The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as the Freedom Ordinance or The Ordinance of 1787) was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States (the Confederation Congress), passed July 13, 1787. The ordinance created the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British Canada and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the Territory's western boundary. Show On August 7, 1789, first President George Washington signed a replacement, the Northwest Ordinance of 1789, in which the new U.S. Congress reaffirmed the Ordinance with slight modifications under the newly effective Constitution of the United States. The Ordinance purported to be not merely legislation that could later be amended by the Congress, but rather "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...." Arguably the single most important piece of legislation passed by members of the earlier Continental Congresses and the Confederation Congress, other than the Declaration of Independence itself and the seminal, precedent-setting "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union", it established the precedent by which the Federal government would be sovereign and expand westward across North America with the admission of new states, rather than with the expansion of existing states and their established sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation. It is the most important legislation that Congress has passed with regard to American public domain lands. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized the authority of the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 within the applicable Northwest Territory as constitutional in Strader v. Graham, 51 U.S. 82, 96, 97 (1851), but did not extend the Ordinance to cover the respective states once they were admitted to the Union. The prohibition of slavery in the territory had the practical effect of establishing the Ohio River as the boundary between free and slave territory in the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. This division helped set the stage for national competition over admitting free and slave states, the basis of a critical question in American politics in the 19th century until the Civil War. Full article...
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 created the Northwest Territory, officially known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, but also called the Old Northwest. This legislation, enacted by the Congress of the Confederation on July 13, 1787, was our country’s first organized incorporated territory and our initial attempt at expanding the new nation. It called for 3-5 states to be created from this expansive area and, ultimately, five states and a partial one, were formed. These were Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the great state of Wisconsin, while a part of Minnesota was also within this space. This vast landscape was part of the area ceded by the British to the United States at the end of the American Revolution. It was bounded by Pennsylvania on the east, Canada and the Great Lakes to the north, the upper Mississippi River on the west, and the Ohio River to the south. When the American Revolution ended, this territory was sparsely settled. In addition to a small group of American colonists, there were Native Americans tribes such the Shawnee and the Miami, some scattered French settlements, and a few forts the British had not evacuated as required by the Treaty of Paris. One reason for the lack of Americans in this rich land was the Royal Proclamation of 1763. This decree by King George III on October 7, 1763 forbade settlement west of the Appalachians, along the line of the Eastern Continental Divide. His hope was to create a temporary buffer between the colonists and the Native Americans, and to better control the settlement of this territory. Additionally, until the 1780’s, some individual states laid claim to different parts of this land. In fact, colonies such as Virginia and North Carolina believed their boundary on the west was the Mississippi River. Even Massachusetts, in distant New England, claimed a wide swath in present day Michigan and Wisconsin and did not relinquish their title in the northwest until 1785. Connecticut had the most expansive and longest held claim to acreage in this area. According to their original charter from King Charles II, they believed their colony owned a strip of land approximately 70 miles wide from what is now northeastern Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. Not surprisingly, Pennsylvanians disputed this claim. In 1786, Connecticut’s assembly ceded all their claimed land in the Old Northwest to the federal government, except for a small section that came to be known as the Western Reserve. This section they finally sold to the Connecticut Land Company (land speculators) in 1796 for $1,200,000. In any event, all the state claims to the Northwest Territory had been relinquished by the end of 1786. You may wonder why all these states willingly surrendered their rights to this land to the federal government. Simply put, they did it for money. All colonies had incurred enormous debts during the American Revolution. To get the various states to relinquish their claims to this area, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the national government assume their debt obligations in return for the states giving up their claims. Without exception, they accepted his offer. The provisions of the Ordinance were significant and precedent setting. They prohibited slavery anywhere in the territory, essentially establishing the Ohio River as the dividing line between the slave holding and free states. In effect, this stipulation extended the Mason-Dixon line as far west as the Mississippi. In many ways, the charter foreshadowed our national Bill of Rights in that it mandated many of the same natural rights later found in that great document. For instance, the Ordinance enshrined freedom of religion, property rights, trail by jury, no cruel and unusual punishment, as well as others. Finally, it emphasized public education be made available to all citizens, to include a provision for a public university. This dream became a reality in 1804 with the establishment of Ohio University in Athens, OH. Importantly, it was the first college ever chartered by an Act of Congress. WHY IT MATTERS So why does it matter to us today that the Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance? The Northwest Ordinance was significant for several reasons. First, it established that the federal government would control westward expansion and have sovereignty over new territories instead of the existing states simply expanding west. Additionally, it established the precedent that all new states created out of American public domain lands, those areas owned and managed by the federal government, would be admitted as equals to the original thirteen states. Finally, it was the first time our nation spread its wings to the west and began to fulfill our destiny. That alone makes it something worth remembering. SUGGESTED READING The Pioneers by David McCullough is a great book on the early settlement of the Northwest Territory. Published in 2018, it tells an inspiring story about how our forefathers created a nation out of the untamed country. PLACES TO VISIT Marietta, Ohio is the town featured in McCullough’s book noted above. Set on the banks of the Ohio River, it has a beautiful waterfront area and many restored historic buildings. Well worth a visit. Until next time, may your motto be “Ducit Amor Patriae,” Love of country leads me.
The Northwest Ordinance (formally the Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North West of the River Ohio) primarily created the Northwest Territory. The ordinance was passed by the Continental Congress on July 13, 1787, and affirmed, with slight modifications, by the U.S. Congress on August 7, 1789. Provisions of the Northwest Ordinance presaged several provisions of the Constitution and the First Amendment and announced a prohibition of slavery in the states to be formed out of the territories. States covered by the Northwest Territory of the United States, circa 1787. (Image via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0) The Northwest Ordinance (formally the Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North West of the River Ohio) primarily created the Northwest Territory. The ordinance was passed by the Continental Congress on July 13, 1787, and affirmed, with slight modifications, by the U.S. Congress on August 7, 1789. Provisions of the Northwest Ordinance presaged several provisions of the Constitution and the First Amendment and announced a prohibition of slavery in the states to be formed out of the territories. Northwest Ordinance was a plan to organize the Northwest Territory into new statesWhen the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War in 1783, the United States laid claim to lands stretching from the Ohio River west to the Mississippi and north to the Great Lakes. This land, which came to be known as the Northwest Territory, had been claimed by several states, which gave up their claims when they ratified the Articles of Confederation. In 1784 Thomas Jefferson proposed a plan for developing the new territory into states. The main features of that plan were adopted by the Continental Congress in 1787, while the Constitutional Convention was meeting in Philadelphia. The primary purpose of the ordinance was to terminate the claims of individual states and to organize the territory into new states. These purposes are accomplished by Sections 1–13 of the document. Section 14 announced a perpetual compact between the people of the original states and the people of the new territories that could be altered only by mutual consent. Ordinance promised religious tolerationIn setting the stage for the Constitution, the first article of the compact promised religious toleration for any person “demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner” regardless of that person’s mode of worship or religious sentiment. The second article announced a series of rights related to criminal procedure, political equality, and the protection of private property. The third article announced that schools and means of education were to be encouraged, because religion, morality, and knowledge were necessary to “good government and the happiness of mankind.” After the Civil War in the 1860s, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Northwest Ordinance, and Constitution, taken together, came to be called the “Organic Laws of the United States of America.” The title conveys the conviction, enunciated by President Abraham Lincoln, that the founding of the United States was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” This article was originally published in 2009. Paul J. Cornish is Associate Professor of Political Science at Grand Valley State University. He has published articles on the political thought of John Adams, and on the concepts of natural rights, toleration, and constitutional government in the Catholic natural law tradition Send Feedback on this article
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