Young, Wild, and Free

The United States was still a fledgling nation emerging from the costly Revolutionary War when Thomas Jefferson created the Land Ordinance of 1784, passed into law by the Congress of the Confederation. This basic set of rules regulated the 275,000 square miles west of the Appalachian Mountains and east of the Mississippi River, dividing the land into self-governing districts that would not have the same powers and rights that the states did. In the period prior to the formal ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the governing body was the Confederation Congress established by the Articles of Confederation in 1781.

As the young nation continued to organize its laws and lands, the rules for the Northwest Territory were further refined by the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, which expanded quite a bit on Jefferson’s 1784 bill. A notable addition was its inclusion of formal mechanisms to admit new states that would share the full privileges that accompany statehood, such as voting Congressional representation.
Another major step forward was the fact that the Northwest Ordinance also laid out a bill of rights for territorial citizens. This enumeration of rights of course predates the first 12 amendments in the U.S. Bill of Rights by two years and includes several critical precursors to some of those rights.

A Radical Idea of Religion

In 1787, the U.S. Bill of Rights and the First Amendment’s eventual guarantee of free speech and religion were not yet the law of the land. Despite this, colonial subjects in early America would have understood the free exercise of their religious convictions as part of American life. Dating back to the Puritans’ arrival in Massachusetts in the 17th century, America had long been a refuge for white European colonists from religious persecution abroad.

The first article in the Northwest Ordinance guaranteed the right to religious freedom, stating that “[n]o person…shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments.” For such a right to be mandated outright was nothing short of revolutionary. While many nations at this time still enforced state religions, the Northwest Ordinance enshrined religious freedom as a fundamental right.

Getting Schooled

During the 18th century, many colonists, both male and female, could sign their names and read, but education beyond that was quite rudimentary unless they came from an elite family. Following the revolution, investment in a well-rounded, educated citizenry became a major preoccupation of the nation’s leaders, resulting in the establishment of hundreds of schools across the country.

The Northwest Ordinance provided some of the earliest guidance for the establishment of public educational institutions, with the overarching ethos that “religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged” (Article III).
As for actual implementation, the ordinance outlined a system by which a lot in any given town within the Northwest Territory would be dedicated space for a public schoolhouse. Additionally, nearby lots of land were expected to generate money and resources to support the schools. While many of these schools were never fully realized because some of the allocated land was sold, the centrality of education in the American political imagination continued.

A Divisive Question

Under Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance, slavery and involuntary servitude were forbidden outright. However, this did not immediately emancipate enslaved people living in these territories. In Indiana, for example, any slaves residing in the territory prior to the Ordinance’s passage in 1787 initially remained enslaved—only those who arrived after 1787 would perhaps be recognized as free. Indiana was one of many territories that deliberated the legitimacy of slavery within its borders even under the ordinance.

Regardless of the degree to which territories and states initially followed the ordinance’s antislavery mandate, it undoubtedly developed the Northwest Territory and its subsequent states into havens of freedom, eventually solidifying the boundaries between the North and the South.

Cousin to the Charters of Freedom

While this newsletter only scratched the surface of the many provisions within the Northwest Ordinance, to some scholars, the Northwest Ordinance stands out as a “Charter of Freedom” in its own right. We encourage you to read it for yourself.