elaborate plan for adjudication between States in the numerous boundary
disputes, Congress again dealt with the States as units. The central
authority would nowhere come into contact with citizens of the States.
It had no way of gaining their respect, their gratitude, or their
allegiance. It apparently dealt with them in the provision guaranteeing
citizens of each State all their rights in the several States; but if
a State transgressed on the rights of citizens of another State, the
Confederation could only complain and protest. It had no power of
punishment or coercion.

One of the chief disagreements over the Articles, as they were
considered by Congress, arose from the conflicting claims to the land
lying between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi. The claims
put forth by Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Georgia, that their charters extended interminably into the land, were
resisted by New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Maryland, whose western boundaries were distinctly defined. New York
put forth a claim for the Ohio valley, based on an Indian treaty. It
lay athwart the claims of some of the other States.

Virginia's assertion that the "South Sea" mentioned in her charter as
her western limits entitled her to the land as far west as the Pacific,
if British authority should ever extend so far, was declared
preposterous by delegates from other States who looked upon the land
between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi as a valuable common asset,
if the war should terminate favourably to their cause.

"Every gentleman," said Wilson, of Pennsylvania, in debate, "has heard
much of the claims to the South Sea. They are extravagant. The grants
were made upon mistake. They were ignorant of geography. They thought