been established or sanctioned by the Government. To what line, then, is the President required by law to sustain the jurisdiction of Michigan in the execution of the act of 1805?

It is not for the writer to consider this question, as he might be subject to the imputation of an unwarrantable interference with matters that appertain to a tribunal, universally acknowledged to possess the highest discernment. Even for this note, the writer feels that an apology is due, which he respectfully offers in his desire to be useful, far surpassing his ability to be so. April 25, 1835.

NOTE. The preceeding correspondence, concerning the boundary line dispute, was delivered to me by the former secretary of the society, Mr. A. A. Graham. Although fragmentary and at points disconnected, it is nevertheless a valuable contribution to the subject and worthy of permanent preservation in this volume. These letters are published precisely as they came into my hands.-E. O. R.

THE OHIO-MICHIGAN BOUNDARY LINE DISPUTE.

TOD B. GALLOWAY.

'Sing, O, Goddess Muse,

From whence arose so fierce a strife."

In the examination of the questions involved in the OhioMichigan boundary dispute, I find myself very much in the position of the Justice of the Peace, who, after hearing the plaintiff's side of the case, was ready to decide in his favor; but upon the defendant having presented his argument, he exclaimed, "You mix me up so, I don't know which way to decide." Therefore, I appeal to you to be judge and jury in this case, and upon hearing the facts and what law there is, which is very little, I leave you to find the verdict as ye shall deem best.

The case is the State of Ohio vs. the United States. It can not be the State of Ohio vs. Michigan, for at the time of this controversy Michigan was but a territory, and therefore only a ward of the general government. With this slight preliminary,

I shall plunge at once into the statement of the whole case.

In 1817, Lewis Cass wrote to Edward Tiffin, the United States Surveyor-General, "A disputed jurisdiction is one of the greatest evils that can happen to a country." This is eminently true. All the great wars in history, aside from those involving religious disputes, have been caused by boundary line controversies or disputed jurisdictions.

In regard to the controvesy between Ohio and Michigan as to the boundary line, but very little is known by this generation. Few histories have more than a meagre account of it, generally dismissing the subject with a few lines about "The Toledo War," by relating one or two of the humorous and ludicrous events incident thereto, but failing wholly to give the subject the prominence it deserves.

The contestants were not solely Governor Lucas, of Ohio, and Governor Mason, of Michigan, nor, as I said before, was it a question between the two States, or the State and the territory,

but rather between Ohio and the United States. Under the Constitution of this Republic, had Ohio occupied the disputed territory, it would have been the imperative duty of the President to resist such occupation with all the forces of the nation, if necessary, if he regarded the claims of Michigan as valid and correct.

As this question was one which came into being with the admission of Ohio into the Union, and realizing its important bearing upon the early history and later development of Ohio and Michigan, I have selected it as the subject of an address before our Archæological and Historical Society.

Mr. Fisk well says, in his "Critical Period of American History:" "Questions about public lands are often regarded as the driest of historical deadwood. Discussions about them in newspapers and magazines belong to the class of articles which the general reader usually skips. Yet there is a great deal of the philosophy of history wrapped up in this subject. * * * * For without studying this creation of a national domain between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi, we cannot understand how our Federal Union came to be formed." The problem of divid. ing the great unknown West among the thirteen new States was one of the most complex and intricate questions which baffled the skill of the legislators who had so successfully grappled with the perplexities of the First Continental Congress. The individual members of our first National Congress were, as a matter of fact, ignorant of the extent of the great West. They knew almost nothing of its boundless prairies, its mighty rivers and inland seas; its primeval forests, its wealth of ores and coal. And it is interesting to remember that it was the plan which Rufus Putnam sent from the village of Rutland, Massachusetts, to Congress for the relief of indigent revolutionary soldiers, that they should be colonized between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, that was the immediate origin of the Ordinance of 1787.

In the early history of this country of ours, there was one commodity which was cheap, i. e., land. It was both "dirt cheap" and "cheap dirt." These were the days when a service of ofttimes a questionable nature was repaid with three or four counties in America, from the King of England; or the introduction to Louis XIV of France of a charming mistress meant a