In

and Indiana lines. I refer to the bold friend, Levi Coffin. Several other anti-slavery workers along the Ohio River no doubt aided between two hundred and three hundred slaves each. It is stated on pretty good authority that one William Lambert, who died in Detroit a few years ago, had helped not less than thirty thousand during the thirty-three years of his devotion to Underground operations. This seems almost incredible. the present state of our knowledge it is uncertain business estimating the number of those rescued from bondage by Underground methods. As one unearths section after section of the old lines, however, and learns about the faithful service of many brave operators, one cannot avoid the conviction that the half has not been told.

BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN OHIO AND VIRGINIA.

INTRODUCTORY.*

Previous to 1783 Virginia never laid any claim to the Ohio River-or, in fact, to any territory west of the Alleghenies, because, this region was originally a part of the vast district claimed by the French, and known as Louisiana. The Mississippi River was discovered by French missionaries, and was subsequently explored to its mouth by LaSalle, who, according to the customs of the nations of that day, took possession in the name of his sovereign, Louis XIV, of the vast region drained by its waters. After the French war, France, by the treaty of peace of 1763, ceded to Great Britain all her possessions east of the Mississippi River. When the war of the American Revolution broke out, the whole of the eastern part of the great Mississippi valley was claimed by Great Britain, and by the treaty of 1783 between that power and the United States this region was relinquished to our nation. It is true that various States of the Union laid claim during the Revolutionary war to large tracts west of the Alleghenies on the ground of old English charters, but their claims were conflicting, and it was the policy of Congress not to decide between them. Eventually all these States made concessions of their claims, some with and some without reservations; but the probabilities are that the nation as a whole,

*In 1877 the Fish Commission of Ohio in their report concerning the Fish Culture in the State, considered also the subject of the territory over which Ohio laws, incident to this topic, could be enforced. This involved the question of the boundary line between Ohio and Virginia and between Ohio and Kentucky. The Commission suggested that the Legislatures of Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky respectively appoint Commissioners to fix the boundary lines of the State of Ohio along the middle of the navigable channel of the Ohio. The report then gives a statement of the history of this matter as given in the above Introductory. Then follows the argument of Mr. Vinton. Probably no one, certainly no Ohioan, ever gave such thought and study to this question. This matter was all incorporated in the report of the State Board of Agriculture for 1877, which report is now out of print and practically inaccessible. E. O. R.

which had really wrested the lands from Great Britain, was by the laws of nations the rightful owner of the region. These lands thus came from the French to the English by the treaty of 1763, and from the English to the United States by the treaty of 1783." According to the above, none of the States laid any claim to territory between the Alleghenies and the Ohio River, for, in June, 1783, the officers of the army, to the number of 288, petitioned Congress that the lands to which they were entitled might be located in 'that tract of country bounded north on Lake Erie, east on Pennsylvania, southeast and south on the river Ohio, west on a line beginning at that part of the Ohio which lies twenty-four miles west of the mouth of the river Scioto, thence running north on a meridian line till it intersects the river Miami, which falls into Lake Erie, thence down the middle of that river to the lake.' They speak of this tract as 'of sufficient extent, the land of such quality and situation, as may induce Congress to assign and mark it out as a tract or territory suitable to form a distinct government (or colony of the United States), in time to be admitted one of the Confederate States of America;' and also as a tract of country not claimed as the property of, or within the jurisdiction of, any particular State of the Union."" Special stress is placed upon the closing paragraph, viz., "a tract of country NOT claimed as the property of, or WITHIN THE JURISDICTION of ANY particular State of the Union." Whatever right or title Virginia had to the Ohio River must have been acquired between 1783 and the time when she ceded her claim to the general government in 1787, but there is no record of any such acquisition.

In 1846, in the office of the Cincinnati Gazette, there was printed the "Substance of an argument of Samuel F. Vinton, for the defendants, in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia vs. Peter M. Garner and others, for alleged abduction of certain slaves; delivered before the General Court of Virginia, at its December term, A. D. 1845,"

Mr. Vinton devotes a number of pages to show that when a party claims the entire river as a boundary that then low watermark is the boundary line; then devotes a number of pages to a discussion of the laws of nations on this question. After

Vol. IV-5

discussing the boundaries described in this chapter, as well as those of subsequent and amended chapters, he shows that by none of them had Virginia acquired any title to the country west of the Alleghenies.

As the transactions of the King, Parliament, and Congress, in relation to the boundaries of Virginia, are of the greatest possible importance to the people of Ohio in securing the middle of the navigable channel of the Ohio River as the boundary line, it was deemed not inappropriate to present Mr. Vinton's argument unabridged.

ARGUMENT CONCERNING BOUNDARY LINE
BETWEEN OHIO AND VIRGINIA.

BY SAMUEL F. VINTON.

May it please your honors, I cannot but regret that my learned friend (the Hon. John M. Patton), who opened this case for the Commonwealth of Virginia, has somewhat impaired the value of so good an argument, by the introduction into it, both at its commencement and conclusion, of a topic so very foreign to the subject now under consideration. To all else in his argument I listened with that pleasure and delight which high intellectual effòrt never fails to inspire. It will be understood that I refer to what was said by him on the subject of slavery, and of the correspondence now going on, and not yet brought to a close, between the executives of the two States, making mutual demands of certain persons as fugitives from justice. These are matters not before the court, and their connection with the case now before us is not very apparent.

case.

If the argument of my learned friend had been an address to a popular assembly, or even before a jury of the country, I should have been at no loss to understand the object in bringing these topics into it. But when they are addressed to this grave and dignified tribunal of judges, sitting here to decide a naked question of law, I am unable to perceive their relevancy, or in what way they can aid the court in coming to a right decision of the Much has been said, and eloquently, by the learned counsel in praise of the institution of slavery, and in derogation of the abolitionists. I did not come here, may it please your honors, to engage in those questions that are at issue between the slaveholders and the abolitionists. I am not now called upon to assail the one or defend the other. The case before us has nothing to do with either, and I cannot permit myself to be drawn aside, or seduced into a discussion of this sort by anything that has been or can be said on that subject. I have the same remark to make about the correspondence between the executive of Virginia and of Ohio. The governor of Ohio has seen fit to send me here to