On the submission of the Articles to the several State legislatures for
ratification the most formidable objection was found to be in this
subject of the waste lands. Maryland, Rhode Island, and New Jersey
instructed their delegates in Congress to move amendments to them
providing that the waste or Crown lands should be considered the common
property of the United States, but they were rejected. All the States
except Maryland acceded to the Articles, notwithstanding some of them
did so with the reservation that their claim to those lands as common
property was not thereby abandoned.

On the sole ground that no declaration to that effect was contained in
the Articles, Maryland withheld her assent, and in May, 1779, embodied
her objections in the form of instructions to her delegates, which were
entered upon the Journals of Congress. The following extracts are from
that document, viz:


Is it possible that those States who are ambitiously grasping at
territories to which in our judgment they have not the least shadow of
exclusive right will use with greater moderation the increase of wealth
and power derived from those territories when acquired than what they
have displayed in their endeavors to acquire them? ...

We are convinced policy and justice require that a country unsettled at
the commencement of this war, claimed by the British Crown and ceded to
it by the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common enemy by the blood
and treasure of the thirteen States, should be considered as a common
property, subject to be parceled out by Congress into free, convenient,
and independent governments, in such manner and at such times as the