CHAPTER VI

EVOLUTION OF THE STATES OF NORTHWEST TERRITORY

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:

[Illustration: 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.

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:

[Illustration: 1800]

[Illustration: 1805]

“_Provided always, and it is hereby fully understood and declared by this convention_, That if the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far south, that a line drawn due east from it should not intersect Lake Erie, or if it should intersect the said Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Miami River of the lake, then, and in that case, with the assent of the Congress of the United States, the northern boundary of this state shall be established by, and extending to, a direct line, running from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami Bay.”

“The eastern division” of the Northwest Territory, now organized under the name of the state of Ohio, was admitted to the Union in 1803.

[Illustration: 1809]

[Illustration: 1816]

On the eleventh of January, 1805, an act of Congress was approved, erecting the Territory of Michigan out of “all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies north of a line drawn east from the southerly bend, or extreme, of Lake Michigan, until it shall intersect Lake Erie, and east of a line drawn from the said southerly bend through the middle of said lake to its northern extremity, and thence due north to the northern boundary of the United States.” In short, the present southern peninsula of Michigan had a southern boundary as established by the Ordinance of 1787, and all that portion of the Upper Peninsula lying east of the meridian of Mackinac. Congress had admitted Ohio to the Union with a tacit recognition of the northern boundary laid down in her constitutional proviso. Geographical knowledge of the West was still so vague that this conflict of boundaries had been overlooked, and Michigan Territory was allowed a southern limit which overlapped the territory assigned to Ohio. Thus, when the southerly bend of Lake Michigan became known, a serious boundary dispute arose. Michigan claimed the ordinance was a compact which could not be broken by Congress, except by common consent; but Ohio clung to the strip of country which the constitution-makers at Chillicothe had secured for her in the eleventh hour. The wedge shaped strip in dispute averaged six miles in width, across Ohio, embraced 468 square miles, and included Toledo and the mouth of the Maumee River. May 20, 1812, Congress passed an act to determine the boundary; but owing to the impending war with Great Britain, the lines were not run until 1818, and then not satisfactorily. July 14, 1832, another act of Congress for the settlement of the northern limit of Ohio was passed. The situation of the compact had further complicated the territorial boundary when Congress attached the northeastern part of Louisiana purchase to Michigan Territory for temporary purposes of government.

[Illustration: 1818]

[Illustration: 1837]

By that time Michigan had begun to urge her claims to statehood, insisting on the southern boundary prescribed for the fourth and fifth states by the ordinance. The state of Virginia, as the chief donor of land, was asked to intercede in behalf of Michigan. Virginia officials were in accord with Michigan’s contention, but failed to produce any effect on Congress, to whose dominant party the political sympathy of the actual state of Ohio was more important than the good-will of the prospective state of Michigan. Without waiting for an enabling act, a convention held at Detroit in May and June, 1835, adopted a state constitution for submission to Congress, demanding entry into the Union, “in conformity to the fifth article of the ordinance.” The boundaries sought were those established by the fifth article. That summer there were a few disturbances in the disputed territory, and some gunpowder was harmlessly wasted. In December, President Andrew Jackson laid the matter before Congress in a special message. Congress quietly determined to arbitrate the quarrel by giving the disputed tract to Ohio and offering Michigan the whole of what is today her Upper Peninsula. However, Michigan did not want this supposedly barren and worthless country to the northwest, and protested against what was deemed an outrage. It was declared that Michigan had no interest in the north peninsula, and was separated from it by natural barriers for one-half of the year. It was further pointed out that the upper peninsula rightfully belonged to the fifth state to be formed out of the Northwest Territory. But Congress demanded the settlement of this dispute before the admission of Michigan into the Union. In September, 1836, a state convention, called for the sole purpose of deciding the question, rejected the proposition on the ground that Congress had no right to annex such a condition, according to the terms of the ordinance. A second convention, however, approved it on December 15 of the same year, and Congress at once accepted this decision as final. Thus Michigan came into the Union on January 22, 1837, with the same boundaries which she possesses today.

The creation of Michigan Territory in 1805 had left Indiana Territory with the Mississippi River as its western border, the Ohio River as its southern, the international boundary line and the south line of Michigan as its northern, while its eastern limits were the west line of Ohio, the middle of Lake Michigan and the meridian of Mackinac. This included the present states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, part of Minnesota, and the greater part of the Michigan upper peninsula.

[Illustration: 1848]

[Illustration: 1858]

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.