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Show ) 166 'rilE OH.DIN A NUl!} OF 1787. whatever, shall be valid, or of u.ny force, without his assent. rrhe Governor shall have puwcr to convene, prorogue, and dissolve the General .Assembly, when in his opinion it shall be expedient. The said inhabitants or settlers shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted, or to be contrucLcd, and to bear a proportional share of the burdens of the government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rnle and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States. The Governor, Judges, Legislative Coun cil, Secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall at any time think proper to appoint in such district, shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity; the Governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the Governor, prescribed on the 21th day of January, 1785, to the Secretary of War, mutatis ?nutand'is. Whensoever any of the said States shall have of free inhabitants as many as arc equal in number to the one-thirteenth part of the citizens of the original States, to be computed from the last enumeration, such State shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the U oiLed States on an equal footing with tho said original States, provided the consent of so many States in Congress is first obtained as may at that time be competent to such admtsswn. Resolved, That the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, be, and the same are hereby aunullcd and repealed. Such was the Ordinance for the government of the Western Territory, when it was ordered to a thi rd reading on the lOth of May, 1187. It bad then made no further progress in the development of those great principles for which it bas since been distin guished as one of the greatest monu· rrHE ORDINANCE OF 1787. .. 167 meuts of civil jurisprudence. It made no provision for lhc equal distrib ution of estates. lL said nothing of cxtcndillg the fundamental principles of civ il and re ligious liucrty ; nothing of the rights of conscience, know ledge, or education. I t did not contain the ar ticles of compact which were to remain unaltered forever unless by common con ent. W o now come to the time when these great principles were first brought forward. On the 9th of July, 1787, ordinances were again referred. Tho commit tee now consisted of Mr. Carrington of Virginia, Mr. Dane of Mussachusctt , Mr. l{. II. Lee of Virgi ni a, Mr. Kcan of South Carol ina, and Mr. Smith of N cw Y ol'lc Mr. Carrington, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Kcau, the new ruembcrs, were a majori ty. This Committee did not merely revise the Ordinance, they prepared and reported the great B ILL O.F RIOliTS fo t' the territory northwest of the Ohio. rrhc question is here presented, why was Mr. Carrington, a new member of the committee, placed at the head of it, to the exclusion of Mr. Dane and Mr. Smith, who had served previously ? In the absence of positive evidence, tbcre appears to be but one answer to this question, the opinions of all the members were known in Congress. I n the course of debate new views had been presented which must have been received with general approbation. .A majority of tho committee were the advocates of these views, and the member by whom they were presented to the IIouse, was selected as the chairman. There is nothing improbable or out of the usual co urse in t his. Indeed the prompt action of the committee and of the Congress goes far to confi t•m it. On the 11th of July (two days after the reference), Mr. Carrington repor ted the ordinance for the government of the Territory of tho U nitcd States northwest of the Ohio. This ordinance was read a second time on the 12th, (and |