The United States of America, Part 1: 1783-1830 — John Shaqi
The United States of America, Part 1: 1783-1830Sparks, Edwin Erle
History
The United States of America, Part 1: 1783-1830
Sparks, Edwin Erle
United States -- History
Jefferson is presumed to be the father of the ordinance which first
collected these promises into a working model; but not even Jefferson,
rejoicing in laying out imaginary states from the new national
possession and giving classic names to them, could foresee that there
was being called into existence a factor most dangerous to his beloved
individualism. The people who would remove from the States and settle
upon lands purchased from the National Government, would be under
national protection, subject to national legislation, and eventually
be admitted by the national power to national statehood. Their affection
would be gradually won away from their native States to be centred on
the Union. Yet the States had not been able to hold the lands
individually. Thus was necessity silently making the Union.
The provisions of the Jefferson Ordinance of 1784 for the temporary
government of the western territory have been almost lost sight of
because, after it had been in operation for three years and little had
been accomplished through difficulty of dealing with the Indians in
possession of the land, circumstances arose which brought about a new
ordinance superseding the old and changing it in its working details.
Yet the first ordinance embodied the main principles in creating States
which have since been followed. The number of people in any given
portion of the public lands was to be the determining factor.
Jefferson's ordinance would allow these settlers to establish a
temporary government, to adopt the constitution of any one of the
thirteen States, and to elect a legislature. When their number should
reach twenty thousand, they would be allowed to call a convention and
establish a permanent constitution and government. Upon attaining a
population of free inhabitants equal to that of the least numerous of
the thirteen original States (at this time probably Georgia, whose
population was estimated at twenty-five thousand) they would be admitted
on equal footing with the other States. Between the establishment of
the temporary government and admission to statehood, the prospective
state should be allowed a representative in Congress with a right of
debating but not of voting. The well-known Ordinance of 1787, which
replaced that of 1784, substituted for the temporary government to be
erected by the settlers a ready-made administration of governor,
secretary, and territorial judges, to be sent out by the National
Government, and to continue until the free male population should
number five thousand, when they were to be allowed to exercise home
rule in setting up a territorial government. The standard for statehood
was fixed definitely in the later ordinance at sixty thousand free
inhabitants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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