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Acknowledgments I first became interested in jurisdictional controversies as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins. My mentor, Jack P. Greene, had agreed to help the Atlantic states work up an historic case for their offshore claims. I was hired to investigate the western land cessions. Only through these cessions , we reasoned, could the United States have established a collective title anywhere, to anything. The courts have consistently rejected this narrow interpretation of national jurisdiction, most recently and definitively in United States v. Maine (1975). But I was persuaded that the history of jurisdictional disputes in the revolutionary era might shed some light on what the founders of the American federal system hoped to accomplish , however the system subsequently has been transformed. This book is the final product of that original question: what was the scope and character of state jurisdiction in the newly independent United States? Many friends and colleagues have assisted me in the preparation of this manuscript. Jack Greene continues to be an ideal mentor, offering advice and inspiration at regular intervals. At Columbia, Eric McKitrick gave me crucial encouragement and my students provided a sympathetic audience for my developing ideas. Myra Sletson was a valuable research assistant in 1980-81. My good friends, Herbert Sloan and Cathy Mitten, both doctoral students at Columbia, read the entire manuscript with extraordinary care. Richard Ryerson of the William Penn Papers and Fredrika Teute of xi xii Acknowledgments the Virginia Historical Society carefully reviewed various chapters. I am deeply indebted to James Kettner of the University of California at Berkeley who took an early interest in this project, read chapter drafts closely and critically, and encouraged me to carry on. A generous grant from Project '87, jointly sponsored by the American Historical Association and the American Political Science Association, enabled me to devote 1979-80 to research for this book. A grant from Worcester Polytechnic Institute helped defray publication costs. Under the leadership of President Edward Cranch, Dean Ray Bolz, and Donald Johnson, head of the Humanities Department, WPI has provided an extraordinarily supportive environment for scholarly development. Permission to reprint previouslypublished portions of this book isgratefully acknowledged. Parts of chapter 2 appeared in Political Science Quarterly (vol. 97 [1982]: 447-59); a part of chapter 4 is taken from William and Mary Quarterly (3d ser., vol. 34 [1977]: 353-74); and chapter 6 was published in slightly different form in Journal of American History (vol. 67 [1981]: 797-815). Kristin, Rachel, and Alexandra have sustained a loving interest in the book and its author over many years. I thank them. Worcester, Massachusetts PETER S. ONUF March 1983 ...

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