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To add even further to the debate, those colonies who had no colonial charter claims to western lands did not want to be excluded and were unwilling to accept the charter claims of their peers. They argued that since those lands had been won as part of a joint (Links to an external site.) effort of all the colonies in the war against Britain, the benefits of such land should be shared by all. Finally, in 1781, after much debate, Virginia and New York agreed to cede (Links to an external site.) their colonial charter lands to the newly formed government of the United States, and so the articles were approved and signed.With the approval of the Articles, the problems concerning the trans-Appalachian area known as the Northwest Territory were far from over. But Congress, before it could manage this vast area, needed to have accurate and better information about this land which nearly doubled the area of the original thirteen colonies. They approved a survey for the area, and with the information gained, Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.It has been argued that this piece of legislation is the most important of the period, for it established the method by which new states would be created out of the western lands and brought into the Union. The steps were simple.First, Congress would appoint governors and judges to oversee the territory and establish and represent rule of government. Then, when the population of the territory reached 5,000 free male inhabitants of voting age, those citizens would elect a territorial legislature. The legislature would then select and send one member as a non-voting delegate to Congress to represent the territory. And finally, when the population reached 60,000, the territorial legislature would submit a state constitution to Congress. The Northwest TerritoryWhen that constitution was approved, a new state would enter the Union. These new states would enter with the same rights as existing states, and their citizens would enjoy all the freedoms and protection of law as any other United States citizen. Other aspects of the Ordinance included that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" were to be allowed in the new states, and that part of the revenue (Links to an external site.) generated by the sale of lands in these new states would be used to fund public education, or the land could be set aside for the building of schools.This was the first example of federal support for education in the United States. The Ordinance also required that the territory would be divided into no fewer than three states and no more than five; the territory eventually became Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota. Article three of the ordinance was perhaps the most optimistic and least followed part of the document. It addressed the treatment of Native Americans in the new lands as follows:
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