commonwealth, and its immediate admission into the Union;1 but the petition sent to Congress, judging by Rufus Putnam's draught, spoke of marking out a "tract or teritory sutable to form a distinct goverment (or Colloney of the United States)-in time to be admited, one of the Confedirated States of America." 2 Little is known of the project beyond the general purposes of its framers, who, for some reason, apparently made no great effort to carry out their plans. Soon afterward (June, 1783) an ordinance for the organization of the west was introduced into Congress, but nothing was done with it, and though it contained some significant provisions it is now of interest chiefly because it was the first scheme for western colonization introduced into Congress and because it shows that ideas of importance were taking shape.

More definite action was taken in March, 1784,3 when by Virginia's cession Congress held unquestioned title to at least a large portion of the lands north of the Ohio. An ordinance draughted by Jefferson was brought before Congress: the western lands "ceded or to be ceded" were by this plan to be divided into states; besides a strip just west of Pennsylvania, the territory covered was all the land between the meridian running through the western cape of the mouth of the Great Kanawha on the east

1 Pickering, Pickering, I., 457, 546-549; Cutler, Cutler, I., 159-174; Buell, Memoirs of Putnam, 215. 2 Ibid.

3 Cutler, Cutler, II., 407 et seq.; St. Clair Papers, II., 603 et seq.

and the Mississippi on the west, and extending from the thirty-first parallel to the international boundary at the north. A second meridian running through the lowest point of the Falls of the Ohio and several east and west lines were to divide the whole area into sixteen different states; or if the framers intended, as there is some reason for believing, that South Carolina and Georgia should extend westward to the second meridian, into fourteen states.1

By this plan the settlers were not immediately to form a state and enter the Union, as the proposers of the earlier plan may have desired; they were, 'either on their own petition, or on the order of Congress," to meet together for the purpose of establishing "a temporary government," and when any state had twenty thousand free inhabitants it was to receive from Congress authority to establish a permanent constitution and government. Not until a state should have as many free inhabitants as should be at the time contained in "the least numerous of the thirteen original States" was it to have the right to be admitted into the Union. Thus we see that by the spring of 1784 there had been brought forward the two essential ideas of the American colonial system: temporary government with a large measure of self-government for the colony; and the ultimate admission of the colony into the Union on terms of equality with the older members.

'Cutler, Cutler, II., 407 et seq; Staples, R. I. in the Cont. Cong., 479.

In Jefferson's plan, as first introduced, it was declared that in all this western country "after the year 1800 of the Christian æra there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty." The restriction, it should be noticed, was evidently intended to cover not alone the territory north of the Ohio but the territory south as well.'

The southern states, however, from whose older portions people were already moving into the interior beyond the mountains, were not ready to dedicate the west to freedom. When the Ordinance was under discussion a delegate from North Carolina moved to strike out the antislavery clause. Jefferson in his own delegation voted for the retention of the provision, but he was overruled by his colleagues. The vote of North Carolina was divided. Virginia, South Carolina, and Maryland voted to strike out the clause, and though six northern states voted for its retention, they were defeated, inasmuch as seven states were needed to establish the law."

Without this important provision, therefore, and also without a list of high-flown names for the states which Jefferson had suggested - Metropotamia, Assenisipia, Polypotamia, Pelisipia, etc.and with slight changes in the boundaries of the 1 For first draught of the report, see Randall, Jefferson, I., 397-399. 'Journals of Congress, April 19, 1784.