Skip to main content

What qualifications does a territory need to meet in order to become a state, according to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787?

The Northwest Ordinance dealt with the land that made up the Northwest Territory. This law laid out the steps a territory needed to follow if it wanted to become a state. Five states were created from the Northwest Territory. The states were Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.


A governor and three judges ruled the Northwest Territory. When the population of the territory reached 5,000 people, the people could elect an assembly to work with the governor and the three judges. However, the governor still had a lot of power. For example, the governor could veto any laws. When the population of the territory reached 60,000, they could ask to join the Union as a state. They had to write a state constitution as part of the requirement for becoming a state. The state constitutions had to ban slavery, allow for freedom of speech and religion, and have jury trials.


If a territory wants to become a state today, a majority of the people in the territory has to vote to become a state. If this happens, then the territory would ask Congress to allow the territory to become a state. The people of the territory would have to a write a state constitution. Then a majority of both houses of Congress would have to approve a resolution that would accept the request to become a state, The President would have to sign the resolution of both houses of Congress. Today, the territory that is closest to possibly becoming a state is Puerto Rico.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more