A list of those who did would read like a political or social directory of the time.

Patrick Henry, James Wilson, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Chancellor Kent, Henry Knox, and James Monroe were among them.* * Not all the speculators were able to keep what they acquired.
Fifteen million acres of land in Kentucky were offered for sale in 1800 for nonpayment of taxes.

Channing, "History of the United States," vol.
IV, p.

91.
It is therefore easy to understand why so much importance attached to the claims of the several States and to the cession of that western land by them to the United States.

But something more was necessary.