History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Vol. 1: With Notices of Its Principle FramersCurtis, George Ticknor
History
History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Vol. 1: With Notices of Its Principle Framers
Curtis, George Ticknor
Constitutional history -- United States
After the establishment of a temporary government, and before its
admission into the Union, each of the new States was to have the right
to keep a member in Congress, with the privilege of debating, but not of
voting. It was also provided, that measures not inconsistent with the
principles of the Confederation, and necessary for the preservation of
peace and good order among the settlers in any of the said new States,
until they had assumed a temporary government, might, from time to time,
be taken by the United States in Congress assembled.
These provisions were to stand as a charter of compact and as
fundamental constitutions between the thirteen original States and each
of the new States thus described, unalterable from and after the sale of
any part of the territory of such State, but by the joint consent of the
United States in Congress assembled, and of the particular State to be
affected.[312]
New and urgent recommendations followed the passage of this resolve,
pressing the States to consider that the war was now happily brought to
a close, by the services of the army, the supplies of property by
citizens, and loans of money by citizens and foreigners, constituting a
body of creditors who had a right to expect indemnification, and that
the vacant territory was an important resource for this great
object.[313]
The subject does not seem to have again occupied the attention of
Congress until the spring of the following year, when a proposition was
introduced and committed, to exclude slavery and involuntary servitude,
otherwise than in punishment of crimes, from the States described in the
resolve of April 23d, 1784, and to make this provision part of the
compact established by that resolve.[314]
Soon afterwards, a cession was made by Massachusetts of all its right
and title, both of soil and jurisdiction, to the Western territory lying
within the limits of the charter of that State.[315] In the succeeding
month, Congress adopted an ordinance for ascertaining the mode of
disposing of the Western lands to settlers.[316] In the course of the
next year, the cession by Connecticut was made, after various
negotiations, with a reservation to that State of the property in a
considerable tract of country, since called the Connecticut Reserve,
lying to the south of Lake Erie, and now embraced within the State of
Ohio.[317]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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