The next division was ordained by act of Congress, approved February 3, 1809, when that portion of Indiana Territory lying west of the lower Wabash River and the meridian of Vincennes north of the Wabash became the Territory of Illinois. Indiana was thus left with her present boundaries, except that she owned a funnel-shaped strip of water and of land just west of the middle of Lake Michigan, between the Vincennes meridian and what was then western boundary of Michigan Territory, including that part of the present upper Michigan peninsula between the meridians of Mackinac and Vincennes, and her northern boundary was ten miles south of the present state boundary.
When Indiana was admitted to the Union, December 11, 1816, by act approved April 19, 1816, her northern boundary was established by Congress on a line running due east of a point in the middle of Lake Michigan ten miles north of the southern extreme of the lake. This again was a flagrant violation of the ordinance, with the excuse that Indiana must be given a share of the lake coast. Since there were then no important harbors or towns involved, Michigan made no serious objection to this encroachment on her territory.
The contraction of the northern boundaries of Indiana left the previously mentioned strip of water in Lake Michigan and the northern peninsula country literally a “No Man’s Land.” States and territories had been formed around it, but this rich section of ore and pine lands was left for a while unclaimed.
The act of April 18, 1818, enabling Illinois to become a state, cut down her territory to its present limits. The northern boundary of Illinois was fixed at 42° 30´, which is over 61 miles north of the southern bend of Lake Michigan, the northern boundary prescribed by the ordinance for the fourth and southern boundary of the fifth states to be formed. What later became Wisconsin was thereby deprived of 8,500 square miles of rich agricultural and mining country and numerous lake ports. This was done through the manipulation of Nathaniel Pope, Illinois’ delegate in Congress at that time. Pope argued that Illinois must become intimately connected with the growing commerce of the northern lakes, or else her commercial relations upon the rivers to the south might cause her to join a southern confederacy in case the Union were disrupted. Illinois became a state December 3, 1818. Congress assumed the right to govern and divide the territory in the Northwest to suit itself, regardless of the solemn compact of 1787, and there seemed nothing to do but submit. The future proved that Michigan had been more than repaid for the loss of the Ohio border strip when she acquired the northern peninsula. However, Wisconsin lost this tract of territory which belongs to her geographically, and also the southern part of the state, which had been contemplated by the ordinance.
By act of June 12, 1838, Congress still further contracted the limits of Wisconsin Territory by adding the trans-Mississippi tract she had “inherited” from Michigan Territory to the new Territory of Iowa. However, this was in accordance with an earlier design when the northern Louisiana purchase country between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers was attached to Michigan Territory for purposes of temporary government.
Wisconsin remained so bounded until the act of Congress approved August 6, 1846, enabled her people to form a state constitution. Settlements had now been established along the upper Mississippi and in the St. Croix Valley. While this area had been part of the original Northwest Territory, and was then part of Wisconsin Territory, it was far removed from the bulk of settlement in southern and eastern Wisconsin, and rather than be so remote from the rest of the state population, the settlers desired to join the new Territory of Minnesota, which was to be formed west of the Mississippi. They brought strong influences to bear in Congress, and an enabling act gave Wisconsin practically the same northwestern boundary that she has today—from the first rapids of the St. Louis River due south to the St. Croix River and thence to the Mississippi. This cut off an area of 26,000 more square miles from Wisconsin and assigned it to Minnesota. There was a sharp fight over the matter, both in Congress and in the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention of 1846 and 1847-48, with the result that the people of the St. Croix region won. Wisconsin was admitted into the Union, by act approved May 29, 1848.
The remaining portion of the original Northwest Territory west of Wisconsin finally became a part of the Territory of Minnesota, admitted as a state May 11, 1858.