In his Ordinance of 1784, Jefferson had provided for eventual and not immediate statehood for the inhabitants of the Western territory. Manifestly a State could not be made out of vacant land; it must await a sufficient number of inhabitants. But this excuse for holding citizens temporarily in a subordinate position was not valid in Louisiana, where the southern point of the great triangle already contained a sufficient number of inhabitants for statehood. Moreover, Napoleon had sufficient thought for these pawns in the game of diplomacy to insert in the treaty of cession a provision that statehood should be given them "as soon as possible." The Jeffersonians were compelled to resort to loose construction in interpreting this phrase. Louisiana contained a large non-English-speaking population, unaccustomed to the privileges and obligations of free government. Their deficiency was only partly supplied by a sprinkling of Americans, who always precede and bring about a demand for expansion of territory. "All men are created equal," was the doctrine of the Jeffersonian Declaration. But even the doctrinaire would not insist that it gave to each individual immediate and equal share in all government both national and local, whether or not he was prepared by inheritance or environment. During nine years the people of the Louisiana territory had to serve in preparation under the rule of the rights-of-man party, before the first portion was erected to statehood on an equality with the older States. Being unable to admit the people of Louisiana to immediate statehood, and unwilling to hold them purely as colonists, the Jeffersonians divided the land into a territory and a district. This action prolonged for years the possibility that the people reside in territories, deprived of the privileges and protection of a State government. Suppose the "monarchists" should again come into national control and pass new Alien and Sedition laws? Where could these inhabitants of a territory find a protector? Under such conditions, the prestige of State citizenship was rapidly disappearing. The very fact that certain inhabitants of the United States were living solely under the protection of the national authority inspired a greater respect for that authority. Likewise, when these people were admitted to statehood at the end of their period of probation, it would be done by an act of Congress, and not by the States.