In the Ordinance of 1787, whereby Congress created the old Northwest
Territory out of the triangle of country lying between the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers and Lake of the Woods and the Great Lakes, it was
provided that this vast region should eventually be parcelled into five
States. The east-and-west dividing line was to be "drawn through the
southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan"; south of this line were to
be erected three States, and north of it two. "Whenever," the ordinance
read, "any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants
therein, such State shall be admitted" to the Union.
It should be said, in explanation of this east-and-west line, that all
the maps of Lake Michigan then extant represented the head of the lake
as being much farther north than it was proved to be by later surveys.
The line as fixed in the ordinance proved to be a bone of contention in
the subsequent carving of the Northwest Territory into States, leading
to a good deal of angry discussion before the boundaries of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the five States eventually
formed from the Territory, became established as they are to-day.
Ohio, the first State to be set off, insisted that Maumee Bay, with the
town of Toledo, should be included in her bounds, although it lay north
of the east-and-west line of the ordinance. Michigan, on the other hand,
stoutly insisted on the line as laid down in the law. In 1835 and 1836
there were some popular disturbances along the border; one of these,
though bloodless, was so violent as to receive the name of "the Toledo
war." Congress finally settled the quarrel by giving Ohio the northern
boundary which she desired, regardless of the terms of the ordinance;
Michigan was compensated by the gift of what we now call the "northern
peninsula" of that State, although it had all along been understood that
the country lying west of Lake Michigan should be the property of the
fifth State, whenever that was created. Thus, in order that Ohio might
have another lake port from Michigan, Wisconsin lost this immense tract
of mining country to the north.
When Indiana came to be erected, it was seen that to adopt the
east-and-west line, established by the ordinance, would be to deprive
her entirely of any part of the coast of Lake Michigan. In order,
therefore, to satisfy her, Congress took another strip, ten miles wide,
from the southern border of Michigan, and gave it to the new State.
Michigan made no objection to this fresh violation of the agreement of
1787, because there were no important harbors or towns involved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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