of her claim, retaining till 1800, as a "Western Reserve," a strip,
extending along Lake Erie, one hundred and twenty miles west from
Pennsylvania.

[Sidenote: Territorial organization.]

The claims to the region north of the Ohio having thus been extinguished,
the government began to make plans for the administration of its domain.
On Oct. 10, 1780, the Continental Congress had promised that the lands
ceded by the States should be "disposed of for the common benefit of the
United States," and "be settled and formed into distinct republican States
which shall become members of the federal union." These two principles are
the foundation both of the territorial and the public land systems of the
United States.

On April 23, 1784, an ordinance reported by Jefferson was passed,
providing for representative legislatures as fast as the West grew
sufficiently populous to maintain them. It is hardly a misfortune that the
map was not encumbered with the names suggested by Jefferson for the new
States,--Cherronesus, Metropotamia, Assenisippia, Polypotamia, and
Pelisipia; but another clause was voted down which would have prohibited
slavery in the Territories after 1800.

[Sidenote: Northwest Ordinance.]

June 13, 1787, a second ordinance passed Congress, which was inferior in
importance only to the Federal Constitution. It provided minutely for a
preliminary territorial government, in which laws were to be made by
appointive judges, and for a later representative government. The
conception was that the Territories were to occupy the position formerly