This provision was inserted before the last clause of the Resolution and hence was made a part of the “Charter of Compact."

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As the Resolution stood, even after Gerry's amendment, the moment a community in the Western region adopted even a temporary Government," it was considered as a distinct political personality, or State, external to the Confederation, over which the Confederation had no power except as such power had been granted to it by the express treaty made between it and the new State, formulated in and evidenced by the Resolution.

The Resolution of 1784, therefore, was, as a whole, in accordance with the anti-Imperialist theory that all relations between States are the result of an express contract. Had it ever gone into effect, it would have constituted a written Imperial Constitution between the American Union, as the Imperial State, and the dependencies in the Western region, from the moment that they assumed even temporary Governments, and would have given the Union the same limited powers over them as it exercised over the States of the Union, which powers, however, it could have exercised without any condition. whatever as to the manner of its exercise. For the dispositive power, it would have substituted a power of managing the foreign relations of the dependencies, and an exceedingly limited power to legislate for the common interests, as soon as even temporary Governments should be formed by these dependencies.

The Resolution of 1784 was never put in force. Providing, as it did, that the communities in the Western region should ultimately be admitted as States of the Confederation on equal terms with the other States, in which respect it conformed to the resolution of October 10, 1780, and the Virginia and Massachusetts deeds of cession, a difficulty arose from the fact that the resolution and deeds required that each State formed in the West

ern region should be not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square.

If the Northwest Territory alone had been divided into States one hundred and fifty miles square, eleven States would have been formed in it; if of one hundred miles square, twenty-five. The resolution of October 10, 1780, however, by which these maximum and minimum dimensions were fixed, related to all the Western region which should be ceded by the States to the United States, and promised to each State formed in the region admission into the Confederation on equal terms. In that which was actually ceded, there could have been formed twenty States one hundred and fifty miles square, or forty-five one hundred miles square.

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As the power to admit new States was based on Article XI. of the Articles of Confederation, a new State" could be admitted by vote of any nine States of the Confederation. As soon as more than three new States were added, the original States would have been at the mercy of any coalition between these three and a minority of themselves, and as soon as more than five new States were admitted, even nine of the old States voting together could not have prevented the admission of as many new States as the remainder might have seen fit. The original States were slow to adopt a plan which seemed certain to throw the power into the hands of the Western States. In the Resolution as amended on recommittal and as adopted by Congress, the difficulty was attempted to be cured by requiring each new State on its admission to agree that no State should be subsequently admitted except by a vote of two thirds of the States then members of the Confederation; but this was plainly an attempt to amend Article XI. in an indirect way, and its validity was doubtful.

It was doubtless largely owing to this difficulty that the subject of the disposition to be made of the Western

region was before Congress for more than three years before final action was taken, and that there arose, as there evidently did, between the United States and the inhabitants of the Northwest Territory a decided hostility in the years 1786 and 1787. There was a practical deadlock. Congress could not give the "Districts" or "States" a régime guaranteeing them ultimate admission as States of the Union, without exposing the original States to the power of the Western States, in number at least eleven and perhaps forty-five; and yet to have given them a régime which did not so guarantee, would not only have alienated them from the Union, but would have driven them to intrigue with Great Britain or Spain for the purpose of establishing an independent Confederation.

Matters were rapidly drifting into a dangerous situation. The British troops had refused to evacuate the posts in the Northwest Territory and were ready to reoccupy the region in case the United States should fail, after a reasonable time, to effectively occupy it. Spain claimed the whole region between the Mississippi and the Alleghenies as far north as the Ohio. Madison, in the Madison Papers, gives a detailed account of a number of interviews which he had, in the spring of 1787, as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, with Guardoqui, the Spanish Minister, who was seeking recognition of the Spanish claim to close the Mississippi, in one of which the Minister distinctly claimed for Spain the whole region above described. By vote of seven States, Congress authorized a treaty to be made, granting to Spain the right to close the navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five years, but the validity of a majority vote on such an important subject was denied by the other States, and the treaty was not consummated. Washington, writing to Governor Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, less than six months after the Resolution of

1784 was adopted, on his return from a journey through the Western region, said that the communities there stood, as it were, upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way."

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The Ordinance of 1787 for the Government of the Northwest Territory evidently had its origin in the conviction of some of the delegates in the Congress, that it was absolutely necessary to the safety of the Confederation that the Congress should recognize itself as having the utmost power possible over the Western region, consistently with the position which the American Colonies had taken against Great Britain during the Revolution. It was realized that if the Confederation should actually commit itself to the theory of the Resolution of 1784, that it had no power over the communities in the Western region except as the result of an express contract, this practically would give the Confederation only so much power over these communities as they chose to allow it to have, and would allow them to rescind the contract and secede from the Empire whenever they were dissatisfied. Secession of the Western States from the American Empire, it was realized, would mean possibly the destruction of the Confederation itself by a new Confederation of Western States, aided by foreign influence, and certainly a serious loss of prestige to the existing Confederation. The effect of the representations of the delegates who held this view was to gradually bring the whole Congress to this way of thinking, and Congress set itself to the task of establishing a régime for the Western region which should go as far as possible in the direction of keeping the power in the hands of the Confederation, and yet not be inconsistent with the position taken by the American Colonies in the contest with Great Britain. Such action had to be taken in secret. The popular mind was so full of the "rights of man theories that demagogues had become popular idols and

easily persuaded the people that all government except that by demagogues was oppression. "Shays' Rebellion," so-called, which occurred in Massachusetts in 1786, was but an evidence of the general disrespect for all government, and particularly of government by the Congress. Evidently it was due to the political situation that Congress left no record on its Journals except of appointment of committees and of its completed action.

The Journals of Congress show that on March 24, 1786, a report was made by a Grand Committee of the House, to whom had been referred a motion of James Monroe, then one of the delegates from Virginia, on the subject of the Western territory. They also show that, on May 10, 1786, a report was made by a Committee of which Monroe was chairman and Johnson of Connecticut, King of Massachusetts, and Kean and Pinckney of South Carolina were members, to whom a motion made by Dane of Massachusetts, for considering and reporting the form of a temporary Government for the Western territory, had been referred. Though the originals of these motions and reports are not in existence, so far as is known, Monroe has left a statement of their main characteristics. Writing to his friend and preceptor, Jefferson, who was then in Paris, on the very next day after this report was made (May 11, 1786), he said:

A proposition, or rather a report, is before Congress, recommending it to Virginia and Massachusetts to revise their acts so as to leave it to the United States to make what division of the [Northwest Territory] future circumstances may make necessary, subject to this proviso, "that the said territory be divided into not less than two nor more than five States." The plan of a temporary Government to be instituted by Congress and preserved over such District until they shall be admitted into Congress is also reported. The outlines are as follows: Congress are to appoint, as soon as any of the lands