Historian Rick Britton joins Les Sinclair to dis the Northwest Ordinance

In this segment, historian Rick Britton discusses TODAY IN U.S. HISTORY: On this day in 1787, Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance, structuring settlement of the Northwest Territory—what today we’d call the Midwest—and creating a policy for the addition of new states to the nation. Congress first had to resolve the states’ competing claims to western territory. In 1781, Virginia began by ceding its extensive land claims to Congress. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson authored the first version of the Northwest Ordinance. In it he proposed ten new northwestern territories that would eventually join the confederation as full members. Congress, however, feared that the new states—10 in the Northwest as well as Kentucky, Tennessee and Vermont—would quickly gain enough power to outvote the old ones and never passed the measure.

Three years later, the second Northwest Ordinance proposed that three to five new states be created from the Northwest Territory. When 60,000 settlers resided in a territory, they could draft a constitution and petition for full statehood. The ordinance provided for civil liberties and public education within the new territories, but did not allow slavery. Pro-slavery Southerners were willing to go along with this because they hoped that the new states would be populated by white settlers from the South.

ALSO: On Thursday, July 26th, I’ll be taking a bus group to Richmond. – An entire day in Richmond, capital of the Confederacy! In the morning we’ll tour the Museum of the Confederacy & the White House of the Confederacy. We’ll dine nearby. In the afternoon we’ll tour the beautifully preserved Gaines’ Mill Battlefield. Guiding the tour will be historian Rick Britton. Tour departs 9:00 a.m., returns between 4:30 & 5:30 p.m. To sign up call the Senior Center Travel Office at (434) 974-6538.