{"id":445162,"date":"2026-02-02T19:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/445162\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T19:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:35:11","slug":"scholars-gather-at-ohio-state-for-northwest-ordinance-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/445162\/","title":{"rendered":"Scholars gather at Ohio State for Northwest Ordinance conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fully booked conference \u2013 with a wait list \u2013 is a great way to kick off celebrations in Ohio for the United States\u2019 semiquincentennial, or America 250<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At \u201cNew Perspectives on the Northwest Ordinance,\u201d held at The Ohio State University, scholars from Stanford University, Howard University, Johns Hopkins University and many others joined Ohio State faculty for two days of discussion about an easily overlooked founding document, the Northwest Ordinance.<\/p>\n

Adopted by the Confederation Congress in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance provided a framework for statehood for territories northwest of the Ohio River. Crucially, it outlawed slavery in what became Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota \u2013 an early example of the use of federal power in the nascent country.<\/p>\n

In his opening remarks, Christopher McKnight Nichols<\/a>, co-organizer of the conference, argued that the ordinance may deserve more credit as a founding document for the country.<\/p>\n

Calling it \u201cperhaps the essential blueprint for national growth, settlement and development,\u201d Nichols, Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my humble opinion, the Northwest Ordinance \u2026 the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution \u2026 those three are critical in understanding the early foundations of the republic. But the Northwest Ordinance provided something else, as we\u2019re going to learn from a whole lot of the scholars who are here with us today. It represents for me the apotheosis of that triad of documents: how to settle, how to develop, what shape would republican governance take, and for better and for worse, these were the contested terms by which the republic unfolded over the next several centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

After making what he called such a \u201cprovocative claim,\u201d Nichols welcomed Trevor Brown<\/a>, dean of the John Glenn College of Public Affairs and senior vice provost for academic affairs.<\/p>\n

Brown spoke about how he was first introduced to the ordinance as a child studying journalist Horace Greeley. \u201cGo West, young man\u201d is a popular Greeley quote, imploring young people to leave places like Washington, D.C., and explore the new frontier.<\/p>\n

Greeley\u2019s quote comes 80 years after the Northwest Ordinance. The Second World War happened 80 years after the quote and a little more than 80 years before now. Our history is not all that far away, Brown pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m reflecting on how still young we are as a nation,\u201d Brown said before he introduced Gov. Mike DeWine.<\/p>\n

DeWine shared his passion for the state of Ohio, which would not exist in its current form without the Northwest Ordinance, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an aspirational document,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, one of the most significant things is if you think about the time the Revolutionary War occurred, 13 colonies become 13 states and now they\u2019re thinking about what goes beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new nation didn\u2019t have to dilute the power of the original colonies by adding others, he said. The Northwest Territory could have remained a territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey obviously thought this was the next step,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The conference closed the following night with a keynote address given by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fully booked conference \u2013 with a wait list \u2013 is a great way to kick off celebrations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[209393,23,11840,3,7125,39928,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-445162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-ah-homepage","tag-america","tag-campus","tag-news","tag-staff","tag-the-ohio-state-university","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}