Yet the first ordinance embodied the main principles in creating States
which have since been followed. The number of people in any given
portion of the public lands was to be the determining factor.
Jefferson's ordinance would allow these settlers to establish a
temporary government, to adopt the constitution of any one of the
thirteen States, and to elect a legislature. When their number should
reach twenty thousand, they would be allowed to call a convention and
establish a permanent constitution and government. Upon attaining a
population of free inhabitants equal to that of the least numerous of
the thirteen original States (at this time probably Georgia, whose
population was estimated at twenty-five thousand) they would be admitted
on equal footing with the other States. Between the establishment of
the temporary government and admission to statehood, the prospective
state should be allowed a representative in Congress with a right of
debating but not of voting. The well-known Ordinance of 1787, which
replaced that of 1784, substituted for the temporary government to be
erected by the settlers a ready-made administration of governor,
secretary, and territorial judges, to be sent out by the National
Government, and to continue until the free male population should
number five thousand, when they were to be allowed to exercise home
rule in setting up a territorial government.
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