great Territory with which his name will ever be identified. The tardy pension voted him by Congress passed directly from the treasury to one of his creditors. Pathetic in the ex

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treme are the glimpses that we have of his last years. Hon. Lewis Cass, who had known him in happier days, found the old soldier and civilian in his rude cabin eking out a livelihood by selling supplies to the wagoners on the road, and he described the scene as one of the most striking instances of the mutations which chequer life." Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, who visited him in 1815, was profoundly impressed by the dignity and benignity of his character. "I never was in the presence of a man that caused me to feel the same degree of esteem and veneration. Poverty did not cause him to lose his self-respect, and were he now living, his personal appearance would attract universal attention."

St. Clair died, August 31, 1818, in consequence of being thrown from a wagon while going to a neighboring village. To him who is acquainted with St. Clair's history, the name always suggests a striking example of the ingratitude of men and of republics.

The independent existence of Indiana Territory began July 4, 1800. At first it included all that part of the old Territory lying west of the treaty-line of 1795 from the Ohio River to Fort Recovery, and of the meridian of the fort to the national limits. The act creating the Territory plainly contemplated the creation of only three States in the Northwest, for it provided that, whenever the part of it east of the meridian passing through the mouth of the Great Miami, from the Ohio to the territorial line, should be admitted to the Union as an independent State, "thenceforth said line shall become and remain permanently the boundary-line between such State and the Indiana Territory." But the Enabling Act for Ohio, 1802, bounded that State on the north by a due east and west line,

1 St. Clair Papers, I., 253.

from the Miami meridian to the international boundary, drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, and added all territory north of such line, as well as between the meridian and the line of 1800, to Indiana. Again, in 1804 Louisiana, extending from parallel thirty-three degrees north to the British dominions, and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, was annexed to Indiana, but the next year was created an independent Territory. The act of 1800 continued the form of government created by the Ordinance of 1787, and guaranteed to the people all the rights and privileges that the Ordinance secured to them. Vincennes was the capital, and William Henry Harrison the first governor, of the Territory. The population was five thousand six hundred and forty-one. It entered on the second stage of government in 1805.

Michigan Territory was created January 11, 1805. It was bounded on the south by the parallel passing through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan; west by a line extending from the same extreme through the middle of the said lake to its northern extremity, and thence north to the national limits; and north and east by the international boundary. The act creating the Territory continued all the governmental features of the Ordinance. Detroit was the seat of government, and General William Hull, the same who seven years later surrendered Michigan to the British arms, was appointed governor. The population reported in 1800 was two thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven. The Territory entered on the second stage partially in 1823, and fully in 1827.

The next step in this process of Territorial evolution was the creation of the Territory of Illinois. The act of February 3, 1809, separated it from Indiana Territory by the Wabash River from its mouth to Vincennes, and a due north line from that point to the territorial line between the United States and Canada. The form of government was that prescribed in the Ordinance, save in one feature; a general assembly might be organized whenever satisfactory evidence

should be given to the governor that such was the wish of a majority of the free-holders, "notwithstanding there may not be therein five thousand free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one years and upwards." Ninian Edwards, at the time of his appointment Chief Justice of Kentucky, was the first governor; Kaskaskia was the capital; the population, in 1810, was twelve thousand two hundred and eighty-two. The Territory entered on the second stage in 1812. We must now return to Michigan.

The Enabling Act for Indiana, April 19, 1816, bounded that State on the north by an east and west line ten miles north of the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan. The Enabling Act for Illinois, April 18, 1818, made the northern boundary of that State parallel of latitude 42° 30' north. The act also attached all that part of the Territory of Illinois lying north of this line to Michigan. An act, approved June 28, 1834, attached to Michigan all the country extending west of the Mississippi to the Missouri and White Earth Rivers, and from the State of Missouri to the national boundary. Thus at its greatest extent the Territory reached from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Missouri, and from the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri to Canada.

The Territory of Wisconsin, created April 20, 1836, contained what was left of the Territory of Michigan after the State of that name was constituted. It embraced the region. extending from a line drawn through the middle of Lake Michigan to the Missouri and White Earth Rivers, and from Illinois and Missouri to the British possessions. A much greater innovation than that in the case of Illinois was now made in the form of government. The peculiar features of the Ordinance of 1787 were all abandoned, and a new and very elaborate model established, the first of its kind: A governor, a secretary, judges, etc., appointed by the President by and with the consent of the Senate; a legislature, consisting of a council and house of representatives elected by the qualified electors of the Territory; and a delegate to the Na

tional House of Representatives, elected in the same way. At the same time, Section 12 enacted that the inhabitants of the Territory should be entitled to all the rights secured to the people of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio by the articles of compact contained in the Ordinance of 1787, and should be subject to all the conditions and restrictions in said articles imposed upon the people of the said Territory. The act approved June 12, 1838, constituting the Territory of Iowa, limited Wisconsin on the west by the Mississippi River and a line drawn from its sources to the territorial line, but guaranteed to the new Territory all the rights, privileges, and immunities that the old one had enjoyed.

Such, in outline, is the history of the first Territory, and the most important Territory, that the Government of the United States ever organized.1

1 Nathaniel Massie, a Pioneer of Ohio, a Sketch of his Life and Selections from his Correspondence. By David Mead Massie, Cincinnati, 1896. This work throws much light on early Northwestern history, and particularly on the contest of the Chillicothe Republicans, of whom Massie was a leader, with Governor St. Clair, and on the admission of Ohio to the Union.

See also a Familiar Talk about Monarchists and Jacobins, W. H. Smith, Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. II. p. 180.

XVII.

THE ADMISSION OF THE NORTHWESTERN STATES TO THE UNION.

THE " pioneer thought" that Maryland laid before Congress in 1777 was the proposition that the Western territory should ultimately be divided into new States, to be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original States, under the superintendence and jurisdiction of Congress. Such was the promise of the resolution of 1780, such one of the conditions of the Virginia deed of cession of 1784, and, so far as the Northwest was concerned, such the guarantee of the Ordinance of 1787. Kentucky and Tennessee had already been admitted, in pursuance of that general line of policy. The population of the Eastern division of the Northwest Territory had not reached the minimum established in 1787 by many thousands when, in 1802, the chiefs of the Democratic-Republican party at Washington, as well as in the Territory, decided that the time had come to bring in the State of Ohio.

I. OHIO.

This decision was hastened by a bill passed by the Territorial Legislature at the session beginning November 23, 1801, declaring the assent of the Territory to the following modification of the Ordinance respecting the boundaries of the States when they should be formed: The eastern State to be bounded on the west by the Scioto River and a line drawn from the intersection of the river with the Indian boundary as fixed in 1795 to the western limit of the Western Reserve; the middle State to be bounded on the west