The Ban On Slavery In The Northwest Ordinance Of 1787

Congress requested that the states increase taxes to help pay for a new national currency, but most states refused and instead printed their own paper money. Interstate disputes over these western areas were common and heated: Maryland even refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the other states had ceded their claims.Other states followed suit, and within a few years the national government was responsible for governing these territories. All public lands were to be auctioned off to the highest bidders, providing all Americans the chance to migrate and settle in the West. Later, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to establish a process for admitting these territories to the Union as states.Then settlers could vote whether to become a permanent state on equal footing as all the other states in the Union.Although the ordinance promised decent treatment to Native Americans, it did not, in reality, extend these rights to them.The United States obtained much of this land by extortion and violence against Native Americans. …show more content…
A growing number of Americans during these years began to question the moral implications of slavery in a land where "All men were created equal." The ban on slavery in the Northwest Territories would prove to be the first of many restraints on the slave holding South in the years leading up to the Civil War. Economic depression hit soon after the American Revolution ended, as many people, especially farmers, could not pay off their debts with the worthless state and Continental dollars. Most state legislatures refused to assist these impoverished