protection--protection against the Indians, possibly
also against the British and the Spanish, and protection in their
ordinary civil life. The former was a detail of military organization
and was in due time provided by the establishment of military forts and
garrisons; the latter was the problem which Jefferson's committee was
attempting to solve.

The Ordinance of 1784 disregarded the natural physical features of the
western country and, by degrees of latitude and meridians of longitude,
arbitrarily divided the public domain into rectangular districts, to the
first of which the following names were applied: Sylvania, Michigania,
Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington,
Polypotamia, Pelisipia. The amusement which this absurd and thoroughly
Jeffersonian nomenclature is bound to cause ought not to detract from
the really important features of the Ordinance. In each of the districts
into which the country was divided the settlers might be authorized by
Congress, for the purpose of establishing a temporary government, to
adopt the constitution and laws of any one of the original States. When
any such area should have twenty thousand free inhabitants it might
receive authority from Congress to establish a permanent constitution
and government and should be entitled to a representative in Congress
with the right of debating but not of voting. And finally, when the
inhabitants of any one of these districts should equal in number those
of the least populous of the thirteen original States, their delegates
should be admitted into Congress on an equal footing.

Jefferson's ordinance, though adopted, was never put into operation.
Various explanations have been offered for this failure to give it a
fair trial. It has been said that Jefferson himself was to blame. In the
original draft of his ordinance Jefferson had provided for the abolition
of slavery in the new States after the year 1800, and when
Congress refused to accept this clause Jefferson, in a manner quite
characteristic, seemed to lose all interest in the plan. There were,
however, other objections, for there were those who felt that it was
somewhat indefinite to promise admission into the Confederation of
certain sections of the country as soon as their population should equal
in number that of the least populous of the original States. If the
original States should increase in population to any extent, the new
States might never be adm