%276.  St. Clair; Wayne.%—­Not a settlement north of the Ohio was now safe, and had it not been for the men of Kentucky, who came to the relief, and in two expeditions held the Indians in check till the Federal government could act, every one of them would have been destroyed.  The plan of the Secretary of War was to build a chain of forts from Cincinnati to Lake Michigan, and late in 1791 St. Clair set off to begin the work.  But the Indians surprised him on a branch of the Wabash River, and inflicted on him one of the most dreadful defeats in our history.  Public opinion now forced him to resign his command, which was given to Anthony Wayne, who, after two years of careful preparation, crushed the Indian power at the falls of the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio.  The next year, 1795, a treaty was made at Greenville, by which the Indians gave up all claim to the soil south and east of a boundary line drawn from what is now Cleveland southwest to the Ohio River.

%277.  Kentucky and Vermont become States.%—­These Indian wars almost stopped emigration to the country north of the Ohio, though not into Kentucky or Tennessee.  For several years past the people of the District of Kentucky had been desirous to come into the Union, but had been unable to make terms with Virginia, to which Kentucky belonged.  At last consent was obtained and the application made to Congress.  But the Kentuckians were slave owners, were identified with Southern and Western interests, and cared little for the commercial interests of the East, and as this influence could be strongly felt in the Senate, where each state had two votes, it was decided to offset those of Kentucky by admitting the Eastern state of Vermont.

What is now Vermont was once the property of New Hampshire, was settled by people from New England under town rights granted by the governor of New Hampshire, and was called “New Hampshire Grants.”  In 1764, however, the governor of New York obtained a royal order giving New York jurisdiction over the Grants on the ground that in 1664 the possessions of the Duke of York extended to the Connecticut River.  Then began a controversy which was still raging bitterly when the Revolution opened, and the Green Mountain Boys asked recognition as a state and admission into the Congress, a request which the other states were afraid to grant lest by so doing they should offend New York.  Thereupon the people chose delegates to a convention (in 1777), which issued a declaration of independence, declared “New Connecticut, alias Vermont,” a state, and made a constitution.  In this shape matters stood in 1791, when as an offset to Kentucky Vermont was admitted into the Union.  As she was a state with governor, legislature, and constitution, she came in at once.  Kentucky had to make a constitution, and so was not admitted till 1792.  Four years later (1796) Congress admitted Tennessee.

[Illustration:  THE UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES July 4, 1801.  TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER INDEPENDENCE]