NORTHWEST ORDINANCE
Because the Articles of Confederation, adopted by the states in 1781 as the country's first constitution, have often been considered a failure, it is all too easy to overlook the significant accomplishments of the American government under the Articles. The Confederation negotiated a peace treaty ending the war with Great Britain, carried on diplomatic relations with foreign countries, settled land disputes with the Indian tribes and, in two brilliant pieces of legislation, established a far-reaching policy for the settlement and incorporation of western lands.
After first providing for the survey of the land west of the Appalachian mountains, the so-called Northwest Territory, Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the single most important piece of legislation in the Confederation period. The Ordinance provided the means by which new states would be created out of the western lands and then admitted into the Union. Governors and judges appointed by Congress would rule a territory until it contained 5,000 free male inhabitants of voting age; then the inhabitants would elect a territorial legislature, which would send a non-voting delegate to Congress. When the population reached 60,000, the legislature would submit a state constitution to Congress and, upon its approval, the state would enter the Union.
The importance of the statute, aside from providing for orderly westerly settlement, is that it made clear that the new states would be equal to the old; there would be no inferior or superior states in the Union. Moreover, in the Ordinance Congress compacted with the settlers of the territories that they would be equal citizens of the United States, and would enjoy all of the rights that had been fought for in the Revolution. Where the Articles of Confederation lacked a bill of rights, the Ordinance provided one that included many of the basic liberties the colonists had considered essential, such as trial by jury, habeas corpus,1 and religious freedom. One should also note, however, the important role that property still played in government, a holdover from British theory that only those with a tangible stake in society should partake in its governance.
The Northwest Ordinance would, with minor adjustments, remain the guiding policy for the admission of all future states into the Union.
NORTHWEST TERRITORY
Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory encompassing most of the pre-war territory of the Ohio Country, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States spanning most or large parts of six eventual U.S. States. It existed legally from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Ohio, and the remainder was reorganized by additional legislative actions.
In the 18th century, Great Britain and the French Crown disputed for control of this region. The French had claimed it in the 17th century as part of the New France Province of Quebec; the competition between the nations was one cause of the French and Indian War (known as the Seven Years' War in Europe). After Britain gained control following its defeat of France in 1763, its attempts to reserve the territory for use by Native Americans under the Royal Proclamation of 1763 roused resentment among British colonists, who were already seeking to settle west of the Appalachian MountainsThe region was assigned to the United States in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, but sporadic westward emigrant settlements had already resumed late in the war after the Iroquois Confederation's power was broken and the tribes scattered by the 1779 Sullivan Expedition. It boomed soon after the Revolution ended as the westward traffic spurred expansion of a gateway trading post into the town of Brownsville, Pennsylvania as a key outfitting center west of the mountain. hope this helps you ;)
