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• Notes On Virginia ( Continued )
• Query Xii a Notice of the Counties, Cities, Townships, and Villages?
• Query Xiii the Constitution of the State and Its Several Charters?
• Query Xiv the Administration of Justice and the Description of the Laws?
• Query Xv the Colleges and Public Establishments, the Roads, Buildings, &c.?
• Query Xvi the Measures Taken With Regard of the Estates and Possessions of the Rebels, Commonly Called Tories?
• Query Xvii the Different Religions Received Into That State?
• Query Xviii the Particular Customs and Manners That May Happen to Be Received In That State?
• Query Xix the Present State of Manufactures, Commerce, Interior and Exterior Trade?
• Query Xx a Notice of the Commercial Productions Particular to the State, and of Those Objects Which the Inhabitants Are Obliged to Get From Europe and From Other Parts of the World?
• Query Xxi the Weights, Measures and the Currency of the Hard Money? Some Details Relating to Exchange With Europe?
• Query Xxii the Public Income and Expences?
• Query Xxiii the Histories of the State, the Memorials Published In Its Name In the Time of Its Being a Colony, and the Pamphlets Relating to Its Interior Or Exterior Affairs Present Or Antient?
• Correspondence and Miscellaneous Writings 1783
• To Francis Eppes 1
• To General Washington
• To James Madison 1
• To James Madison 1
• To the French Minister. (chevalier De La Luzerne.)
• To the Secretary For Foreign Affairs. (robert R. Livingston)
• To the Secretary of Foreign Affairs (robert R. Livingston)
• To James Madison 2
• To Francis Eppes 1
• To the Secretary For Foreign Affairs (robert R. Livingston)
• To John Jay
• To James Madison 1
• To James Madison
• Proposed Constitution For Virginia 1
• To James Madison
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• To James Madison
• To Charles Carter
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison)
• To James Monroe 1
• To Martha Jefferson 1
• To James Madison
• Report of Committee On Unfinished Business 1
• Report On Definitive Treaty 1
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison)
• Resolutions Relating to British Treaty. 1
• Report On Letters From the Ministers In Paris 2
• Report On Ceremonial For Washington 1
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison)
• Report On Ratification of Treaty 1
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• 1784 - to James Madison
• Motion On Ratification of Treaty 1
• Fair Copy
• Rough Draft
• Resolution On Definitive Treaty 1
• Ratification of Definitive Treaty 2
• Draft For Proclamation Announcing Ratification of Definitive Treaty 1
• To Martha Jefferson 1
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison)
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison)
• To Oliver Pollock
• Draft of a Report On the Memorial of Zebulon Butler and Others 1
• Rough Draft
• Fair Copy
• Report On Letter From John Allan 1
• Draft of Report On a Committee of the States 1
• Report On Committee of the States 1
• To the Superintendent of Finance 1 (robert Morris)
• To James Madison
• Draft of Deed of Cession of Northwest Territory 1
• Report On Government For Western Territory 1
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• Report On Reduction of Civil List 1
• Instructions For Negotiating With Indians. 1
• To George Washington
• To George Washington
• To James Madison 1
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• Resolves On European Treaties 1
• Report of Government For the Western Territory 1
• Report On Cession of Western Territory. 1
• Report of the Arrears of Interest 1
• To George Washington
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison.)
• To George Washington
• Notes On the Establishment of a Money Unit, and of a Coinage For the United States 1
• Motion On Steuben. 1
• Notes On the Permanent Seat of Congress. 1
• Resolutions For the Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia. 1
• Resolve On Continental Congress
• To George Washington
• To James Madison
• Report On Mercer 1
• Draft of “an Ordinance Establishing a Land Office For the United States” 2
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• To Horatio Gates 1
• Report On Continental Bills of Credit 1
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• To the Governor of Virginia (benjamin Harrison)
• Instructions to the Ministers Plenipotentiary Appointed to Negotiate Treaties of Commerce With the European Nations 1
• To James Monroe
• To Charles Thomson 1
• To James Madison
• To Benjamin Franklin 1
• To James Madison
• To the Governor of Virginia 1 (benjamin Harrison)
• To James Madison.
• To James Monroe
• To Charles Thomson 1
• To James Madison
• To James Monroe
• To Horatio Gates 1
• 1785 - to Nathanael Greene 1
• To the Governor of Virginia (patrick Henry)
• To James Monroe
• To James Madison
• To James Monroe
• To James Monroe
• To James Madison
• To the Governor of Virginia (patrick Henry)
• To James Monroe 1
• To Mrs. John (abigail) Adams
• To James Monroe
• To Mrs. Sprowle
• To Mrs. John (abigail) Adams
• To Richard Henry Lee
• To the Virginia Delegates In Congress
• To the Governor of Virginia (patrick Henry)
• To N. and J. Van Staphorst 1
• To John Adams 1
• To Dr. Richard Price
• To John Jay
• To James Monroe 1
• To David Hartley
• To Mary Jefferson 1
• To Mrs John (abigail) Adams
• To Hogendorp (count Gysbert-charles Van)
• To N. and J. Van Staphorst
• To Phillip Mazzei
• Conference With the Count De Vergennes On the Subject of the Commerce of the United States With France. 1 1785.
• Correspondence 1786
• To Dr. James Currie
• To the Governor of Virginia. 1 (patrick Henry.)

REPORT ON GOVERNMENT FOR WESTERN TERRITORY1

c. c.

[March 1, 1784.]

The Committee appointed to prepare a plan for the temporary Government of the Western territory have agreed to the following resolutions:

Resolved that the territory ceded or to be ceded by Individual States to the United States whensoever the same shall have been purchased of the Indian Inhabitants & offered for sale by the U. S. shall be formed into distinct States bounded in the following manner as nearly as such cessions will admit, that is to say; Northwardly & 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, but any territory Northwardly of the 47^th. degree shall make part of the state—next below, and Eastwardly & 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 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 Kanhaway. And the territory eastward of this last meridian between the Ohio, Lake Erie & Pennsylvania shall be one state.

That the settlers within the territory so to be purchased & 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 & laws of any one of these states, so that such laws nevertheless shall be subject to alteration by their ordinary legislature, and to erect, subject to a 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 20,000 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 & Government for themselves.

Provided that both the temporary & 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 & 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 so 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 any hereditary title. 5, That after the year 1800 of the Christian æra, 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 sd states shall have, of free inhabitants as many as shall then be in any one the least numerous of the thirteen original states, such state shall be admitted by it’s 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 45^th. degree, that is to say of the completion of 45° from the Equator & extending to the Lake of the Woods, shall be called SYLVANIA:

That of the territory under the 45^th. & 44^th. 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 & waters of Michigan, Huron, St. Clair and Erie, shall be called CHERRONESUS, and shall include any part of the peninsula which may extend above the 45th degree.

Of the territory under the 43^d. & 42^d. degrees, that to the Westward thro’ 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 Miamis of Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, the Miami of the lake and Sandusky rivers, shall be called METROPOTAMIA.

Of the territory which lies under the 41^st. & 40^th. degrees the Western, thro which the river Illinois runs, shall be called ILLINOIA; that next adjoining to the Eastward SARATOGA, and that between this last & Pennsylvania & extending from the Ohio to Lake Erie shall be called WASHINGTON.

Of the territory which lies under the 39^th. & 38^th. degrees to which shall be added so much of the point of land within the fork of the Ohio & Missisipi as lies under the 37^th. degree, that to the Westward within & adjacent to which are the confluences of the rivers

Wabash, Shawnee, Tanisse, Ohio, Illinois, Missisipi & Missouri, shall be called POLYPOTAMIA, and that to the Eastward farther up the Ohio otherwise called the PELISIPI shall be called PELISIPIA.

That the preceding articles shall be formed into a charter of Compact, shall be duly executed by the President of the U. S. 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, & those now newly described unalterable but by the joint consent of the U. S. in Congress assembled and of the particular state within which such alteration is proposed to be made.

[1 ]Endorsed: “Report of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Chase, Mr. Howell. Temporary Governmt. of Western Country Delivered 1 March 1784. Entd.—Read.—March 3. Monday next assigned for the consideration of this report. March 17. 1784. recommitted.”—There is no record of the appointment of this committee, but it must have been before Feb. 21, 1784, for on that date Howells wrote to Arnold (Rhode Island and the Continental Congress, 479), stating that the committee had agreed to this report, and sketching its outlines. It was probably appointed before Congress adjourned to Annapolis, Nov. 4, 1783, for Howells wrote that the subject “was largely debated at Princeton last summer,” but the committee did not report till the Virginia cession had been formally signed, and accepted by Congress.

This report is entirely in Jefferson’s handwriting, as will be seen by the facsimile. It was recommitted to the original committee, who reported a substitute for it, March 22, 1784, which is printed in this collection under that date.