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The Northwest Territory |
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April 23, 1784. |
Congress approved the Territorial Ordinance of 1784, written by Thomas Jefferson, to serve as a plan for temporary government of the western territories. Although it was never put into effect, this plan influenced the content of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance.
The Northwest Territory, officially called the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was established by the Continental Congress on July 13, 1787, by the Northwest Ordinance. The region was later called the Old Northwest. Comprising the land west of Pennsylvania between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers ceded to the U.S. government by individual states in the 1780s, the territory was later divided into the new states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. The policies that were devised for the sale of land and for the government in this region established precedents for the settlement of the public domain across the whole of the United States. The Land Ordinance of 1785 had provided for the survey and sale of mile-square sections of land. After the first sales, in the area that is now eastern Ohio, the federal government began to allow land companies to purchase huge areas farther down the Ohio River.
Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to provide for the government of the entire region. The Ordinance was based in part on a plan drawn up by a committee headed by Thomas Jefferson in 1784. It stated that no fewer than 3 nor more than 5 states were eventually to be formed from the region and set down an orderly procedure for the creation of these states. In the initial stage, the entire Northwest Territory would be ruled by a governor, a secretary, and three judges appointed by Congress; in the second stage, when the free adult males residing in one of the territories numbered 5,000, they could elect a territorial legislature and send a non-voting delegate to Congress; and when the population of any territory reached 60,000, it would be eligible to enter the Union as a new state equal to the original states. Slavery was prohibited in the territory.
Ohio was the first state admitted (1803) to the Union from the Northwest Territory. U.S. control of the less populous frontier areas was challenged by the presence of British trading posts in the Northwest and was firmly established only in the aftermath of the War of 1812.
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The
Complete Ordinance |
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Princeton Indiana History
Gibson County, Princeton IN. |
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