in office five years, unless sooner removed by Congress; any three of whom to be a quorum: and the members of the council shall be nominated and appointed in the following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives shall be elected, the governor shall appoint a time and place for them to meet together; and, when met, they shall nominate ten persons, residents in the district, and each possessed of a freehold in 500 acres of land, and return their names to Congress; five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as aforesaid; and, whenever a vacancy shall happen in the council, by death or removal from office, the house of representatives shall nominate two persons, qualified as aforesaid, for each vacancy, and return their names to Congress; one of whom Congress shall appoint and commission for the residue of the term. And every five years, four months at least before the expiration of the time of service of the members of council, the said house shall nominate ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress; five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as members of the council five years, unless sooner removed. And the governor, legislative council, and house of representatives, shall have authority to make laws in all cases, for the good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles and articles in this ordinance established and declared. And all bills, having passed by a majority in the house, and by a majority in the council, shall be referred to the governor for his assent; but no bill, or legislative act whatever, shall be of any force without his assent. The governor shall have power to convene, prorogue, and dissolve the General Assembly, when, in his opinion, it shall be expedient.

The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall appoint in the district, shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity and of office; the governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As soon as a legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and house assembled in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating but not of voting during this temporary government.

And, for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory to provide also for the establishment of States, and

permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest:

It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, That the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the said territory and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to wit:

ART. IST. No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory.

ART. 2d. The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature; and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offences, where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate; and no cruel or unusual punishments shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land; and, should the public exigencies make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same. And, in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud, previously formed.

ART. 3d. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall, from time to time, be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

ART. 4th. The said territory, and the States which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the Articles of Con

federation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitu tionally made; and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the said territory shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government, to be apportioned on them by Congress according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States; and the taxes, for paying their proportion, shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the district or districts, or new States, as in the original States, within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The legislatures of those districts or new States, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and, in no case, shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the Confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty, therefor.

ART. 5th. There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the States, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession, and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The Western State in the said territory, shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and Wabash rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post St. Vincent's, due North, to the territorial line between the United States and Canada; and, by the said territorial line, to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post Vincent's, to the Ohio; by the Ohio, by a direct line, drawn due North from the mouth of the Great Miami, to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The Eastern State shall be bounded by the last mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line: Provided, however, and it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered, that, if Congress

shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the said territory which lies North of an East and West line drawn through the Southerly bend or extreme of lake Michigan. And, whenever any of the said States shall have 60,000 free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government: Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than 60,000.

ART. 6th. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.

Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, relative to the subject of this ordinance, be, and the same are hereby, repealed and declared null and void.

Done by the United States, in Congress assembled, the

13th day of July, in the year of our Lord 1787, and of their sovereignty and independence the twelfth.

While the Convention which framed the national Constitution was sitting in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress, then in session in New York, adopted a measure which has been justly pronounced second only in importance to the crowning act of the Convention at Philadelphia. On July 11, 1787, a committee, of which Nathan Dane of Massachusetts was chairman, reported "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the Ohio"; and this ordinance, with the addition of an article forever forbidding slavery to cross the Ohio river, was adopted on July 13. One of the most momentous acts of the Continental Congress," says Higginson, "had been to receive from the State of Virginia the gift of a vast unsettled territory northwest of the Ohio, and to apply to this wide realm the guarantee of freedom from slavery. This safeguard was but the fulfilment of a condition suggested by Timothy Pickering, when, in 1783, General Rufus Putnam and nearly three hundred army officers had proposed to form a new state in that very region of the Ohio. They sent in a memorial to Congress asking for a grant of land. Washington heartily endorsed the project, but nothing came of it. North Carolina soon after made a cession of land to the United States, and then revoked it; but the people on the ceded territory declared themselves for a time to be a separate state under the name of Franklin. Virginia, through Thomas Jefferson, finally delivered a deed on March 1, 1784, by which she ceded to the United States all her territory northwest of the Ohio. The great gift was accepted, and a plan of government was adopted, into which Jefferson tried to introduce an anti-slavery ordinance, but he was defeated by a single vote. Again, in 1785, Rufus King of Massachusetts, seconded by William Ellery of Rhode Island, proposed to revive Jefferson's rejected clause, but again it failed, being smothered by a committee. It was not till July 13, 1787, that the statute passed by which slavery was forever prohibited in the territory of the Northwest, this being moved by Nathan Dane as an amendment to an ordinance already adopted, which he himself had framed, and being passed by a vote of every state then present in the Congress, eight in all. Under this statute the Ohio Company, organized in Boston the year before as the final outcome of Rufus Putnam's proposed colony of officers, bought from the government five or six millions of acres, and entered on the first great movement of emigration west of the Ohio. The report creating the colony provided for public schools, for religious institutions and for a university. The land was to be paid for in United States certificates of debt, and its price in specie was between eight and nine cents an acre. The settlers were almost

wholly men who had served in the army, and were used to organization and discipline. The Indian title to the lands of the proposed settlement had been released by treaty. It was hailed by all as a great step in the national existence, although it was a far greater step than any one yet dreamed."

The Northwest Territory so established included the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1784, Jefferson proposed a plan dividing the Northwest into ten states, each about a hundred and twenty miles wide, north and south; and for these states he proposed the following names: Sylvania, Michigania, Assenisipia, Illinoia, Polypotamia, Cherronesus, Metropotamia, Saratoga, Pelisipia and Washington. There was a great deal of pretentious classicism in America at this time. Our new towns everywhere were being freighted with high-sounding Greek and Roman names. The founders of Marietta named one of their squares Capitolium; the road which led up from the river was the Sacra Via; and the new garrison, with block houses at the corners, was the Campus Martius. Jefferson was not the first to suggest the forms of states in the Northwest.