The First and Second United States Empires

In the late eighteenth century the fledgling republic of the United States was faced with the problem of devising a form of government to oversee its vast land possessions north and west of the Ohio River. To fill this need, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Ordinance of 1784, which evolved into the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Deliberately modeled on the British colonial system, it granted territorial governors broad autocratic powers. It defined government in the Northwest, and all other subsequent