Which statements describe the laws mandated by the northwest ordinance of 1787?
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Guest Essayist: Allison R. Hayward, political and ethics attorney Show Enacted on July 13, 1787, the Northwest Ordinance was a great achievement, and a document Americans should be proud to own. Yet it emerged from a Congress that, under the Articles of Confederation, had not been able to achieve very much. Circumstances in the territories, moreover, were very difficult, and the motives for passing the ordinance among many Members were less than honorable. That shouldn’t change our positive view of the Ordinance, but might instead lead us to think about how petty motives can nonetheless, sometimes, lead to great things. The greatness of the Ordinance is evident in its text. It provided a free and republican foundation for the governance of the “Northwest” — the territory we now refer to as the “Midwest” and that became the states of Ohio (admitted 1803), Indiana (1816) Illinois (1818), Michigan (1837), Wisconsin (1848), and the eastern part of Minnesota (1858). The Ordinance guaranteed the right to habeas corpus, freedom of religion, trial by jury, equal apportionment in representation, compensation for taking of property for public use, and protections for the rights of Indians. It prohibited slavery or involuntary servitude. It also provided that states admitted from the territory would enjoy equal footing in national government with all other states. It also reserved some power in Congress over the territory, since Congress appointed the government of the territory, including a Governor, Secretary, and judges. Furthermore, Congress could reject laws enacted by the territorial government. Recall that under the Articles of Confederation, Congress has been powerless to bring intransigent state governments into line. Congress lacked the power to regulate commerce, so states raised tariffs and duties against one another’s goods. Congress lacked the power to impose taxes, and thus could not pay national debts from the Revolutionary War. Without the power to impose a common national currency, fiscal policy was left to localities, many who favored debtors and thus inflationary policies. None of these helped national economic recovery from the brutal losses sustained in the fight for independence. But congressional control had other consequences. It allowed Congress to deal with land speculators, who has in the preceding years had recruited investors for development of western lands. Members with such economic power (then as now) are susceptible to self-dealing. As historian Walter McDougall observes, “it was an easy matter for Cutler [a principal in a land company] to bribe key congressmen by making them partners… [a]ll he needed to do to claim his wooded empire was arrange for … territories subject to appointed governors.” In the Ordinance, Congress also retained the power to “the primary disposal of the soil” to bona fide purchasers. That is, land companies paid the national government— not the territory — for grants of land. So Cutler, the land speculator named above, contracted with Congress for about 1.5 million acres of Ohio Country, at a price of $1 million, half due immediately and half due at the completion of a survey of the land. The company never raised the promised funds, incurred extra expenses defending against Indians, and when key principals in the deal went bankrupt, the company failed to meet its end of the contract. Nevertheless, Congress patented (that is, deeded ownership) for much of the land under the agreement, which ultimately became owned by individuals. The Northwest Ordinance, on the one hand, could be viewed as merely a tool for failed real estate speculation. On the other hand we remember it an important vehicle for expressing and preserving key liberties. That may be because the same week the Ordinance was enacted, another meeting of delegates, in Philadelphia, was debating a replacement to the failed Articles of Confederation in a Constitutional Convention. That Convention grappled with the same questions, and imperfect motives, that faced the drafters of the Northwest Ordinance. With the Ordinance as prologue (and a cautionary tale) it’s therefore no coincidence that our Constitution emerged with a strong yet divided national government better able to protect national interests while preserving individual liberty. Read The Northwest Ordinance here: https://constitutingamerica.org/?p=3556 Allison R. Hayward is a political and ethics attorney in California March 15, 2013 – Essay #20
On July 13, 1787, Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, structuring settlement of the Northwest Territory and creating a policy for the addition of new states to the nation. The members of Congress knew that if their new confederation were to survive intact, it had to resolve the states’ competing claims to western territory. In 1781, Virginia began by ceding its extensive land claims to Congress, a move that made other states more comfortable in doing the same. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson first proposed a method of incorporating these western territories into the United States. His plan effectively turned the territories into colonies of the existing states. Ten new northwestern territories would select the constitution of an existing state and then wait until its population reached 20,000 to join the confederation as a full member. Congress, however, feared that the new states—10 in the Northwest as well as Kentucky, Tennessee and Vermont—would quickly gain enough power to outvote the old ones and never passed the measure. Three years later, the Northwest Ordinance proposed that three to five new states be created from the Northwest Territory. Instead of adopting the legal constructs of an existing state, each territory would have an appointed governor and council. When the population reached 5,000, the residents could elect their own assembly, although the governor would retain absolute veto power. When 60,000 settlers resided in a territory, they could draft a constitution and petition for full statehood. The ordinance provided for civil liberties and public education within the new territories, but did not allow slavery. Pro-slavery Southerners were willing to go along with this because they hoped that the new states would be populated by white settlers from the South. They believed that although these Southerners would have no enslaved workers of their own, they would not join the growing abolition movement of the North. On July 10, 2015, Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia pulls over a 28-year-old Black woman, Sandra Bland, for failing to signal a lane change. After a heated encounter, he arrests her and takes her to a nearby jail. Three days later, on the morning of July 13, she is found dead in ...read more Outraged and saddened after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who killed a Black teenager in 2012, Oakland, California resident Alicia Garza posts a message on Facebook on July 13, 2013. Her post contains the phrase "Black lives matter," which soon becomes a ...read more In Los Angeles, California, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts is nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party Convention, defeating Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. The next day, Johnson was named Kennedy’s running mate by a unanimous vote of the convention. ...read more The Battle of Kursk, involving some 6,000 tanks, two million men, and 5,000 aircraft, ends with the German offensive repulsed by the Soviets at heavy cost. In early July, Germany and the USSR concentrated their forces near the city of Kursk in western Russia, site of a ...read more Jean-Paul Marat, one of the most outspoken leaders of the French Revolution, is stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a Royalist sympathizer. Originally a doctor, Marat founded the journal L’Ami du Peuple in 1789, and its fiery criticism of those in power was a ...read more On July 13, 1978, Ford Motor Company chairman Henry Ford II fires Lee Iacocca as Ford’s president, ending years of tension between the two men. Born to an immigrant family in Pennsylvania in 1924, Iacocca was hired by Ford as an engineer in 1946 but soon switched to sales, at ...read more On July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially open Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert organized to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans. Continued at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia (where Joan Baez famously kicked it ...read more Former Alabama Governor George Wallace criticizes President Richard Nixon for his handling of the war and says he favors an all-out military victory if the Paris talks fail to produce peace soon. Wallace had run unsuccessfully against Nixon as a third party candidate in the 1968 ...read more On July 13, 1930, France defeats Mexico 4-1 and the United States defeats Belgium 3-0 in the first-ever World Cup football matches, played simultaneously in host city Montevideo, Uruguay. The World Cup has since become the world’s most watched sporting event. After football ...read more
On July 13, 1990, the romantic-thriller Ghost, starring Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg, opens in theaters across the United States. The film, about a woman who communicates with her murdered husband through a psychic, was a box-office hit and received multiple ...read more Nightclub owner Ruth Ellis is convicted of murdering boyfriend David Blakely on July 13, 1955. Ellis was later executed by hanging and became the last woman in Great Britain to be put to death. Ellis was born in Rhyl, Wales, in 1926. She left school as a young teenager, had a ...read more What are the 3 main points from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787?The Northwest Ordinance chartered a government for the Northwest Territory, provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory.
Which of the following best describes the Northwest Ordinance of 1787?Also known as the Ordinance of 1787, the Northwest Ordinance established a government for the Northwest Territory, outlined the process for admitting a new state to the Union, and guaranteed that newly created states would be equal to the original thirteen states.
Which of the following statements about the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is accurate?Which of the following statements about the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is accurate? It promised ineffectively that Native American lands would not be taken without their consent.
What was the most important element of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and why?Adopted on July 13, 1787, the Northwest Ordinance established a government for the Northwest Territory and outlined a process for admitting new states.
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