Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/138

1803. consisting of a governor, secretary, and judges without a legislature, all controlled by the Ordinance of 1787. This arrangement implied that Congress considered the new territory as assimilated to the old, and "disposed of" it by the same constitutional power.

The northern district contained few white inhabitants, and its administrative arrangements chiefly concerned Indians; but the southern district, which received the name "Territory of Orleans," included an old and established society, numbering fifty thousand persons. The territory of Ohio numbered only forty-five thousand persons by the census of 1800, while the States of Delaware and Rhode Island contained less than seventy thousand. The treaty guaranteed that "the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess."

Breckinridge's Bill, which was probably drawn by Madison in co-operation with the President, created a territorial government in which the people of Louisiana were to have no share. The governor and secretary were to be appointed by the President for three years; the legislative concil consisted of thirteen