University of Virginia Library

9099. WESTERN TERRITORY, Government for.—[continued].

The committee to whom
was recommitted the report of a plan for a
temporary government of the Western Territory
have agreed to the following resolutions: Resolved.
That so much of the territory ceded or
to be ceded by individual States to the United
States as is already purchased or shall be purchased
of the Indian inhabitants and offered
for sale by Congress, shall be divided into distinct
States, in the following manner, as nearly
as such cessions will admit; that is to say, by
parallels of latitude, so that each State shall
comprehend from South to North two degrees
of latitude beginning to count from the completion
of thirty-one degrees North of the
Equator; and the meridian of longitude, one of
which shall pass through the lowest point of the
rapids of Ohio, and the other through the Western
Cape of the mouth of the Great Kanawha,
but the territory Eastward of this last meridian,
between the Ohio, Lake Erie, and Pennsylvania
shall be one State, whatsoever may be its comprehension
of latitude. That which may lie
beyond the completion of the 45th degree between
the sd. meridians shall make part of the
State adjoining it on the South, and that part
of the Ohio which is between the same meridians
coinciding nearly with the parallel of 39°
shall be substituted so far in lieu of that parallel
as a boundary line. That the settlers on any
territory so purchased and offered for sale,
either on their own petition, or on the order of
Congress, receive authority from them, with appointments

of time and place for their free males of full age, within the limits of their State
to meet together for the purpose of establishing
a temporary government, to adopt the constitution
and laws of any one of the original States,
so that such laws nevertheless shall be subject
to alteration by their ordinary legislature; and
to erect, subject to a like alteration, counties
or townships for the election of members for
their legislature. That such temporary government
shall only continue in force in any State
until it shall have acquired 20,000 free inhabitants,
when giving due proof thereof to Congress,
they shall receive from them authority
with appointment of time and place to call a
convention of representatives to establish a
permanent Constitution and Government for
themselves. Provided that both the temporary
and permanent governments be established on
these principles as their basis. 1. They shall
forever remain a part of this confederacy of the
United States of America. 2. That in their
persons, property, and territory, they shall be
subject to the Government of the United States
in Congress assembled, and to the articles of
Confederation in all those cases in which the
original States shall be so subject. 3. That they
shall be subject to pay a part of the federal
debts contracted or to be contracted, to be apportioned
on them by Congress, according to
the same common rule and measure, by which
apportionments thereof shall be made on the
other States. 4. That their respective Governments
shall be in republican forms and shall admit
no person to be a citizen who holds any
hereditary title. 5. That after the year 1800 of
the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude in any of the sd
States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes
whereof the party shall have been convicted to
have been personally guilty. That whensoever
any of the sd States shall have, of free inhabitants,
as many as shall be in any one the least
numerous, of the thirteen original States, such
State shall be admitted by its delegates into the
Congress of the United States on an equal footing
with the said original States: provided
nine States agree to such admission according
to the reservation of the 11th of the Articles of
Confederation, and in order to adapt the sd
Articles of Confederation to the State of Congress
when its numbers shall be thus increased,
it shall be proposed to the Legislatures of the
States originally parties thereto, to require the
assent of two-thirds of the United States in
Congress assembled in all those cases wherein
by the said Articles the assent of nine States is
now required; which being agreed to by them
shall be binding on the new States. Until such
admission by their delegates into Congress, any
of the said States after the establishment of
their temporary government shall have authority
to keep a sitting member in Congress, with a
right of debating, but not of voting. That the
preceding articles shall be duly executed by
the President of the United States in Congress
assembled, under his hand and the seal of the
United States, shall be promulgated and shall
stand as fundamental constitutions between the
thirteen original States and each of the several
States now newly described, unalterable but by
the joint consent of the United States in Congress
assembled, and of the particular State
within which such alteration is proposed to be
made. That measures not inconsistent with the
principles of the Confederation, and necessary
for the preservation of peace and good order
among the settlers in any of the said new
States until they shall assume a temporary government
as aforesaid, may from time to time
be taken by the United States in Congress as
sembled.—
Western Territory Report. Ford ed., iii, 429.
(March 22, 1784)