for other purposes," after describing the limits of the proposed new
State and authorizing the people thereof to elect a convention to
form a constitution, the three following propositions were made to the
convention, to be obligatory on the United States if accepted by it:
First, that section No. 16 of every township, or, where such section
had been sold, other lands equivalent thereto, should be granted to the
inhabitants of such township for the use of free schools. Second, that
the 6 miles' reservation, including the salt springs commonly called
the Sciota Salt Springs, the salt springs near the Muskingum River and
in the military tract, with the sections which include the same, should
be granted to the said State for the use of the people thereof, under
such regulations as the legislature of the State should prescribe:
_Provided_, That it should never sell or lease the same for more than
ten years. Third, that one twentieth part of the proceeds of the public
lands lying within the said State which might be sold by Congress from
and after the 30th June ensuing should be applied to the laying out and
making public roads from the navigable waters emptying into the
Atlantic, to the Ohio, and through the State of Ohio, such roads to be
laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the
several States through which they should pass.

These three propositions were made on the condition that the convention
of the State should provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the
consent of the United States, that every tract of land sold by Congress
after the 30th of June ensuing should remain for the term of five years
after sale exempt from every species of tax whatsoever.

It is impossible to read the ordinance of the 23d of April, 1784, or
the provisions of the act of April 30, 1802, which are founded on it,
without being profoundly impressed with the enlightened and magnanimous
policy which dictated them. Anticipating that the new States would be
settled by the inhabitants of the original States and their offspring,
no narrow or contracted jealousy was entertained of their admission
into the Union in equal participation in the national sovereignty with
the original States. It was foreseen at the early period at which that
ordinance passed that the expansion of our Union to the Lakes and to
the Mississippi and all its waters would not only make us a greater
power, but cement the Union itself. These three prop