Adapted from R. G. Thwaites: see Wisconsin State Historical Society Collections (Madison, Wis.) XI (1888), 451-496.
As further evidence of George Washington’s interest in the West, it was he who first suggested boundary lines for the northwestern states. September 7, 1783, he wrote to James Duane, Congressman from New York, regarding the future of the country beyond the Ohio. After giving some wise suggestions as to the management of both Indians and whites, he declared that the time was ripe for the creation of a state there. Here are the bounds proposed by the veteran surveyor:
NORTHWEST TERRITORY
with future state boundaries as specified by the Ordinance of 1787
“From the mouth of the Great Miami River, which empties into the Ohio, to its confluence with the Mad River, thence by a line to the Miami fort and village on the other Miami River, which empties into Lake Erie, and thence by a line to include the settlement of Detroit, would, with Lake Erie to the northward, Pennsylvania to the eastward and the Ohio to the southward, form a government sufficiently extensive to fulfill all the public engagements and to receive moreover a large population by emigrants. Were it not for the purpose of comprehending the settlement of Detroit within the jurisdiction of the new government, a more compact and better shaped district for a state would be, for the line to proceed from the Miami fort and village along the river of that name, to Lake Erie; leaving in that case the settlement of Detroit, and all the territory north of the rivers Miami and St. Joseph’s between the Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, and Michigan, to form hereafter another state equally large, compact and waterbounded.”
Thus did Washington roughly map out the present states of Ohio and Michigan.
Early in March, 1784, Congress instructed a committee to fashion a plan of government for the Northwest Territory. Thomas Jefferson, who was chairman, is given credit for drafting the committee’s report, which was first taken up by Congress on April 19, 1784 and adopted after some amendment. The original draft is famous for Jefferson’s fantastic proposal to divide the Northwest on parallels of latitude, into ten states with severely classical names: Sylvania, Michigania, Assenisipia, Illinoia, Polypotamia, Chersonesus, Metropotamia, Saratoga, Pelisipia, and Washington. While Congress practically accepted this system of territorial division, his proposed names were rejected, and each section was left to choose its own title when it should enter the Union.
These resolutions of April 23, 1784, lasted, on paper, until July 13, 1787, when the Congress of the Confederation adopted the Ordinance of 1787. The ordinance was specific in its provisions as to boundaries of the states to be later formed from the territory. Whether this reflected Washington’s and Jefferson’s contemplated division, or whether, as is more probable, the statements of these men merely expressed a general feeling that the West and the nation itself would prosper best by pre-determination of boundaries, is not known.
Jefferson, in supporting his theoretical plan for sub-division, had urged a row of smaller or “buffer” states between the settled states of the East and those larger and presumably-to-become more powerful states along the Mississippi River.
In any case, the boundaries of states yet to be created were closely defined in article five of the compact, which, by its own terms, could only be altered by mutual consent of both parties. This was to result in almost continuous dispute for the next sixty years. Probably some fine points of law could be raised as to the meaning of “common consent” as applied to the “original states and the people and states in the said Territory.” Congress was apparently the qualified representative of the original states, but who could express the wishes of the “people and states of the said Territory?” Could any one state—or two states—consent to alterations, or must the entire territory also accede? With a definite authority for consent to alteration on one side, and vague power and conflicting interests on the other, the effect was that Congress essentially made the decisions as to altering the original terms of the compact.