As America continues to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, today marks an anniversary of a significant step toward fulfilling the ‘self-evident’ truths proclaimed in our founding document. The Northwest Ordinance, also known as “An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States North-West of the River Ohio” was signed on July 13, 1787, and is one of four “organic laws” that serve as the foundational laws for the nation. The others include the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation (America’s first Constitution), and the current U.S. Constitution.  

The Northwest Ordinance was first passed under the Articles of Confederation and stipulated that the settlement and eventual statehood of federal territory beyond the original 13 states—now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota—was to be free territory. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was instrumental in Virginia gifting the land to the Union on the condition it be without slavery.  

Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance reads, “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.” It’s extraordinary that the first major law governing the expansion of the United States—in the very same year that the U.S. Constitution was written—prohibited slavery. The preamble stated that these new territories should extend “the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty.” Two years later the law was reaffirmed by the First Congress of the United States under the new Constitution, ensuring that it would remain good, standing law.  

The Northwest Ordinance does not absolve the nation from the original sin of slavery. In fact, it also contained a provision about returning escaped slaves from the new territories. The Constitution had its own compromises on the practice as well. However, as some scholars have argued, the principles of the country should be distinguished from its compromises. In fact, many of America’s most significant social reformers, including Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King, Jr., have made such a distinction.  

Because many of our Founders understood the moral evil of slavery, they set a standard for how the country could expand without it. It was a generation after the Founding that the myth of the “positive good” of slavery would emerge, and that the Declaration’s “self-evident” truth of equality would be challenged as “a self-evident lie.” But, as Abraham Lincoln would later say, the Founders sought to put slavery on the “course to ultimate extinction” and ensure that the “abstract truth” of human equality would be applied “to all peoples of all colors everywhere.”  

The Northwest Ordinance also significantly shaped the future of education in America. Though the new territory would ensure private ownership by citizens, a section in each new township would be established for public education. Article 3 of the Ordinance stated clearly why:  

Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and  the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall  forever be encouraged. 

Notice the wording. Good government and man’s happiness necessitate that religion, morality, and knowledge be cultivated amongst the citizenry. And education is an essential way to accomplish that. However, as Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, has rightly observed:  

We think differently about the purposes of education today, to say the least. Prayer is now banned in public schools. Morality, when it is taught, is conceived as a subjective thing, or yet more commonly as a newly invented thing to be found under the heading ‘political correctness.’ The ideas of ‘knowledge,’ ‘good government,’ and ‘happiness’ are now subjected to the tender care of deconstruction and historicism.  

America was committed to education because it was first committed to a moral vision of life. That vision is inherent within a Christian worldview, which is built upon the implications of who God is and who He made us to be. The Colson Educators program was built to cultivate that understanding of the purpose of education, which is demanded by a Christian worldview and essential for the next generation to know and to hold.  

The principles of the Declaration were ambitious and aspirational, and they were not matched by life on the ground. However, it is encouraging to find commitment to those ideals elsewhere, from the heroic actions of Americans to the intentionality of The Northwest Ordinance, in order that they be secured for all people. They still provide a solid basis for an education that advances religion, morality, and knowledge.