latter paying $6,200,000 for the territory, which was eightyeight thousand five hundred and seventy-eight square miles in extent.

With the cession of the northwest territory the question of its government became an important one. A new problem arose here for which there was no precedent. Previous to this, the government of the western settlements had been administered by the colony that owned the land occupied by the settlers. These scattered settlements were now in one territory over which the States as individuals had no authority, but which belonged to the nation as a whole, and therefore was to be governed by the nation. Many schemes of government were suggested which are of interest because they prepared the way for the final plan embodied in the Ordinance of 1787. In several of these tentative plans was the idea that the government should divide the section north of the Ohio into districts which should be under the control of the Federal government until the districts should have a sufficient number of inhabitants to enable them profitably to govern themselves. One plan would divide the territory into seventeen States. This did not meet with general approval. On March 1, 1784, a committee was appointed, of which Jefferson was chairman, to take this matter into consideration, and to report a temporary government for the territory. This plan of 1784 was important because it was the basis of the ordinance which was adopted three years later. Jefferson's plan was to have force over all the territory between thirty-one degrees north and forty-five degrees north, thus including the lands to the south of the Ohio. The scope of the plan was later modified so as to include only the lands north of the Ohio. The size of these States was in accordance with a resolution of Congress, passed in 1780, by which each State should be not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square. This was not strictly adhered to, as the States proposed were a little larger. They were to be as nearly as possible two degrees of latitude in width and

arranged in three tiers making ten new States. This division is now of little importance, but there is a curious illustration of the classical tastes of Jefferson and the men of his time in the names to be given to the proposed new States. They were Sylvania, Michigania, Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia. Sylvania, the northern State of the western tier, received its name because it was the land of vast forests; Cherronesus was the peninsula formed by Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan; Assenisipia was the Latinized form of the Indian name of the stream now known as Rock River; Metropotamia, the mother of rivers, was the State in which many rivers, the Muskingum, Wabash, Great and Little Miami, Illinois, and Sandusky had their sources; Illinoia was the section drained by Illinois River; Polypotamia, the land of many rivers was so named because within its boundary were parts of Wabash, Sewane, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers; Pelisipia was the Indian name of Ohio River. While we may see the reasons for these names, we may be thankful that they did not prevail. Ohio is better than Pelisipia, and Wisconsin to be preferred to Assenisipia.

Some of the features in the proposed ordinance were these: the settlers were to be given the right to establish a temporary government, to adopt the constitution and laws of any of the older States, and to erect townships or counties for legislative purposes. Free males of full age were to have the privileges of citizenship. This temporary government was to continue until the State reached a population of twenty thousand. Then it could have a delegate in Congress, and when a census showed that a State had a population equal to that of the smallest of the older States, it might be admitted to Congress on an equality with the older States. The new States were to remain forever a part of the Union. They, like the original States, were to bear a part of the debt of the Confederation, to be subject to the Articles of Confederation, to admit to citizenship no person

holding any hereditary title, and after 1800 there was to be no slavery in any new State. The important point in the ordinance was this prohibition of slavery after 1800, but when the ordinance was finally passed the proposed names of the States were stricken out as well as the boundaries assigned to them, and the slavery clause was also lost.

Jefferson must be credited with the effort of trying to abolish slavery, but his anti-slavery clause would have been of doubtful value, for the Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery at once instead of waiting sixteen years before abolishing it. The Ordinance of 1784 remained nominally in force for three years, that is, until its place was taken by the better Ordinance of 1787.

Jefferson's plan failed because it was too large. He not only wished to exclude slavery from the northwest, but to extend the prohibition southward to Florida. The ordinance proved to be practically useless. Settlements did not take place under it. The boundaries assigned by it were not satisfactory, because there were no natural lines between the States such as rivers or mountains. The scheme, as Washington pointed out, was too ambitious. He suggested that progressive settling was the best way and that plans should first be made for one State instead of ten. This thought of Washington later appears in the organization of the Northwest Territory.

In the period between 1784 and 1787, Congress was not idle. It had learned wisdom from the trouble caused by the conflicting personal land claims in the regions south of the Ohio, where the same land was often claimed by an Indian, a land speculator, and a settler. It therefore resolved to establish a land system in its newly acquired domains which might do away with this difficulty. In the southwest, each man had surveyed his own land, when and where and how he would; this practice led to great confusion. Congress wished to avoid this in future, by providing for a government survey. In 1785 an ordinance was reported, and, after discussion, passed, which provided for a plan of township

surveys by the government. The country was to be divided into ranges of townships six miles square, and the township divided into sections of one square mile, six hundred and forty acres each. It was planned to have one square mile set apart in each township for religious purposes, a plan which would have resulted in endless difficulty because of denominational differences. The idea of a reservation for ecclesiastical purposes was dropped. A wiser provision, and one that became part of the law, was that in each township there should be set apart one square mile for educational purposes. This plan of governmental surveys stood the test of time and proved of great advantage in the settlement of the northwest.

CHAPTER IV

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE WEST BEFORE 1789

WHILE the western lands were being settled and the pioneers were taking possession in little groups or in larger ones, they were not without a government. Legally, they were a part of the home colony, but often a long distance intervened between the two; so that the control of one over the other could at the best be only nominal. No matter how willing the parent colony might be to give help, the distance was too great to make that help effective in any sudden emergency; and it often happened that the home. colony had too many troubles of its own to care for the distant offshoot. Each community needed a strong and simple government, for several reasons. One reason was the nature of the settlers. While there were many, perhaps the majority, who joined in the westward movement with a sincere purpose to better their conditions, there were always others, ne'er-do-wells who found the older settlements uncomfortable for them, men whose sense of right and wrong had not been very clearly developed, or had become obscured. Regulations were necessary also for land surveying and land holding and for the common defence of the settlers against the Indians. To the student of institutions the natural way in which these frontiersmen governed themselves is very interesting. They simply took the laws and customs with which they were familiar and adapted them to their own uses. There is a fine illustration of this self-government in the Watauga settlement, comprising the