without regard to the value of
their titles, so that the Federal Union might be put on a firm basis.
Congress did not discuss its own rights, nor the rights of the States;
it simply asked that the cessions be made as a matter of expediency and
patriotism; and announced that the policy of the Government would be to
divide this new territory into districts of suitable size, which should
be admitted as States as soon as they became well settled. This last
proposition was important, as it outlined the future policy of the
Government, which was to admit the new communities as States, with all
the rights of the old States, instead of treating them as subordinate
and dependent, after the manner of the European colonial systems.

Maryland then joined the Confederation, in 1781. Virginia and
Connecticut had offered to cede their claims but under such conditions
that it was impossible to c