Bicentennial celebrations are good to participate in because they teach us some of our history and heritage that may have been overlooked in our schooling. This is the month of the Bicentennial of the Northwest Ordinance.
Even though this document seems to be largely unknown to modern Americans, it ranks as one of the primary papers fundamental to the formation of our American Republic. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “that third great charter … the highway over which poured the westward march of our civilization. On this plan was the United States built.”
The Northwest Ordinance was passed on July 13, 1787 by the Congress that preceded the establishment of our 200-year-old government under the United States Constitution signed on September 17, 1787. That Congress met in New York, and so the Northwest Ordinance was written by a different group of men from those more famous Founding Fathers who labored in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution.
The principal purpose of the Northwest Ordinance was to provide a statutory and governmental framework for the vast wilderness to the northwest of the thirteen original states. It was the founding charter for the area that eventually became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.
The Northwest Ordinance did much more than stake out guidelines for the territorial expansion of a young nation. It fixed the character of the political, social, educational, industrial and religious institutions of all the new territory.
The Northwest Ordinance determined that future states would be able to come into the Union on the basis of full political equality with the original thirteen states. That was a remarkable decision, since nearly all governments look upon territorial acquisitions as politically inferior colonies rather than as equals.
The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude in all the new states. While practical politics made it impossible for our Constitution drafters in Philadelphia to prohibit slavery in the original states where it already existed, the Northwest Ordinance drafters (contemporaneously with our Constitution) successfully prohibited slavery in all additional states.
The Northwest Ordinance recognized the right of individuals to enjoy direct ownership of land, it being the belief of our Founding Fathers that private property is fundamental to liberty. The Ordinance recognized the sanctity of private contracts and, for the first time in history, forbade government to interfere with them.
The Northwest Ordinance abolished primogeniture, the English system under which the eldest son alone inherited his parents’ real estate. The Ordinance made the break from this rule and established the American law that children should share equally in their parents’ property.
The first article of the Northwest Ordinance guarantees complete freedom of religious belief and worship. The Ordinance also recognized the important role of religion as “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”
The Northwest Ordinance recognized the vital role of education in society and especially in the governing process. It provided that “schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged,” thus setting the American pattern of universal education.
The lasting influence of the Northwest Ordinance is not limited to the six states of the Northwest Territory. Most of its provisions protecting individual liberties were soon incorporated into our Bill of Rights, and every state constitution adopted after 1787 reflected the influence of that great Ordinance.
History is unclear as to which men deserve the credit for authorship of the Northwest Ordinance. But history speaks with a thunderous voice as to its supreme excellence and lasting importance.
Daniel Webster told the U.S. Senate in 1830: “We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. We see its consequences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow.”
Many observances are taking place this month to honor the 200th anniversary of the Northwest Ordinance. The Big Ten Alumni Associations, in a cooperative venture that is an educational “first,” are working together on a two-part Bicentennial project.
The first part is a series of conferences to be conducted at each university on the subject of the Northwest Ordinance and the Constitution. The second part is a traveling exhibit, which contains documents from some of America’s leading reference libraries, museums, and historical societies.
