found it wise to settle their own differences by some kind of arbitral
tribunal. The office which the Privy Council and the Crown had filled in
settling inter-colonial controversies suggested an analogy less remote
than those in Grecian history and prompted the adoption of a substitute.
So there was inserted in the Articles of Confederation a provision for a
“court to determine disputes and differences between two or more States
of the Confederation concerning boundary jurisdiction or any other cause
whatever.” The complainant State was authorized to present a petition to
Congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing. Notice
of this was to be given by order of Congress to the other State in the
controversy, and a day was assigned for the appearance of the two parties
by their lawful agents who should agree upon judges to constitute a court
for hearing the matter in question. If they could not agree, Congress
was then to name three persons out of each of the thirteen States. From
this list each party was required alternately to strike out one until the
number was reduced to thirteen, and from these thirteen not less than
seven nor more than nine names, as Congress should direct, were in the
presence of the Congress to be drawn by lot, and the persons whose names
were so drawn, or any five of them, constituted the court to hear and
finally determine the controversy.
Proceedings were instituted under this provision before the Constitution
by New Jersey against Vermont, by New York against Vermont, by
Massachusetts against Vermont, by Pennsylvania against Virginia, by
Pennsylvania against Connecticut, by New Jersey against Virginia, by
Massachusetts against New York, and by South Carolina against Georgia.
Only one of these cases came to hearing and decision by a court selected
as provided. That was the case of Pennsylvania against Connecticut,
involving the governmental jurisdiction over the valley of Wyoming and
Luzerne county. The court met and held a session of forty-one days
at Trenton in New Jersey. Able counsel represented the parties, and
the court made a unanimous decision in favor of Pennsylvania, without
giving reasons. A compromise is suspected, because Connecticut promptly
acquiesced, and soon thereafter, with the approval of the Pennsylvania
delegation, Congress passed an act accepting a cession by Connecticut
of all the lands claimed by it west of the west line of Pennsylvania,
except the Western Reserve, now in Ohio, which Connecticut was thus given
ownership of, and which it sold and settled. A number of the other cases
were compromised, and in some no proceedings were taken after the initial
ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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