gress, 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 Missisippi 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.

Article the fifth. 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 Missisippi, the Ohio and Wabash rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post Vincents 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 Missisippi. The middle state shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post Vincents 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 The Colonial lake Michigan. And whenever any of the said status of the states, shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants Northwest Territory therein, such state shall be admitted, by its delewas intended gates, into the Congress of the United States, on an to be tempo- 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 sixty thousand.

rary.

This article

did not completely dedicate the

Article the sixth. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof Northwest to the party shall have been duly convicted: provided freedom, always, that any person escaping into the same, since slaves then in the from whom labour or service is lawfully claimed in territory could be held any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour 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.

so long as they lived, but it was practically an anti-slavery clause.

CONTEMPORARY EXPOSITION

DANE (1787)

New York, July 16, 1787.

DEAR SIR: I am obliged to you for yours of the 11th inst. With pleasure I communicate to you what we are doing in Congress, not so much from a consciousness that what we do is well done, as from a desire that you may be acquainted with our proceedings. We have been much engaged in business for ten or twelve days past, for a part of which we have had 8 states. There appears to be a disposition to do business; and the arrival of R. H. Lee is of considerable importance. I think his character serves at least in some degree, to check the effects of the feeble habits and too [tardy?] modes of thinking in some of his countrymen. We have been employed about several objects the principal ones of which have been the Government inclosed, and the Ohio Purchase. The former you will see is completed, and the latter will be probably completed to-morrow. We tried one day to patch up M. S. P. systems of W. Govern't. Started new ideas, and committed the whole to Carrington, Dane, R. H. Lee, Smith, and Kean. We met several times, and at last agreed on some principles, at least Lee, Smith and myself. We found ourselves rather pressed; the Ohio Company appeared to purchase a large tract of the Federal lands - about 6 or 7 millions of acres; and we wanted to abolish the old system, and get a better one for the Government of the country and we finally found it necessary to adopt the best system we could get. All agreed, finally, to the inclosed, except A. Yates. He appeared in this case, as in most others, not to understand the subject at all. I think the number of free inhabitants, 60,000, which are requisite for the admission of a new State into the Confederacy, is too small; but, having divided the whole territory into three States, this number appeared to me to be less important. Each State, in the common course of things, must become important soon after it shall have that number of inhabitants. The Eastern State of the three will probably be the first, and more important than the rest, and will, no doubt, be settled chiefly by Eastern people; and there is, I think, full

an equal chance of its adopting Eastern politics. When I drew the Ordinance, which passed (a few words excepted) as I originally formed it, I had no idea the States would agree to the Sixth art. prohibiting slavery, as only Massa. of the Eastern States was present, and therefore omitted it in the draft; but, finding the House favourably disposed on this subject, after we had completed the other parts, I moved the art., which was agreed to without opposition. We are in a fair way to fix the terms of our Ohio sale, etc.; we have been upon it steadily three days. The magnitude of the purchase makes us very cautious about the terms of it, and the security necessary to insure the performance of them.

We have directed the Board to inquire into and report on Hothers affairs, etc.

Massa. Legisa. was prorogued the 7th inst., having continued the Tender Act, as it is called, to Jan. 1, 1788, and having passed no other Act of importance, except what, I presume, you have seen, respecting the raising of troops, and the powers of the Governor to pursue the rebels, etc.

You ask me how I like my new colleagues. Sedgwick, you know, we all esteem, but I fear he will not make his attendance an object. Thatcher, I am quite unacquainted with. I do not know whether Mr. Otis, at his period of life, and under his misfortune, will enter with vigour into Federal politics. I wish his accounts with the Union had been settled, etc. Nothing occurs worth particular notice.

Hon. Rufus King, Esq.

Your affecta. friend,

N. DANE.

P. S.States present: Massa., N. Y., N. J., Delaware, Virga., N. Cara., So. Carolina, and Georgia. Brother Holton is rather an invalid, is not well able to take an active part in business, but I think supports pretty good Eastern politics.

NATHAN DANE, in CUTLERS, Life of Manasseh Cutler. I. 371–373.

CRITICAL COMMENT

WEBSTER (1830)

At the foundation of the constitution of these new Northwestern States lies the celebrated Ordinance of 1787. We

are accustomed, Sir, to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. That instrument was drawn by Nathan Dane, then and now a citizen of Massachusetts. It was adopted, as I think I have understood, without the slightest alteration; and certainly it has happened to few men to be the authors of a political measure of more large and enduring consequence. It fixed for ever the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to sustain any other than freemen. It laid the interdict against personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all constitutions. Under the circumstances then existing, I look upon this original and seasonable provision as a real good attained.

DANIEL WEBSTER, Works. III. 263, 264.

CHASE (1833)

By that [ordinance] of 1787, provision was made for successive forms of territorial government, adapted to successive steps of advancement in the settlement of the western country. It comprehended an intelligible system of law on the descent and conveyance of real property, and the transfer of personal goods. It also contained five articles of compact between the original states, and the people and states of the territory, establishing certain great fundamental principles of governmental duty and private right, as the basis of all future constitutions and legislation, unalterable and indestructible except by that final and common ruin, which as it has overtaken all former systems of human polity, may yet overwhelm our American union. Never, probably, in the history of the world, did a measure of legislation so accurately fulfil, and yet so mightily exceed the anticipations of the legislators. The ordinance has been well described, as having been a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, in the settlement and government of the northwestern states. When the settlers went into the wilder