ity, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind "—a provision echoing the sentiment of the educational clauses in the constitution of Massachusetts of 1780, from which doubtless it was taken. The same article also made the observance of good faith towards the Indians obligatory. Their lands and property should never be taken from them without their consent; their property rights and liberty should never be disturbed unless by just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; and in all their dealings with the Indians the whites should observe justice and harmony. It is somewhat curious that one article should contain provisions, as was soon proved, so hopelessly discordant. The Territory, and the States which might be formed in it, were forever to remain " a part of this Confederacy of the United States of America." Its inhabitants were to pay their portion of the federal debt. The Territorial Legislature, and the Legislatures of new States that might be created, could never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States. The lands and property of the United States were exempted from taxation, and in no case could non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than resident-a provision destined to be adopted in later years in every State constitution west of Pennsylvania. The navigable rivers of the Territory were declared to be common highways, forever free to all citizens of the United States. The entire territory northwest of the river Ohio, by the fifth article, was ultimately to be formed into not

Provisions for the Admission of States

fewer than three nor more than five States. Their boundaries were defined by the article, a provision of slight importance, as they were alterable by Congress. Five new States might be formed out of the Territory, and be admitted to the Union whenever Congress might decide that they had sufficient population. They should be admitted on an equal footing with the original States and form permanent constitutions and State governments. One condition only was prescribed-that the constitution and government should be republican in form and in conformity with the principles of the Ordinance, meaning especially the celebrated sixth article on slavery. If Congress deemed it expedient, a State might be admitted with less than the prescribed population. In the following year, on August 7th, the Assembly of Virginia formally ratified the Ordinance as a "compact between the original States and the people and States in the territory northwest of the Ohio River."

The territory of the United States south of the river Ohio was organized on the 26th of May, 1790, as one district, for the purpose of temporary government. The act conferred upon the inhabitants all the privileges and benefits set forth in the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the river. There was, however, one exception, of far-reaching importance, expressed in the act of Congress of the 2d of April, by which Congress had accepted the cession of the claims of the State of North Carolina to the district known as Tennessee. The act of

acceptance contained ten conditions, of which the most important provided that the laws in force and in use in the State of North Carolina at the time Congress accepted the cession should continue in force within the Southwest Territory until repealed or otherwise altered by the legislative authority of the new Territory. As North Carolina was a slave State, and as slavery had already extended into the Southwest Territory, by this condition slavery was forever practically established there. At least, that portion of the Ordinance of 1787 by which slavery was prohibited in the Northwest Territory could never apply to the territory southwest of Ohio as long as the Legislatures of the Southwest Territory chose to enact slave laws. This condition, limiting the power of Congress and making it dependent upon the will of a Territorial Legislature, or its successors-the Legislatures of Kentucky and Tennessee-was the first of its kind in our constitutional history. It made the Ohio River the permanent boundary line between free and slave soil, and was a limitation which, during the next sixty years, was continually returning to vex Congress. It was a condition. which has largely escaped the notice of historical writers. Writers and speakers have often described the Northwest Territory as having been made permanently free soil by the Ordinance of 1787, and the Southwest Territory slave soil by the Ordinance of 1790, omitting to explain that slavery was established by Congress in the Southwest Territory as a condition dependent upon the