Northwest Ordinance

For most historians, the experiment of a central government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation was a failure as the U.S. Constitution eventually replaced the government. Nevertheless, the most effective actions of the Articles of Confederation were the Northwest Ordinances, three acts passed by Congress designating how the Northwest Territory would be governed, sold to settlers, and organized into states. What were the Northwest Ordinances? And what were their lasting effects on the creation of the United States?

The Northwest Territories

The Articles of Confederation government had some diplomatic issues regarding the territory north of the Ohio River. The United States had acquired the land from Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and state land cessions placed the domain of the territory into congressional jurisdiction.

Ignoring the land claims of indigenous tribes in the area, such as the Shawnee, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, Congress began to organize the territory bounded by the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and the Ohio River.

Northwest Ordinance Map

The map below shows the Northwest Territory in green, the boundaries of the states that would come out of the Northwest Territory, and a brief description of how the land would be parceled out to prospective settlers and farmers based on the Northwest Ordinances.

Fig. 1 Northwest Territory

The Northwest Ordinances

Ordinances passed by the Congress of the Articles of Confederation in 1784, 1785, and 1787 outlined the process through which the government could sell land in the Northwest Territory to settlers. Formal governments organized and outlined the process for a territory to become a state in the union.

The Ordinance of 1784

Drafted by ThomasFig. 2 The divisions proposed in Jefferson’s draft of the Ordinance of 1784 Jefferson, the Ordinance of 1784 proposed that the states secede their land claimed west of the Appalachian Mountains and divided the region into territories that could become states as their population grew. These territories would be self-governing until they could meet the requirements for statehood. In addition, Jefferson drafted five articles to structure and govern the region:

1. Any new states created from the territory would hold the same status in the United States as the original 13 states.

2. States created from the territory would be a permanent part of the United States.

3. The territories would be obligated to pay their share of the national debt.

4. The self-government of the territories must be a form of republican government.

The final article banned slavery in the territory, but that article was denied ratification by one vote.

The Ordinance of 1785

The Land Ordinance of 1785 promoted settlement in the Northwest Territories by mandating a quick rectangular-grid system of surveying and by encouraging large-scale land purchases. The ordinance specified a minimum price of one dollar per acre. The parcels of land were sold in single blocks of 23,040 acres each, pricing out the middle class and poor farmers. The rest of the properties, divided into 640 acres, were sold to mainly well-off farmers. In addition, the sale of the land would be one of the only sources of revenue for the federal government, as the Articles of Confederation did not allow Congress to levy taxes or tariffs.

Fig. 3 1785 Land Ordinance

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

The most crucial Ordinance in terms of lasting influence on the United States. Made up of fourteen sections and six articles, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 sub-divided the territory, laid the foundation for funding public schools, established how the territory would become a state, protected natural rights, and banned slavery in the Northwest Territory.

Fig. 4 Ordinance of 1787 stamp

Northwest Ordinance Significance

The land ordinances of the 1780s are an outstanding and enduring achievement of the Congress of the Articles of Confederation. They are some of the only laws passed by Congress under the Articles that still influence governance in the United States today.

Public education funding through land sales became the basis of how many public school districts in the United States fund themselves to this day through land and property taxes. The system of applying for statehood in the Ordinance of 1787 is the same system used today for territories of the United States to seek admission into the Union. The basic protections of natural rights in the ordinances became the basis, and some amended verbatim, of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

The Northwest Ordinance: Slavery

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and its provision banning slavery would perpetuate and extend the geographical division between slave and free regions of the United States that would haunt the nation in the 1800s.

Fig. 5 Lasselle v. State, First slavery case tried by state Supreme Court

Because the ordinance forbade slavery in the territory, southern members of Congress pushed for and received guarantees that the southwestern territories - what would become Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, would allow slavery to maintain a balance of free versus slave state representation in the federal government. The government would duplicate this policy pattern through other territorial ordinances throughout the 1800s. As an enduring legacy of the Ordinance of 1787, the verbiage Article 6, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, became, almost word for word, the 13th Amendment in 1865, banning the practice of slavery in the United States.