The Grand Committee on the Subject of the Western Territory, 1786

From United States Continental Congress, 1786. Philadelphia: Broadside, 1786.

The grand Committee, to whom were referred a Motion of Mr. Monroe, upon the Subject of the WESTERN TERRITORY, ceded by individual States, beg Leave to report in Part,-

That the United States in Congress assembled, having on the 6th day of September, 1780, resolved that it be recommended to the several states having claims to waste and unappropriated lands, to make liberal surrenders thereof to the United States, for their common benefit; and on the 10th of October following, that the territory thus ceded shall be formed into distinct republican states, and admitted members of the federal union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other states; and that each state which shall be so formed, shall contain a suitable extent of territory, not less than one hundred, no more than one hundred and fifty miles square, or as near thereto as circumstances will admit. And the states of Virginia and Massachusetts having made cessions accordingly, the latter founded on , and the former with an express compact, among others, as to the said condition; and the United States, fully to carry the said condition into effect, entered into, on the 23rd of April,1784, several resolutions respecting it. And whereas, upon further consideration of the fame, it hath appeared that a strict adherence to said condition in the division of the country as aforesaid, will produce many inconveniences to the settlers upon the same, and likewise to the confederacy; to prevent which, and put it in the power of the said states to enable the United States to make such division thereof as shall be expedient, it was, by the resolution of recommended to the said states to revise their acts of cession as aforesaid; and as the resolutions aforesaid of the 23rd of April, 1784, might therefore restrain the United States, in case the said recommendation should be complied with, from taking such measures as might be for the general interest, it is hereby.

Resolved, That the resolutions of the 23rd of April, 1784, in the words following, viz. "That so much of the territory ceded, or to be ceded by the individual states to the United States, as is already purchased, or shall be purchased of the Indian inhabitants, and offered for sale by Congress, shall be divided into distinct states, in the following manner as nearly as such cessions will admit; that is to say, by parallels of latitude, so that each state shall comprehend, from north to south, two degrees of latitude, beginning to count from the completion of forty-five degrees north of the Equator, and by meridians of longitude; one of which shall pass through the lowest point of the Rapids of Ohio, and the other through the western cape of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway; but the territory eastward of this last meridian, between Ohio, lake Erie, and Pennsylvania, shall be one state adjoining it on the south; and that part of Ohio which is between the same meridians, coinciding nearly with the parallel of 39 degrees, shall be substituted so far in lieu of that parallel as a boundary line." And "That the preceding articles shall be formed into a charter of compact, shall be duly executed by the president of the United States in Congress assembled, under his hand and the seal of the United States, shall be promulgated, and shall stand as fundamental constitutions between the thirteen original states and each of the several states now newly described, unalterable from, and after the sale of any part of the territory of such state, pursuant to this resolve, but by the joint consent of the United States in Congress assembled, and of the particular state within which such alterations is proposed to be made"-Be and they are hereby repealed.