Certainly, at the time, the geography of the Northwest Territory was not accurately determined and this accounts for the later logic of some of the changes made. The source of the Mississippi River, and therefore the western boundary of the territory, was not known until 1832. Maps of the period put the southern extremity of Lake Michigan some twelve miles north of where it actually was. But, beyond these physical reasons for not abiding by the terms of the compact, politics and selfish interests played a considerable part as the Northwest Territory was divided first into smaller territories and then into states.
More cynical people have been inclined to scoff at the worth of this “sacred compact,” so blithely violated upon several occasions. Not only do they propound the state boundaries incidents, but point out that the ordinance itself was adopted and put in effect unconstitutionally because only eight states voted for it, while the Articles of Confederation, then the constitutional law of the nation, provided that the vote of nine states was necessary to adoption.
The real value of the study of history lies first in having the exact facts, and then regarding them in the broad light of their major trends, and giving weight to details only as they may affect the whole. It is easy and rather tempting to select and over-emphasize lesser incidents of history and so, perhaps, distort the more important conclusions to be drawn.
Congress did violate the Articles of Confederation in adopting the ordinance, and the terms of the compact itself in determining the boundaries of states, but as in other history, the action was based upon the best knowledge available at the time, and, on the whole, the course pursued has proved to be right and posterity has approved it.
Twelve years after the ordinance was passed, Congress made its first division of the Northwest Territory. The act provided:
“That from and after the fourth day of July next, all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River which lies to the westward of a line beginning at the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of Kentucky River, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall, for the purposes of temporary government, constitute a separate territory, and be called the Indiana Territory.”
The country east of this line was still to be called the Northwest Territory, with its seat of government at Chillicothe, while Vincennes was to be the seat of government for Indiana Territory. That portion of the line running from the point of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky, northeastward to Fort Recovery, was designed to be but a temporary boundary, it being one of the lines established between the white settlements and the Indians, by the Treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795.
The subsequent act of Congress, approved April 30, 1802, enabled “the people of the eastern division” of the Northwest Territory, Ohio, to draft a state constitution, and obliged them to take in their northern boundary and accept therefor “an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan,” in accordance with the limits prescribed by the original ordinance. In the Ohio State Constitutional Convention, meeting at Chillicothe in November, this line had been acceded to, until the members learned that an experienced trapper, then in the village, claimed that Lake Michigan extended farther south than was ordinarily supposed. It appeared that in the Department of State, at Washington, there was a map which placed the southern bend of Lake Michigan at 42° 20´, about 12 miles north of its actual location. This map had been used by the committee of Congress which drafted the Ordinance of 1787, and a pencil line was discovered upon it. The line passed due east from the bend and intersected the international line at a point between the River Raisin and Detroit. The Chillicothe convention became alarmed by the trapper’s report of the incorrectness of Mitchell’s map, and attached a proviso to the boundary article, as follows:
1800