Page:Journal of the Sixth Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan.djvu/142

130 must regard the fifth of the articles of compact as their charter, and as unalterable as that of either of those states. It is not competent for Congress to abridge the rights which were thus solemnly acknowledged to belong to the infant states.

The power which was given to Congress over the boundaries of the north-western states, by the fifth article of compact, was not a general one, but was limited to the country north of the east and west line. It was to be executed in one of two ways: either bjr erecting states north of, and bounding upon, that line; or admitting the three states bordering upon the Ohio river to occupy the whole of the territory—to extend to the north as far as the boundary line between the United States and Canada. The words "shall be subject so far to be altered" are clearly a limitation of the power, as they prescribe the limit beyond which it was not competent to act. Congress has in no instance declared that it was expedient to admit those three southern states in the shape prescribed by the ordinance. But it is insisted that by designating other boundaries on the north—by declining to give them the whole of the territory—and by their admission as states whose limits thereafter were not subject to change, except in the manner prescribed by the constitution, the declaration was, in effect, made that it was "expedient to form one or two states in that part of the territory north of an east and west line," which would otherwise have belonged to those three states. And this was all that Congress could do. When the question of expediency—which was the only question submitted by the article to Congress, was determined, the provision, that the line, passing through the southerly extreme of lake Michigan, should divide those from the states in the southern part of the territory, then began to operate, and to the exclusion of any jurisdiction of Congress over that subject. The ordinance established the line, to take effect after Congress should decide it to be expedient to have more than three states. It then became as positively and firmly established as either of the lines bounding those states on the east and west.

The question of expediency did not embrace an alteration of this or either of the boundaries, but simply the formation of new states north of line.

The point referred to Congress by the ordinance was not the propriety of fixing a new line for Ohio which should terminate at the north cape of Miami Bay; nor for Indiana, a line ten miles north of the extremity of the southern bend of lake Michigan; nor for Illinois, the line of 42 deg. 30 min. north latitude. But it was, whether it was "fit and proper," having a due regard to the relative size of the older states, that Ohio should be six hundred miles long, from north to south, Indiana eight hundred miles, and Illinois one thousand miles!_whether it was "expedient" to create