NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO RIVER SQUARE MILES Ohio......................................................... 39,964 Indiana.......................................................33,809 Illinois..................................................... 55,414 Michigan......................................................56,451 Wisconsin.................................................... 53,924 Minnesota, east of the Mississippi River......................26,000 ------- 265,562 or 169,959,680 acres. Virginia claimed this entire region. New York claimed an indefinite amount. Connecticut claimed about 25,600,000 acres and ceded all but 3,300,000. Massachusetts claimed about 34,560,000 acres. SOUTH OF KENTUCKY South Carolina ceded about 3,136,000 acres. North Carolina ceded (nominally) 29,184,000 acres. Georgia ceded 56,689,920 acres.--Payson J. Treat, "The National Land System, 1785-1820."] So it was that even before the National Government was organized under a federal constitution in 1789, the land beyond the western boundaries of the several colonies, out as far as the Mississippi, was held for the good of all. And later the same policy followed the expansion to the Rockies and beyond. Can one imagine a greater or more fateful task than confronted this young, inexperienced republic--to have the disposal of a billion acres of timber lands, grazing lands, farm lands, ore lands, oil lands, coal lands, arid lands, and swamp lands for the good not only of the first comers and of those then living in the Atlantic States but also of the millions that should inhabit all that country in future generations as well--for the good of all of all time? This one-time bed of the Paleozoic sea between Archaean shores, raised in time above the ocean and enriched of the mountains that through millions of years were gradually to be worn down by the natural forces of the valley, and finally, as we have seen, opened by the French as a new- created world to be peopled by the old world, then overflowing its brim, became all of it in the space of a single lifetime the property of a few million human beings, their heirs, and assigns forever. The "men of always" [Footnote: The Iroquois, according to Châteaubriand, called themselves Ongoueonoue, the "men of always," signifying that they were a race eternal, immortal, not to fade away.--"Travels in America," 2:93.] had actually come and were to divide and distribute among themselves the stores of millions of years as if reserved for them from the foundation of the world.