Development of the Free Soil Idea in the United States. 431
following strictly in its construction the preamble to that great charter known as the Constitution of the States, and which gave all power of the governed to the people themselves. All discussions of import- ance on the bill of rights, the purchase of lands, their division into territories and their organization and government as such, their in- ternal improvement, consequent development, and final admission in- to the union as States, have arisen from the public consideration of these political dogmas, as enunciated and applied by successive ad- ministrations. Each Territory and State has partaken of these doc- trines as successively brought forth and constituted, with the single exception of Kentucky, which was ceded by Virginia and directly admitted upon her acceptance of the Constitution, without becoming a ward of the general government under that political tutelage known as a territory, taking effect June ist, 1792.
The Federal idea had for its home the New England colonies, bound together by the ties of religion, kindred community of inter- ests in Indian wars, and early confederation in opposition to the mandates of the mother country. It also extended gradually west- ward with emigration. The remaining colonies were embraced in separate and distinct grants from the British Government to the original proprietors and patentees, and were subdivided at the first patentees' day into great and broad baronies, vestiges of which still remained. The immunity shared by them from invasions, insurrec- tions, and the general pacific relations with Indian tribes, had ren- dered a compact unnecessary.
Other reasons for the view may be had by considering the religion and character of the settlers of the southern colonies. Maryland was peculiarly Catholic, Virginia Episcopal, South Carolina Huguenot, and North Carolina was a refuge for all the distressed classes of Britain. Nothing had occurred up to the year 1775 to create a com- munity interest in these southern colonies.
At this time the colonies were possessed in their original grants by the general treaty with Great Britain, and owned vast tracts of territory over which they held jurisdiction and control. The bounda- ries were not always well defined, but the titles were unquestioned. In adjusting the indebtedness of the several States and of the gen- eral government these vast tracts were ceded to the latter and control assumed by the United States. These grants included all the unset- tled country north of Florida and west of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The organization of the territory northwest of the Ohio immediately followed, and a restriction imposed that there
