its settlers should be "under the immediate gov ernment of Congress in such mode and for such time as Congress shall judge proper." Such a proposal, affording a means at once of replenishing the treasury and satisfying the soldiers, could not but be accepted; and thus were laid the foundations of a state destined within a century to equal in population and far surpass in wealth the whole Union as it was at that time. It became necessary at once to lay down certain general principles of government applicable to the northwestern territory; and the result was the Ordinance of 1787, which was chiefly the work of Edward Carrington and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, in committee, following the outlines of a draft which is supposed to have been made by Manasseh Cutler. Jefferson was no longer on the ground, having gone on his mission to Paris, but some of the principles of his proposed Ordinace of 1784 were adopted.

of 1787.

It was provided that the northwestern territory should ultimately be carved into states, not exceeding five in number, and any one of these might be admitted into the Union as soon as its population should reach 60,000. In the mean time, the whole The Ordinance territory was to be governed by officers appointed by Congress, and required to take an oath of allegiance to the United States. Under this government there was to be unqualified freedom of religious worship, and no religious tests should be required of any public official. Intestate property should descend in equal shares to children of both sexes. Public schools were to be estab

lished. Suffrage was not yet made universal, as a freehold in fifty acres was required. No law was ever to be made which should impair the obligation of contracts, and it was thoroughly agreed that this provision especially covered and prohibited the issue of paper money. The future states to be formed from this territory must make their laws conform to these fundamental principles, and under no circumstances could any one of them ever be separated from the Union. In such wise, the theory of peaceful secession was condemned in advance, so far as it was possible for the federal government to do so. Jefferson's principle, that slavery should not be permitted in the national domain, was also adopted so far as the northwest was concerned; and it is interesting to observe the names of the states which were present in Congress when this clause was added to the ordinance. They were Georgia, the two Carolinas, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts; and the vote was unanimous. No one was more active in bringing about this result than William Grayson of Virginia, who was earnestly supported by Lee. The action of Virginia and North Carolina at that time need not surprise us. But the movements in favour of emancipation in these two states, and the emancipation actually effected or going on at the north, had already made Georgia and South Carolina extremely sensitive about slavery; and their action on this occasion can be explained only by supposing that they were willing to yield a point in this remote territory, in order by and by to be able to insist upon an equivalent

in the case of the territory lying west of Georgia. Nor would they have yielded at all had not a fugitive slave law been enacted, providing that slaves escaping beyond the Ohio should be arrested and returned to their owners. These arrangements having been made, General St. Clair was appointed governor of the territory; surveys were made; land was put up for sale at sixty cents per acre, payable in certificates of the public debt; and settlers rapidly came in. The westward exodus from New England and Pennsylvania now began, and only fourteen years elapsed before Ohio, the first of the five states, was admitted into the Union.

"I doubt," says Daniel Webster, "whether one single law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787." Nothing could have been more emphatically an exercise of national sovereignty; yet, as Madison said, while warmly commending the act, Congress did it "without the least colour of constitutional authority." The ordinance was never submitted to the states for ratification. The articles of confederation had never contemplated an occasion for such a peculiar assertion of sovereignty. "A great and independent fund of revenue," said Madison, "is passing into the hands of a single body of men, who can raise troops to an indefinite number, and appropriate money to their support for an indefinite period of time. . . . Yet no blame has been whispered, no alarm has been sounded," even by men most zealous for state rights and most suspicious of Congress. Within a few months this argument

was to be cited with telling effect against those who hesitated to accept the Federal Constitution because of the great powers which it conferred upon the general government. Unless you give a government specific powers, commensurate with its objects, it is liable on occasions of public necessity to exercise powers which have not been granted. Avoid the dreadful dilemma between dissolution and usurpation, urged Madison, by clothing the government with powers that are ample but clearly defined. In a certain sense, the action of Congress in 1787 was a usurpation of authority to meet an emergency which no one had foreseen, as in the cases of Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana and Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves. Each of these instances marked, in one way or another,

Theory of folk

which the or

based.

a brilliant epoch in American history, land upon and in each case the public interest was dinance was so unmistakable that the people consented and applauded. The theory upon which the Ordinance of 1787 was based was one which nobody could fail to understand, though perhaps no one would then have known just how to put it into words. It was simply the thirteen states, through their delegates in Congress, dealing with the unoccupied national domain as if it were the common land or folkland of a stupendous township.

The vast importance of the lands between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi was becoming more apparent every year, as the westward movement of population went on. But at this time their value was much more clearly seen by the

Spain, hearing of the secret article in the

treaty of 1783,

loses her tem

per and threat

ens to shut up

River.

southern than by the northern states. In the north the westward emigration was only just beginning to pass the Alleghanies; in the south, as we have seen, it had gone beyond them several years ago. The southern states, accordingly, took a much sounder view than the northern states of the importance to the Union of the free navigation of the Mississippi River. The difference was forcibly illustrated in the dispute with Spain, which came to a crisis in the summer of 1786. It will be remembered that by the treaties which closed the Revolutionary War the provinces of East and West Florida were ceded by England to Spain. West Florida was the region lying between the Appalachthe Mississippi icola and the Mississippi rivers, including the southernmost portions of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi. By the treaty between Great Britain and the United States, the northern boundary of this province was described by the thirty-first parallel of latitude; but Spain denied the right of these powers to place the boundary so low. Her troops still held Natchez, and she maintained that the boundary must be placed a hundred miles farther north, starting from the Mississippi at the mouth of the Yazoo River, near the present site of Vicksburg. Now the treaty between Great Britain and the United States contained a secret article, wherein it was >rovided that if England could contrive to keep West Florida, instead of surrendering it to Spain, then the boundary should start at the Yazoo. This showed that both England and the United States