among the generals in the field, and among the abolitionists, who were seeking to divert the war from its original and legitimate objects and purposes, and to convert it into a crusade against the institution of slavery.

Those proclamations operated immediately as apples of discord, to distract the public mind, to excite violent discussions in the newspapers, and among the politicians and people as to their tendencies, effects, and propriety. They immediately revived and aroused the old partizan feelings and passions of the country, which had mostly died away, and seemed dormant in all the states, at the elections in 1861; so much so, that the democratic party in the free states seemed to be as generally satisfied with the administration and policy of president Lincoln, as the republicans were. But those proclamations again excited a very violent partizan spirit, and called the old parties into the political field in battle array against each other; and the great number of arbitrary arrests made under the last proclamation for the mere expression of opinions, excited great numbers of the democratic party to a state of phrenzy, rendered the contest at the elections in October and November very violent, and caused the republican party to be overwhelmed in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York and New Jersey. If the Union should be finally lost, its loss may be fairly attributed to the division of opinion, the distraction of the public mind, the discordant and hostile feelings, and to the discussions excited and caused by those proclamations, and the policies inaugurated by them. But while I impugn the constitutional validity, wisdom, and expediency of those proclamations, I do not doubt the patriotism, the honesty of purpose, nor the good intentions of the president, in issuing them.

SEC. 18. CESSION OF PUBLIC LANDS AND TERRITORIES TO THE

UNITED STATES.

The first difference of opinion and difficulty of any great magnitude which arose between the several states, was in relation to the public lands, and western territories. At the time the colonial charters were granted, the interior of the continent had not been explored, and its situation was unknown. The charters of many

of the colonies purported to grant a strip of country across the

continent, to the Pacific Ocean.

Under those colonial charters, the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut, claimed large territories of wild and uncultivated lands in the west, while several of the states, including Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, claimed none. It was insisted by the states having no western lands or territories that all the public lands so claimed by the other states, should be ceded to the United States, for the common benefit of the whole, to constitute a common fund, to aid in prosecuting the war and in paying the debt thereby created, for the benefit of all the states. On that account, Maryland refused to ratify the articles of confederation for nearly three years after they had been approved and ratified by nearly all the other states.

Finally, to remove those difficulties and jealousies, the state of New York set a noble example, and on the first day of March, 1781, ceded to the congress of the confederacy for the use and benefit of such of the states, as were, or should become partners to the articles of confederation, all the right, title, jurisdiction, and claim to all lands and territories lying west of the present limits of that state. That was the first cession made of the kind, and was the immediate cause of the state of Maryland ratifying the articles of confederation.

Virginia made a similar cession, March 1st, 1784, of all the lands and country claimed by her, lying north and west of the Ohio River.

Massachusetts made a similar cession, April 19th, 1785. Connecticut made a cession, September 13th, 1786. South Carolina made a like cession, August 9th, 1787, which, however, covered no lands or territory not claimed by the state of Georgia.

By those several cessions, congress obtained jurisdiction of all the country forming the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the north-eastern part of Minnesota, and it became necessary to adopt an organic law to provide for its future government. With that view, and for that purpose, the congress of the confederation adopted the ordinance of 1784.

SEC. 19. ORDINANCE OF CONGRESS OF 1784.

Immediately after the cession made by Virginia to the United States, in March, 1784, congress appointed a select committee to report a plan of government for the territories ceded-consisting of Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, Samuel Chase, of Maryland, and Mr. Howell, of Rhode Island. That committee, anticipating an early cession to the United States, by the States of North Carolina and Georgia, of the lands and country now forming the states of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, by Mr. Jefferson, their chairman, reported an ordinance for the temporary government of all the territories of the United States-including such as might be thereafter acquired. It was drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, as follows, and has often been referred to since, as

THE JEFFERSON ORDINANCE OF 1784.

Resolved, That the territory ceded, or to be ceded by the individual states to the United States, whensoever the same shall have been purchased of the Indian inhabitants and offered for sale by the United States, shall be formed into additional states, bounded in the following manner, as nearly as such cession will admit that is to say, northwardly and southwardly by parallels of latitude, so that each state shall comprehend from south to north, two degrees of latitude, beginning to count from the completion of thirty-one degrees north of the equator; [the then southern boundary of the U. S.] but any territory northwardly of the forty-seventh degree shall make part of the state next below. And eastwardly and westwardly they shall be bounded, those on the Mississippi, by that river on one side, and the meridian of the lowest point of the rapids of the Ohio on the other; and those adjoining on the east, by the same meridian on their western side, and on their eastern by the meridian of the western cape of the mouth of the Great Kanawha. And the territory eastward of this last meridian, between the Ohio, Lake Erie, and Pennsylvania, shall be one state.

That the settlers within the territory so to be purchased and offered for sale, shall, either on their own petition or on the order of congress, receive authority from them, with appointments of time and place, for their free males of full age to meet together for the

purpose of establishing a temporary government, to adopt the constitution and laws of one of these states, so that such laws nevertheless shall be subject to alteration by their ordinary legislature,, and to erect, subject to like alteration, counties or townships for the election of members for their legislature.

That such temporary government shall only continue in force in any state until it shall have acquired twenty thousand free inhabitants, when, giving due proof thereof to congress, they shall receive from them authority, with appointments of time and place, to call a convention of representatives to establish a permanent constitution and government for themselves: Provided, that both the temporary and permanent governments be established on these principles as their basis:

1. That they shall forever remain a part of the United States of America.

2. That in their persons, property, and territory, they shall be subject to the government of the United States in congress assembled, and to the articles of confederation in all those cases in which the original states shall be subject.

3. That they shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts, contracted or to be contracted, to be apportioned on them by congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other states.

4. That their respective governments shall be in republican forms, and shall admit no person to be a citizen who holds a hereditary title.

5. That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.

That whenever any of the said states shall have, of free inhabitants, as many as shall then be in any one of the least numerous of the thirteen original states, such state shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the said original states; after which the assent of two-thirds of the United States in congress assembled, shall be requisite in all those cases wherein, by the confederation, the assent of nine states is now required, provided the consent of nine states to such

admission may be obtained according to the eleventh of the articles of confederation. Until such admission by their delegates into congress, any of the said states, after the establishment of their temporary government, shall have authority to keep a sitting member in congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting.

That the territory northward of the forty-fifth degree, that is to say, of the completion of forty-five degrees from the equator, and extending to the Lake of the Woods, shall be called Sylvania; that the territory under the forty-fifth and forty-fourth degrees, that which lies westward of Lake Michigan, shall be called Michigania; and that which is eastward thereof, within the peninsula formed by the lakes and waters of Michigan, Huron, St. Clair, and Erie, shall be called Chersonesus; and shall include any part of the peninsula which may extend above the forty-fifth degree. Of the territory under the forty-third and forty-second degrees, that to the westward, through which the Assenisipi or Rock River runs, shall be called Assenisipia; and that to the eastward, in which are the fountains of the Muskingum, the two Miamies of the Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, the Miami of the Lake, and the Sanduski rivers, shall be called Metropotamia. Of the territory which lies under the forty-first and fortieth degrees, the western, through which the Illinois river runs, shall be called Illinoia; that next adjoining to the eastward, Saratoga; and that between this last and Pennsylvania, and extending.from the Ohio to Lake Erie, shall be called Washington. Of the territory which lies under the thirtyninth and thirty-eighth degrees, to which shall be added so much of the point of land within the fork of the Ohio and Mississippi as lies under the thirty-seventh degree; that to the westward, within and adjacent to which are the confluences of the rivers Wabash, Shawnee, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri, shall be called Polypotamia; and that to the eastward, further up the Ohio, otherwise called the Pelisipi, shall be called Pelisipia.

That all 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 conditions between the thirteen original states and those newly described, unalterable but by the joint consent of the United States,