<“Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged,” Congress said. Thus, even from the beginning of the republic, the focus of attention in education was on the moral as well as the intellectual development of youth.
The Northwest Ordinance continued Congress’s plan to treat each new territory as a state-in-embryo. Settlers in the territories could establish free governments and write constitutions, and once they had achieved sixty thousand inhabitants, they could apply for admission to the Union as new states. Each new state would be admitted on an equal basis with all previous states.
Thomas Jefferson had set the pattern for this unprecedented treatment of new states with his plans for Kentucky and fourteen other new states. This was the first time in the history of the world that the principle of equality was so recognized. American territories would not be colonies, held in perpetual subordination to the “mother” country. We had learned that from the failure of the British Empire. >
The surveying of the townships started in the 1830s, and here in Michigan we're still trying to clean up the mess. Some township lines are off more than a little bit. Try surveying your 40 acre plot and you might discover your neighbor owns 4 or 5 acres of your property or vice versa.
In fact, look at northern Wisconsin where that hump rises into Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That big bulge northward is actually Michigan territory. Someday I might load the truck with the grill, burgers and beer, go sit in Wisconsin, raise the Michigan flag and claim squators rights.