gress a resolution claiming the sovereignty of the United States over that territory, "as one undivided and independent nation, with all and every power and right exercised by the king of Great Britain over the said territory." Congress was not ready to adopt the proposition in that form. Then followed the acceptance of Virginia's offer of cession, provided she withdrew certain objectionable conditions, and the appointment of a committee to report a plan for the government of the territory; and, later, the deed of cession by Virginia, Jefferson's ordinance of 1784, and the deeds of cession by Massachusetts and Connecticut, gradually paving the way for the authoritative and comprehensive Ordinance of 1787.

It was, then, the argument of the smaller colonies which prevailed, and to which the larger colonies yielded. The fact of a deed of cession by Virginia does not imply, as Professor Tucker has argued in his Commentaries on the Constitution, that all parties acknowledged the sovereignty of Virginia, because the deeds of cession did not stand alone. They were

given to facilitate the Union of the States, and to enable the general government to exercise her sovereignty over the western territory. What was in fact done with these lands by the United States, with the assent of the larger colonies, is of greater weight, in ascertaining the ultimate purpose, than the verbal protests of certain dissatisfied statesmen. That final action was the assertion of full sovereignty by the United States, and the exertion of that sovereignty in establishing government. "Be it ordained, by the United States in Congress assembled," is the language of self-conscious sovereignty.

It was this legal proposition, advanced by the smaller colonies as their ultimatum in the western land controversy, which the Supreme Court of the United States approved, in the case of Chisholm v. Georgia, as just and sound, saying: "From the crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of their [this] country passed to the people of it, and it was then not an uncommon opinion that the unappropriated lands, which belonged to that crown, passed not to the people of the colony or state within whose limits they were situated, but to the whole people; on whatever principles this opinion rested, it did not give way to the other."

This proposition of necessity imputed nationality to the people of the United States, and denied the existence of a

league. To this proposition both Virginia and New York assented when they ceded their western lands. By her action in ceding these lands and participating in the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787, Virginia, no less than New York, was in good faith and in honor estopped from ever claiming any other position than that of a Commonwealth in subordination to the Nation. That Ordinance, legislating authoritatively for the government of the territory so acquired, was a national act. It was the deliberate act of the people of the United States, assuming to themselves the power of a nation. Whether America should be a nation or a league, became then a closed question. Thenceforward, it remained only to establish finally the nationality which the people had assumed, by the framing and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

THE DUAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.

The American system of federal government is unique. It is a happy combination of a strong but limited central governinent, for all general and external purposes, with state gov ernments which control all local matters and all those affairs which most concern the body of the citizens in their daily lives. It was the first experiment of the kind on a large scale, and it has had a conspicuous success. The novelty consisted in binding together a league of states in such a manner as to give them a supreme central government which should act directly upon and command obedience from the individuals of all sections of the country. Thus every citizen is subordinated at the same time to two governments, and has a dual citizenship.

The American plan contemplates additions to the group of states by admission of new ones on equal terms with the first members. It involves the assertion and exercise, by the people of the entire nation, of their inherent sovereignty; for no less a power would be competent to ordain, by authoritative law, the enlargement of the galaxy of states by the admission of new ones, possessed of equal rights and privileges, and bound by equal responsibilities and duties, with the older states. The sovereign people thus establish the central government which secures respect and honor for the flag abroad, and authorize and guarantee the state governments which foster and protect all the domestic privileges and rights of individuals. The people of all the states finally adopted this plan when they ratified the Constitution.

The plan was first proposed in connection with the Ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory. While the Revolutionary War was still in progress, and before it was settled that America should hold that territory, it was proposed to divide it up, as fast as sufficiently populated, into new states, which were to be admitted to the Union on equal terms with the original thirteen. This provision the people approved, and it was embodied in the Ordinance, and thus became the American plan. Under it, three states were admitted to the Union before the time came for Ohio, a part of the Northwestern Territory, to apply. This form of federalism has succeeded far beyond any possible expectation of its first proposers. To it America owes her great constitutional expansion, the cementing of all her various local interests and feelings, her unusual strength as a large representative republic, and her present proud position among the nations of the earth. The Ordinance in question (including in this term the whole movement for establishing government in the Northwestern Territory) was the first evidence that this had been adopted by the American people as their ideal of government.

FREEDOM.

The war for the preservation of the Union purged the nation from the reproach, and its flag from the stain, of African slavery. This result was not an accident. Its causes were early implanted in our national life. The power that achieved this great work was the strong arms of freemen who were bred in the life of freedom, and devoted as by native instinct to her service. It was largely through the consecration of the Northwestern Territory to freedom by the Ordinance of 1787, that the ultimate nationalizing of liberty became possible. The dedication of that vast domain as the home of a race of freemen furnished the recruiting ground from which to enlist the legions who should sustain the banner of freedom against fierce opposition. If slavery was entrenched by the compromises of the constitution so as to necessitate an internecine struggle for its final overthrow, so was freedom by the Ordinance of 1787 so thoroughly entrenched as to make her banner and her army invincible when the crisis came.

The circumstance that, in the organization of the Southwestern Territory, Congress applied to it all the provisions of the famous Ordinance, except that prohibiting slavery, only

emphasizes the worth of the prohibition as to the Northwestern Territory. No one will now dispute the superior value of the Northwestern over the Southwestern plan of organizing territorial government.

The labored attempt of Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, to decry the efficacy of the Ordinance as a charter of freedom, because of a want of expressly granted power, in the Articles of Confederation, for its enactment by Congress, has proved futile. That decision has become null, because it ran counter to the express opinion of the people. The Ordinance did not suffer for want of authority as a charter of freedom, because the people authorized and ratified it; and the wellnigh unanimous opinion of the people, since the close of the Civil War, concurs with and enforces that original opinion, and justifies the far-seeing wisdom of the men who were instrumental in dedicating an empire to freedom by an authoritative law.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND POPULAR EDUCATION

were first adopted, as national ideals, by this Ordinance. They thus became a part of the birthright of the people of the states carved out of the Northwestern Territory. Though these principles were already adopted as fundamental by many of the states, they were by this Ordinance established in advance as parts of the foundations of other states whose ultimate greatness was foreseen. Never before did any great state paper operate to develop these principles on so large a scale.

Most natural was it, that the adjacent portions of the Louisiana Purchase, when organized, should be blessed with the same precious guarantees of education and free thought, by the incorporation of like provisions into the Ordinances enacted for their government. Thus did these peculiarly American institutions, the free church and free school, become a part of our national, no less than of our state, life. Broadened by it from local into continental operation, they are not the least among the priceless legacies left to the citizens of America by the Ordinance of 1787.

THE DUAL ORIGIN OF MINNESOTA.*

BY SAMUEL M. DAVIS.

It is the purpose of this paper to trace the origin and source of the territory now comprised within the boundary of the state of Minnesota. This state occupies the unique position of being the only state in the Union which acquired its territory from the two largest accessions of land to the United States in the early history of this government. I refer to the cession of the Northwest Territory by Great Britain in 1783 and the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. About twenty-nine thousand square miles of territory, including all east of the Mississippi which is now comprised within the boundary of the state, originated in the cession by the treaty with Great Britain in 1783. The remaining part, about fifty-five thousand square miles, was secured from the territory originally purchased from France in 1803. It is my object to sketch the main features connecting these two great treaties of accession of territory, both in relation to the boundary of the territory acquired and also with reference to the government provided for them after the territory was acquired.

CESSION OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

The Revolutionary War, which began April 19th, 1775, was closed by three separate treaties of peace. The United States and France conducted simultaneous negotiations with different English Commissioners, with the understanding that the preliminaries should be signed the same day. Dr. Franklin wrote to Vergennes on the 29th of November, 1782, that the American articles were already agreed upon and that he hoped to lay a copy of them before his Excellency the following day. *Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, April 10, 1899.