Statehood and Union

Peter S. Onuf

Description

This new edition of Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, originally published in 1987, is an authoritative account of the origins and early history of American policy for territorial government, land distribution, and the admission of new states in the Old Northwest. In a new preface, Peter S. Onuf reviews important new work on the progress of colonization and territorial expansion in the rising American empire.

Sujets

• American Government
• Revolutionary Periode
• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Histoire
• Mensajería instantánea
• Federal government of the United States
• United States
• KS
• National
• IL
• ND
• IN
• NE
• OH
• MN
• SD
• MO
• MI

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 28 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268105488
• Langue: English

Extrait

Statehood and Union
STATEHOOD
AND
U ☆ N ☆ I ☆ O ☆ N
A HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE
Peter S. Onuf
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 1987, 2018 by Peter S. Onuf
First Midland Book Edition 1992
Published in 2019 by the University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Onuf, Peter S., author.
Title: Statehood and Union : A History of the Northwest Ordinance / Peter S. Onuf.
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : Univerity of Notre Dame Press, 2019. | “First Midland Book Edition 1992.” | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018059040| ISBN 9780268105457 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268105456 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780268105464 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268105464 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780268105471 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268105488 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: United States. Ordinance of 1787. | Northwest, Old—History—1775–1865.
Classification: LCC E309 .O58 2019 | DDC 977/.02—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059040
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper) .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
Dedicated to
Kristin Kirkman Onuf
C ☆ O ☆ N ☆ T ☆ E ☆ N ☆ T ☆ S
MAPS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE TO THE 2019 EDITION
INTRODUCTION
1. Liberty, Development, and Union Visions of the West in the 1780s
2. Squatters, Speculators, and Settlers The Land Ordinance of 1785
3. New States in the Expanding Union The Territorial Government Ordinances
4. From Territory to State
5. Boundary Controversies
6. Slavery and Freedom
7. From Constitution to Higher Law
NOTES
INDEX
M ☆ A ☆ P ☆ S
Map 1: A Map of the Federal Territory (1788)
Map 2: A Map of the United States of N. America (1787)
Map 3: Detail from a Map of the United States (1795)
Map 4: Detail from a Map of the State of Ohio (1835)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Much of the research for this book was done at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in 1984–85. With its unparalleled collections and excellent staff, the AAS is a wonderful place to work. I am grateful to Director Marcus McCorison and staff members Keith Arbour, Nancy Burkett, John Hench, Dennis Laurie, and Joyce Tracy for making my stay at the society so pleasant and productive. Other scholars in residence, most notably Michael Bellesiles, James Henretta, Linck Johnson, and Steve Nissenbaum, provided good criticism and stimulating fellowship.
Earlier versions of several chapters were presented at scholarly conferences. The hospitality and support of the Claremont Institute, the Center for the Study of Federalism, the Liberty Fund, Ohio Historical Center, and Johns Hopkins University are gratefully acknowledged. Terry Barnhart made me feel particularly welcome in Columbus, as did my mentor Jack P. Greene in Baltimore. Portions of the book have been previously published: substantial sections of chapters 1 and 2 appeared in the William and Mary Quarterly , 43 (April 1986); scattered sections of chapters 4 , 6 , and 7 are taken from Ohio History , 94 (Winter-Spring 1985).
I am indebted to numerous friends and colleagues for criticism and support. Over the years George Billias has regularly provided good advice and a sympathetic ear. Joyce Appleby, Terry Barnhart, Robert Berkhofer, Jr., Drew Cayton, Paul Finkelman, Jack Greene, Drew McCoy, and Dick Ryerson read portions of the manuscript, offering useful criticism and encouragement. Timo Gilmore pushed me to be more assertive in developing my argument. Several chapters have been markedly improved by Robert R. Dykstra’s superb editing and many insightful suggestions. Ruth Smith’s helpful reading of the entire manuscript spurred me through revisions. As has been so often the case, many of my ideas were developed through conversation and collaboration with Cathy Matson. Herb Sloan, in typically generous fashion, gave the completed manuscript a close, critical, and extremely useful reading.
My biggest intellectual debt is to Nicholas Onuf, a brilliant man and a loving brother. My daughters Rachel and Alexandra are a constant joy to me. Kristin, to whom this book is dedicated, is my source of strength.
PREFACE TO THE 2019 EDITION
The success of the American Revolution depended on the creation and expansion of a “more perfect union” of free republican states. In the summer of 1787, as delegates of twelve of the original thirteen states (Rhode Island was not represented) gathered in Philadelphia to draft a new federal Constitution, the Congress of the old Confederation, meeting in New York City, enacted an ambitious plan for the creation of three to five new states in the national domain north and west of the Ohio River. That the Philadelphia framers were able to negotiate a “peace pact” for their quarrelsome, virtually disunited states was, contemporaries agreed, nothing less than a “miracle.” But it was a notoriously ineffectual Confederation Congress that took the boldest leap into futurity, envisioning the spread of white settlement and formation of new governments in a contested borderland far beyond its effective control. Adopted on July 13, 1787, the “Ordinance for the Government of the territory of the United States North West of the river Ohio”—or Northwest Ordinance—was the blueprint for a great American empire of continental dimensions. If the framers had failed and the existing union had collapsed, the Ordinance would have been a dead letter. Yet if the establishment of a new national government gave life to the Ordinance, the Ordinance’s vision of national greatness animated the framers’ “new order for the ages.”
As they tottered at the abyss of anarchy and disunion, Americans dreamed of empire. Statehood and Union is a book about the new and improved vision of empire that American statesmen sought to implement in the early republic’s formative years. It was the republican alternative to the empire that had failed to fulfill the aspirations of Anglo-American patriots in the years leading up to independence. In a passage that the Continental Congress cut from his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson lamented the demise of Anglo-American union: “We might have been a free & a great people together.” 1 King George III failed to sustain that union, thus squandering the boundless prospects afforded by victory over the French in the Seven Years’ War. “Westward the course of empire,” Bishop George Berkeley exulted in 1726. 2 But it was not to be. Instead of unleashing a westward surge, penny-pinching bureaucrats set a western limit to settlement in the Proclamation of October 7, 1763. The imperial government seemed determined to suppress the colonies’ population and prosperity and transform them into subject provinces. When Parliament in one of its so-called “Intolerable Acts” of 1774 extended the jurisdiction of the formerly French province of Quebec to include the trans-Ohio region—so abrogating the charter claims of Virginia and other British colonies—the evil intentions of a corrupt ministry could no longer be doubted. Anglo-American patriots wanted to turn the clock back to the Peace of Paris in 1763, when they could still see themselves as agents and beneficiaries of imperial expansion. Without such an empire, the British connection—and allegiance to George III—seemed increasingly problematic, even pointless. Were subjects of the Crown free men or slaves? 3
Revolutionary Americans were imperialists who made war against the British imperial government and finally, with great reluctance, declared independence. Large numbers of loyalists balked at that fateful choice, seeking refuge in other parts of the empire, retreating into neutrality (when and where that was possible), or joining the counterrevolution against their former countrymen. Of course, the “logic of rebellion” was articulated, or rationalized, in terms of fundamental principles: self-identified “Americans” mobilized in defense of their liberties and rights. 4 Yet even though these claims were all framed in universal terms, they derived from British sources, evoking colonists’ experience under their common law jurisdictions, customary colony constitutions, and what they imagined to be an “imperial constitution.” 5 What they all assumed was empire, a great, expansive domain within which property rights—the foundation of all other rights—were secure, even sacred. Breaking with the British Empire thus precipitated a great crisis. As the greatest power in the modern world launched a war of conquest and occupation against its erstwhile subjects, nothing could be secure. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were promises Revolutionaries made to themselves and to future generations, an unprecedented “experiment” in the enlightened science of republican politics.
The most urgent question was whether Americans could recover and reconstitute the empire they had lost. If the British Empire had failed, how could the United States succeed? Both terms, “United” and “States,” raised fundamental and enduring problems. Without the Crown, the former colonies had no recognized constitution or connection, only the ad hoc networks of communication, persuasion, and coercion that they had improvised in the name of the “common cause.” 6 Without the sovereign powers of recognized, “civ