Excerpt from Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 1885, Vol. 3: Maryland, Virginia and Washington This paper was first printed by the Maryland Historical Society in 1877, (i'niud Publication, No. Under the title Maryland's Influence in Founding a National Commonwealth. It is here published in a somewhat revised form, for the sake of advancing the lines of institutional study at the Johns Hopkins University, and at the same time promoting the cause of American Economic History. The author would call attention to the territorial foundations of the American Union and point out the fact that our Public Lands stand in the same fundamental relation to our National Commonwealth as did Common Lands to the Village Republics of New England. The Great nvest was the Folkland of the United States; it bound them together by economic interests when they would otherwise have fallen apart after the Revolution. To trace out the further constitutional influence of our Public Lands upon the development of these States, which have increased and multiplied within the national domain as did New England Parishes within the origi nal limits of one Town, -this would be a contribution indeed to American Institutional History. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.