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Land Is Surveyed- Under the Land Ordinance of 1785, the government geographer assigns a surveyor to map land in a territory and divide it into six-by-six-square-mile townships, with smaller plots within the township, for a total of 36 one-square-mile plots. As stated in the ordinance:
- “The surveyors as they are respectively qualified shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at right angles unless where the boundaries of the late Indian purchases may render the same impracticable… The first line running north and south as aforesaid, shall begin on the river Ohio, at a point that shall be found to be due north from the termination of a line which has been run as the southern boundary of the state of Pennsylvania…”
- The surveyor then designates plots for schools, mining for minerals, or land for sale, and records this in a “deed” or record of land ownership. Soldiers that served in the Revolutionary War are given plots of land between 1,100 and 100 acres, depending on their rank. As stated in the ordinance:
- “There shall be reserved for the United States out of every township, the four lots, being numbered, 8, 11, 26, 29 … There shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township, for the maintenance of public schools…. Also one third part of all gold, silver, lead and copper mines, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of, as Congress shall hereafter direct. And whereas Congress by their resolutions… stipulated grants of land to the officers and soldiers who had engaged or should engage in the service of the United States during the war…”
- Under the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, land ownership is clarified in the event an owner or “proprietor” died. In this case, their land becomes an “estate.” As stated in the ordinance:
- “The estates, both of resident and nonresident proprietors in the said territory, dying [in the state], shall descent to, and be distributed among their children, and the descendants of a deceased child, in equal parts; the descendants of a deceased child or grandchild to take the share of their deceased parent in equal parts among them…”
- The government then appoints a governor and advisers, a local system of government and laws, and a local court and judges to each township. This creates a democratic government in each township, giving power to these officials to govern under the principle of rule of law for the common good of the residents. As stated in the ordinance:
- “The governor and judges… shall adopt and publish in the district such laws of the original States, criminal and civil, as may be necessary and best suited to the circumstances of the district… The governor, for the time being, shall be commander in chief of the militia…”
- Once the township or “district” reaches a population of 5,000 adult males, it could participate in the state’s general assembly with an elected representative. As stated in the ordinance:
- “So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect a representative from their counties or townships to represent them in the general assembly…”
- The same rights and freedoms extended to citizens of the existing states under the Articles of Confederation are then guaranteed and protected to those in the territories and new states governed by the land ordinances. This includes civil and religious freedom, right to permanent government, legal protection, and right to an education. As stated in the ordinance:
- “…to provide also for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the original States… The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of … judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law… Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The said territory, and the States which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this Confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the Articles of Confederation…”
- The territories are divided between states, and their boundaries are set. The territories could apply for statehood once their population reached 60,000. This becomes the basis for the entry of all states into the United States in the nation’s entire history. The first state to enter after the original thirteen colonies was Vermont in 1791, and the last was Alaska in 1959. As stated in the ordinance:
- ”There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the States, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession, and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established… And, whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government.”
- The last requirement of the Northwest Ordinance bars slavery from the Northwest Territory. This is done to prevent the spread of slavery into western lands in the northern half of the nation, where farmers and laborers competed for jobs and resources. It is also an attempt by opponents of slavery to prevent new states in the north from gaining pro-slavery representatives in Congress. As a compromise, slave owners are protected by the freedom to capture escaped slaves and return them to their ownership. As stated in the ordinance:
- “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory… Provided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”
