ecutive authority, and to have an absolute negative upon all legislative acts. By a joint ballot of the council and house of representatives, a delegate to Congress might be chosen, with the right of debate but no vote.

The Ordinance concludes with six articles of compact, between the original States and the people and States in the Territory, which should forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent. The first declared that no person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, should ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments. The second prohibited legislative interference with private contracts, and secured to the inhabitants trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus, a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature, judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law, and those guaranties of personal freedom and property, which are enumerated in the Bills of Rights of most of the States. The third provided for the encouragement of schools, and for good faith, justice and humanity towards the Indians. The fourth secured to the new States, to be erected out of the territory, the same privileges with the old ones; imposed upon them the same burdens, including responsibility for the federal debt; prohibited them from interfering with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States, or taxing the public lands, or taxing the lands of non-residents higher than those of residents; and established the navigable waters, leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the portages between them, as common highways for the use of all the citizens of the United States.

The fifth article related to the formation of new States within the territory, and to their admission into the Union. There were to be not less than three nor more than five States.

The western State was to include all the country between a line from the mouth of the Wabash along that river to Vincennes, and thence due north to the territorial line, and by that line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State was to comprehend all within a line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami, to the territorial line and the eastern boundary of the western State. The residue was to constitute the eastern State, but Congress reserved the power of forming one or two States north of an east and west line, drawn through the southern bend or extreme of Lake Michigan. These States, having a population of sixty thousand, or at an earlier period, if consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, were to have the right of admission into the Union, agreeably to the terms of the Virginia cession and the resolution of October 10th, 1780, and were to remain forever members of the confederacy.

The sixth and last article was in these words: "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. Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”

The resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, on the subject of the Ordinance, were repealed.7

In October following, Congress ordered seven hundred troops for the defence of the western frontiers and to aid in the organization of civil authority under their Ordinance of July, and on the 5th of the month, appointed General Arthur

7) The Ordinance will be found in Appendix, No. xiii. See Western Law Journal, vol. v. p. 529.

St. Clair, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, associating with him, Winthrop Sargent of Massachusetts as Secretary, and Samuel Holden Parsons of Massachusetts, James Mitchel Barnum of Pennsylvania and John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey, as Judges of the territory.

On the SEVENTH OF APRIL, 1788, a party of forty-eight men, with General Rufus Putman at their head, disembarked at the mouth of the Muskingum River. They were the pioneers of the Ohio Company, and they had made their voyage from Pittsburgh in a vessel constructed for the purpose-the "Adventure Galley" afterwards called the "Mayflower." The aniversary of this interesting occasion will always be cherished, as it is often celebrated by the people of Ohio.

On the FIFTEENTH OF JULY, Governor St. Clair, who had arrived at Fort Harmar six days before, was formally received upon the site of Marietta-the "Seat of Government"-by the veteran Parsons, the Secretary and Judges of the territory, and an assemblage of inhabitants. Under a bower of foliage, contributed by the surrounding forest, the Ordinance of 1787 was audibly read-congratulations exchanged-and three cheers, startling the solitude of the streams, and the denizens of the wilderness around them, closed the simple, but impressive inauguration of Territorial Government beyond the Ohio.

APPENDIX.

I.
(Page 21.)

FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE ERIES, NEUTRALS, AND

ANDASTES.

แ

THE testimony of the Jesuit missionaries confirms the opinion expressed in the text, that the Neutrals were one of several tribes, that suffered from Iroquois hostility. In 1654, Father Simon Le Moine visited the country of the Onondaga Indians, near the mouth of Lake Ontario. His party were received by some Iroquois fishermen; and among them was a Huron prisoner, and a good Christian," and some Huron squaws, for the most part Christian women, formerly rich and at their ease, whom captivity had reduced to servitude. "They requested me," the missionary continues in his Journal, "to pray to God; and I had the consolation to confess there at my leisure Hostagehtax, our ancient host of the Petun nation. His sentiments and devotion drew tears from my eyes: he is the fruit of the labors of Father Charles Garnier, that holy missionary whose death has been so precious before God."

At the principal Onondaga village, the missionary met other Huron captives, and names Terese, a good Christian woman, who had with her a young captive of the Neutral Nation-de la Nation Neutre-who became "the first adult baptism at Onondago."

In a conference with the Indians, Le Moine, who bore a message and various presents from M. de Lauson, then Governor of New France, delivered a hatchet to each of the four Iroquois Nations, for the new war they were waging against the Cat Nation," with many other references to existing hostilities. “Finally," he adds, "by the nineteenth present, I wiped away the tears of all the young warriors for the death of their great chief Anneneraos, a short time prisoner with the Cat Nation." In reply, a captain of the Oneida Nation "produced four large belts, to thank Onnontio (the French Governor) for having encouraged them to fight bravely against their new enemies of the Cat Nation."