Five-minute digest

The Northwest Ordinance

The Congress of the Confederation

Summary

The Northwest Ordinance, officially An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States North-West of the River Ohio, was passed by the Confederation Congress on 13 July 1787, while the Constitutional Convention was meeting in Philadelphia. It is one of the most important laws in American history. It created a government for the vast territory between the Ohio River, the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, and it set the pattern by which new states would join the Union as equals of the original thirteen. The first part of the ordinance sets out a plan of government in stages. At first Congress appoints a governor, a secretary and three judges, who adopt laws from the existing states. When the territory has five thousand free adult male inhabitants, they may elect a general assembly and send a non-voting delegate to Congress. The ordinance also provides rules for inheritance and the transfer of property. The second part consists of six articles of compact between the original states and the people of the territory, to remain unalterable except by common consent. Article 1 guarantees that no peaceable person shall be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments. Article 2 secures habeas corpus, trial by jury, proportionate representation, bail, moderate fines, no cruel or unusual punishments, and the sanctity of private contracts. Article 3 declares that religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, and that schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged; it also promises the utmost good faith toward the Indians and that their lands shall not be taken without their consent except in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress. Article 4 binds the new states to the Union, and Article 5 provides that between three and five states shall be formed and admitted on an equal footing once a state has sixty thousand free inhabitants. Article 6 forbids slavery and involuntary servitude in the territory, except as punishment for crime, while allowing the return of fugitives. The territory eventually became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota. The ban on slavery made the Ohio River a boundary between slave and free states, and its words were later used in the Thirteenth Amendment. The promise of good faith to the Indians was repeatedly broken, as the frontier wars that followed showed.

Top Lessons

Religion, morality and knowledge
The ordinance links good government to religion, morality and education. Free societies depend on citizens of good character.
Related across the library
- Lemon v. Kurtzman, Lesson: Religion and political division
  Religion and political division. Burger argued that recurring appropriations for church schools would divide voters along religious lines, a danger he traced to the purposes of the First Amendment. Critics have replied that citizens of faith regularly take part in political debate and that division alone should not decide a constitutional question.
- Lectures on Calvinism, Medical lens
  A series of lectures on religion, politics, science and art. Lecture IV mentions the Leiden physician Herman Boerhaave among Dutch scholars and discusses evolutionary theories of heredity, but medicine is not a subject of the lectures.
- The Social Cancer (Noli Me Tangere), Lesson: Abuse of power
  Abuse of power. The friars and officials use religion and law to dominate the people.
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Lesson: A mother's endurance
  A mother's endurance. Linda's flight and her seven years in the garret are undertaken for Benny and Ellen. She chooses darkness, cold and cramped limbs over a life in which her children would be raised in slavery, and she watches them through a hole bored in the wall. The book honors the self-sacrifice of mothers and the strength of family bonds that slavery could not break.
- A Theologico-Political Treatise, Chapter II, Of Prophets
  Revelation varying with each prophet's imagination and temperament, cheerful or melancholy.
Equal footing
New states would join as equals, not colonies. The ordinance extended self-government rather than ruling territories as possessions.
Related across the library
- United States v. The Amistad, Lesson: Christian advocacy
  Christian advocacy. Abolitionists, many of them devout Christians, raised money, found lawyers, taught the captives and later helped them return home. Faith acted through patient work.
- National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Full Text
  to quit smoking And we have upheld such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed-off shotguns See United States v Sanchez U S Sonzinsky v United States U S Indeed e very tax is in some measure regulatory To some extent it interposes an economic impediment to the activity taxed as compared with others not taxed Ibid That A seeks to shape decisions about whether to buy health insurance does not mean that it cannot be a valid exercise of the taxing power In distinguishing penalties from...
- Worcester v. Georgia, Lesson: When a judgment is not obeyed
  When a judgment is not obeyed. The Court reversed the convictions, but Georgia did not release the missionaries, and the federal executive took no action to compel it. The case shows that judicial decisions depend on the cooperation of other branches and of the states. The often-repeated line attributed to Jackson, that Marshall had made his decision and should now enforce it, is not reliably documented.
- West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Full Text
  by the Parent and Teachers Association the Boy and Girl Scouts the Red Cross and the Federation of Women's Clubs Some modification appears to have been made in deference to these objections but no concession was made to Jehovah's Witnesses What is now required is the stiff-arm' salute the saluter to keep the right hand raised with palm turned up while the following is repeated I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one Nation indivisible with liber...
- Faust, Part One, Lesson: The cost borne by the innocent
  The cost borne by the innocent. Faust's desire and Mephistopheles' means destroy Gretchen's mother, her brother, her child and finally Gretchen herself. Goethe shows the human wreckage of Faust's quest through those who had no part in the wager.
A free territory
Article 6 banned slavery in the Northwest, setting a precedent for the later struggle over slavery. Lawmakers can choose justice even when it is not universal.
Related across the library
- A View from the Bridge, Lesson: Law and community justice differ
  Law and community justice differ. Alfieri represents the law, which cannot help Eddie, while Red Hook lives by an older code that punishes informers. The play asks what happens when those systems collide.
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Lesson: A mother's endurance
  A mother's endurance. Linda's flight and her seven years in the garret are undertaken for Benny and Ellen. She chooses darkness, cold and cramped limbs over a life in which her children would be raised in slavery, and she watches them through a hole bored in the wall. The book honors the self-sacrifice of mothers and the strength of family bonds that slavery could not break.
- Titus Andronicus, Lesson: The villain who loves his child
  The villain who loves his child. Aaron delights in evil and dies repenting only of any good he might have done, yet he defends his newborn son against the whole court and bargains his confession for the child's life. The play refuses to make even its worst character simple, and it asks students to hold together real wickedness and real natural affection, letting neither cancel the other.
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Lesson: Faith tested and kept
  Faith tested and kept. Aunt Martha's trust in God steadies the family through every loss. Linda distinguishes true Christianity from the religion of slaveholding churches, and she records her own struggles to pray and to forgive. Faith in the book is not easy comfort; it is held through sorrow and doubt.
- The Institutes of Justinian, Book III, Title 19.7-8
  The dumb and the stone-deaf cannot make a stipulation, and a lunatic cannot make any contract because he does not understand what he is doing.
Broken promises
The ordinance promised good faith toward the Indians, but the promise was often broken. A just law must be kept to be worth anything.
Related across the library
- Up from Slavery, Lesson: Education of head, hand and heart
  Education of head, hand and heart. Tuskegee joins academic study with trades, farming, cleanliness and chapel. Washington argues that a people newly freed must learn to own land, build houses and earn a living, and that labor done with skill is dignified. The Atlanta address turns this conviction into a public program.
- Early Black Church Sermons and Addresses, Lesson: The pulpit can become public infrastructure
  The pulpit can become public infrastructure. Black church speech did more than exhort individuals. It supported institutions that carried education, aid, memory, and political courage.
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Lesson: Duty in the absence of feeling
  Duty in the absence of feeling. Kant's sorrowing philanthropist and weary survivor show moral action continuing when inclination has died. Readers have found the view either austere or consoling: it locates worth in the person who keeps faith with obligations through depression and grief.
- The Code of Hammurabi, Lesson: Law made public
  Law made public. Hammurabi wrote his laws on a public monument so that anyone wronged could know his rights. Justice depends on laws that are known and fixed in advance.
- The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part Three, ch. 12, Total Domination
  The camps as laboratories of total domination; the killing of the juridical person, the moral person and individuality.

Verified Quotes

“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 Congress of the Confederation, The Northwest Ordinance, Article 3.Quote card

Six Metaphysical Meditations, with Hobbes's Objections and the Replies, Full Text
the Shape of a Chiliogone without the help of Imagination but I can also imagine it by applying the Eye of my Mind to its Five sides and to the Area or space contained by Them And herein I manifestly perceive that there is required a peculiar sort of Operation in the Mind to imagine a Thing which I require not to Understand a Thing which New Operation of the Mind plainly shews the difference between imagination and pure Intellection Besides this I Consider that this Power of Imagination which is in me as it diff...
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Lesson: Changing the question
Changing the question. Gobitis had asked whether religious objectors deserved an exemption from a valid requirement. Jackson asked a prior question: whether the state could require the salute of anyone at all. By reframing the issue as one of compelled speech, the majority made the case about every citizen's freedom of mind rather than one group's faith.
Selected Sermons, Source
The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons Produced by Keith G Richardson THE OVERCOMING LIFE AND OTHER SERMONS By D L MOODY This is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith FLEMING H REVELL COMPANY New York Chicago Toronto Publishers of Evangelical Literature COPYRIGHTED BY Fleming H Revell Company CONTENTS THE OVERCOMING LIFE PART I THE CHRISTIAN'S WARFARE PART II INTERNAL FOES PART III EXTERNAL FOES RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE TRUE WISDOM COME THOU AND ALL THY HOUSE INTO THE ARK HUMILITY REST SEVEN I WI...
Early Christian Lives, Life of Antony, tomb and fortress episodes
Demonic assaults, terrifying visions and endurance under attack structure ascetic combat.
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction, Chapter IX
unknown where the workmen are accustomed to take as a preservative sulphuric acid lemonade a solution of sugar rendered acid by sulphuric acid Now diluted sulphuric acid has the property of decomposing all compounds of lead with organic matter or of preventing them from being formed There is another class of instances of the nature required by the Method of Difference which seem at first sight to conflict with the theory Soluble salts of silver such for instance as the nitrate have the same stiffening antiseptic...

“There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”

— The Congress of the Confederation, The Northwest Ordinance, Article 6.Quote card

Perpetual Peace, Second Section, First Definitive Article
If, as must be so under this constitution, the consent of the subjects is required to determine whether there shall be war or not, nothing is more natural than that they should weigh the matter well, before undertaking such a bad business. Kant's reason for thinking a republican constitution inclines toward peace.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Lesson: The cost of delay
The cost of delay. St. Clare sees the wrong of slavery more clearly than anyone, yet he postpones freeing Tom until he is killed. His good intentions die with him, and Tom is sold to Legree. Stowe shows that knowing the right without doing it can be fatal to others.
David Copperfield, Resolution
opportunity of putting a question in which I had a near interest I said to Mrs Micawber May I ask ma am what you and Mr Micawber intend to do now that Mr Micawber is out of his difficulties and at liberty Have you settled yet My family said Mrs Micawber who always said those two words with an air though I never could discover who came under the denomination my family are of opinion that Mr Micawber should quit London and exert his talents in the country Mr Micawber is a man of great talent Master Copperfield I s...
The Thirty-Nine Steps, Full Text
have laughed at him but there was the fact The weather made me liverish the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick I couldn t get enough exercise and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun Richard Hannay I kept telling myself you have got into the wrong ditch my friend and you had better climb out It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Buluwayo I had got my pile not one of the big ones but good enough for me...
Second Inaugural Address, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Second Inaugural Address
old admiration of worldly success as such We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hardheartedness We are moving toward an era of good feeling But we realize that there can be no era of good feeling save among men of good will For these reasons I am justified in believing that the greatest change we have witne...

The Northwest Ordinance

Summary

Top Lessons

Religion, morality and knowledge

Equal footing

A free territory

Broken promises

Verified Quotes