On April 23, 1784, Congress, operating under the Articles of Confederation, adopted a resolution known as The Ordinance of 1784, which applied to land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River -- land encompassed by the current states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. It provided that settlers could petition Congress for authority to a form a temporary government and adopt the "constitution and laws of one of the existing states." When the new "state" acquired a population of 20,000 free inhabitants, it could draft a "permanent constitution" and seek admission to the union "on an equal footing" with the thirteen original states.

How the territories would be governed or settled before they became states, was determined by The Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

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