Virginia, in 1781, offered to make a cession to the United States of her title to lands northwest of the Ohio, upon certain conditions, which were not satisfactory, and the subject had not been acted upon in Congress when the revenue system of 1783 was adopted for recommendation to the States. Looking to the prospect of vacant lands, as a means of hastening the extinguishment of the public debts, as well as of establishing the harmony of the Union, Congress accompanied the recommendation of the revenue system by new solicitations to the States which had made no cessions of their public lands, or had made them in part only, to comply fully with the former recommendations. This drew from the State of New Jersey, apprehensive that the offer of Virginia might be accepted, a remonstrance against the cession proposed by that State, as partial, unjust, and illiberal.[308] Congress again took the subject into consideration, examined the conditions which the legislature of Virginia had annexed to their proposed grant, declared some of them inadmissible, and stated the conditions on which the cession could be received.[309] Virginia complied with the terms proposed by Congress, and upon those terms ceded to the United States all right, title, and claim, both of soil and jurisdiction, which the State then had to the territory within the limits of its charter, lying to the northwest of the river Ohio. That magnificent region, in which now lie the powerful States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, became the property of the United States, by a grant of twenty lines, executed in Congress by Thomas Jefferson and three of his colleagues, on the 1st day of March, 1784.[310]